Exo 19:5, Deu 7:6, 14:2, 26:18, Psa 135:4, Tit 2:14, 1Pe 2:9 | JFB | STEP | 3-6. Moses went up unto God-- the Shekinah--within the cloud ( ; ). Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, &c.-- The object for which Moses went up was to receive and convey to the people the message contained in these verses, and the purport of which was a general announcement of the terms on which God was to take the Israelites into a close and peculiar relation to Himself. In thus negotiating between God and His people, the highest post of duty which any mortal man was ever called to occupy, Moses was still but a servant. The only Mediator is Jesus Christ [1Ti 2:5; He 12:24].

‏ Exodus 19:5

3-6. Moses went up unto God--the Shekinah--within the cloud (Ex 33:20; Joh 1:18).

Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, &c.--The object for which Moses went up was to receive and convey to the people the message contained in these verses, and the purport of which was a general announcement of the terms on which God was to take the Israelites into a close and peculiar relation to Himself. In thus negotiating between God and His people, the highest post of duty which any mortal man was ever called to occupy, Moses was still but a servant. The only Mediator is Jesus Christ [1Ti 2:5; He 12:24].

‏ Deuteronomy 7:6

2-6. thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them--This relentless doom of extermination which God denounced against those tribes of Canaan cannot be reconciled with the attributes of the divine character, except on the assumption that their gross idolatry and enormous wickedness left no reasonable hope of their repentance and amendment. If they were to be swept away like the antediluvians or the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, as incorrigible sinners who had filled up the measure of their iniquities, it mattered not to them in what way the judgment was inflicted; and God, as the Sovereign Disposer, had a right to employ any instruments that pleased Him for executing His judgments. Some think that they were to be exterminated as unprincipled usurpers of a country which God had assigned to the posterity of Eber and which had been occupied ages before by wandering shepherds of that race, till, on the migration of Jacob's family into Egypt through the pressure of famine, the Canaanites overspread the whole land, though they had no legitimate claim to it, and endeavored to retain possession of it by force. In this view their expulsion was just and proper. The strict prohibition against contracting any alliances with such infamous idolaters was a prudential rule, founded on the experience that "evil communications corrupt good manners" [1Co 15:33], and its importance or necessity was attested by the unhappy examples of Solomon and others in the subsequent history of Israel.

‏ Deuteronomy 14:2

‏ Deuteronomy 26:18

‏ Psalms 135:4

4-7. God's choice of Israel is the first reason assigned for rendering praise; the next, His manifested greatness in creation and providence.

‏ Titus 2:14

14. gave himself--"The forcible 'Himself, His whole self, the greatest gift ever given,' must not be overlooked."

for us--Greek, "in our behalf."

redeem us--deliver us from bondage by paying the price of His precious blood. An appropriate image in addressing bond-servants (Tit 2:9, 10):

from all iniquity--the essence of sin, namely, "transgression of the law": in bondage to which we were till then. The aim of His redemption was to redeem us, not merely from the penalty, but from the being of all iniquity. Thus he reverts to the "teaching" in righteousness, or disciplining effect of the grace of God that bringeth salvation (Tit 2:11, 12).

peculiar--peculiarly His own, as Israel was of old.

zealous--in doing and promoting "good works."

‏ 1 Peter 2:9

9. Contrast in the privileges and destinies of believers. Compare the similar contrast with the preceding context.

chosen--"elect" of God, even as Christ your Lord is.

generation--implying the unity of spiritual origin and kindred of believers as a class distinct from the world.

royal--kingly. Believers, like Christ, the antitypical Melchisedec, are at once kings and priests. Israel, in a spiritual sense, was designed to be the same among the nations of the earth. The full realization on earth of this, both to the literal and the spiritual Israel, is as yet future.

holy nation--antitypical to Israel.

peculiar people--literally, "a people for an acquisition," that is, whom God chose to be peculiarly His: Ac 20:28, "purchased," literally, "acquired." God's "peculiar treasure" above others.

show forth--publish abroad. Not their own praises but His. They have no reason to magnify themselves above others for once they had been in the same darkness, and only through God's grace had been brought to the light which they must henceforth show forth to others.

praises--Greek, "virtues," "excellencies": His glory, mercy (1Pe 2:10), goodness (Greek, 1Pe 2:3; Nu 14:17, 18; Is 63:7). The same term is applied to believers, 2Pe 1:5.

of him who hath called you--(2Pe 1:3).

out of darkness--of heathen and even Jewish ignorance, sin, and misery, and so out of the dominion of the prince of darkness.

marvellous--Peter still has in mind Psa 118:23.

light--It is called "His," that is, God's. Only the (spiritual) light is created by God, not darkness. In Is 45:7, it is physical darkness and evil, not moral, that God is said to create, the punishment of sin, not sin itself. Peter, with characteristic boldness, brands as darkness what all the world calls light; reason, without the Holy Spirit, in spite of its vaunted power, is spiritual darkness. "It cannot apprehend what faith is: there it is stark blind; it gropes as one that is without eyesight, stumbling from one thing to another, and knows not what it does" [Luther].