Robertson Word Pictures - 1 Peter 2:9 - 2:9

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Robertson Word Pictures - 1 Peter 2:9 - 2:9


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

But ye (humeis de). In contrast with the disobedient ones.

An elect race (genos eklekton). From Isa 43:20. The blood relation of the spiritual Israel (not the Jewish race) through the new birth (1Pe 1:23).

A royal priesthood (basileion hierateuma). From Exo 19:6 (cf. Rev 1:6; Rev 5:10). The official in Christian churches is presbuteros = episcopos, not hiereus. We are all hiereis (priests). Cf. 1Pe 2:5.

A holy nation (ethnos hagion). Also from Exo 19:6, but here applied, not to the national Israel, but to the spiritual Israel of believers (both Jews and Gentiles).

A people for God’s own possession (laos eis peripoiēsin). The idea here occurs in Exo 19:5; Deu 7:6; Deu 14:2; Deu 26:18, where we have laos periousios as in Tit 2:14 (alone in the N.T.), and in Mal 3:17 we find eis peripoiēsin (for a possession). Periousios laos is a people over and above the others and peripoiēsis is a possession in a special sense (Eph 1:14). See Paul’s use of periepoiēsato in Act 20:28. The old rendering, “a peculiar people,” had this idea of possession, for “peculiar” is from pecus (Latin for flock).

That ye may shew forth (hopōs exaggeilēte). Purpose clause with hopōs, rather than hina, with the first aorist active subjunctive of exaggellō, old verb, to tell out, here alone in N.T.

The excellencies (tas aretas). From Isa 43:21. Old word for any preeminence (moral, intellectual, military), often for “virtue,” but not in that sense in the O.T. or the N.T. The word has the sense of moral worth in 2Pe 1:3, 2Pe 1:5; Phi 4:8; and the Apocrypha. In Isaiah (here quoted) it means praise and glory to God. So also Isa 42:12. See Act 2:11 ta megaleia tou theou (the mighty works of God).

Darkness (skotous). Heathenism.

His marvellous light (to thaumaston autou phōs). Christianity. For thaumaston (from thaumazō) see Mat 21:42. For the change from heathenism to Christianity see Col 1:12; Eph 5:8-14.