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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Being born again: this may refer either:
1. To the general exhortation to holiness, 1Pe_1:14,15, and then the argument runs thus: Ye are in your regeneration become the children of God, and therefore ought to walk holily as become his children. Or:
2. To the more particular exhortation to brotherly love, 1Pe_1:22: q.d. You are by your regeneration become spiritual brethren, and therefore ought to live like brethren.
Not of corruptible seed; which is itself corrupted ere any thing can be generated out of it, or out of which nothing is begotten but what is corruptible; so that all such generations tend but to a mortal life.
But of incorruptible; so the word is said to be, because containing still the same, and being immutable in itself, it changes and renews the hearts of those that by faith receive it. Or: it may be understood of its being incorruptible effectively, because it leads, or tends, to an immortal life.
The word of God; the same which he called incorruptible seed, which is the instrument in regeneration, as is implied in the preposition, by, going before it.
Which liveth; this and the following verb may be joined, either:
1. To God, the word of God, who liveth, &c.; or rather:
2. To the word, so our translation reads it, which word liveth, and abideth, &c.; and this agrees best with the testimony of Isaiah in the next verse.
The word of God is said to be a living word, because it enliveneth the hearts of those that entertain it.