it is rendered in the Septuagint. The exhortation is founded on the preceding passage. God is most intimately related to liis people. They are his temple. He dwells in them. There- fore they are bound to keep themselves unspotted from the world. Their being God's temple, his presence in them, and his regarding them as his people, depends upon their separa- tion from the world. For if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 1 John 2, 15. In this whole con- text the apostle clothes his OAvn exhortation to the Corinthians in the language of God himself, that they might see that what he taught was indeed the word of God.
18. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
This is a continuation of the promise commenced in the preceding verse. God declares that he will not only receive into his favour those who regard themselves as his temple and 'keep themselves aloof from all contaminating associations with the wicked, but that he will be a father to them. It is not with the favour of a master to a servant that he will regard them, but with the favour which a father exercises to his sons and daughters. This is the language of the Lord Almighty ; of the omnipotent God. To be his sons and daughters is a dignity and blessedness before which all earthly honours and all worldly good disappear. It is doubtful what particular passage of the Old Testament the apostle had in his mind in this citation. Some think it was 2 Sam. 7, 14, but there God merely says to David in reference to his promised seed, " I will be his father, and he shall be my son." There is too little similarity in form, and too remote an analogy of sentiment, to render it probable that that passage was the one referred to. Is. 43, 6 is more in point. " Bring my sons from far, and ray daughters from the ends of the earth." Here the people of God are said to be his sons and daughters ; Avhich is all that the citation of the apostle asserts. The con- cluding verses of this chapter are an instructive illustration of the way in which the New Testament writers quote the Old. 1. They often quote a translation M'hich does not strictly ad- here to the original. 2. They often quote according to the sense and not according to the letter. 3. They often blend together different passages of Scrii)ture, so as to give the sense not of any one passage, but the combmed sense of several.