appointment follows unbelief and stumbling, as even the intensive particle, also , and the order of this clause which is placed last, signify. And yet stumble is present. They were appointed has the force of a past tense ; by which it is implied, that by a most just judgment of God, unbelievers stumble more and more from day to day. Are appointed answers to I lay {or appoint ), ver. 6 ; but with some difference : for God is said, in the active, to appoint Christ and the elect : unbelievers, in the passive, are said to be appointed. Comp. Rom. ix. 22, note.
9. *T /xs?s be, but ye) Supply are. After the mention of a subject so sorrowful he consoles the pious ; as 2 Thess. ii. 13. — y'evog — tig rrtpt- •roiriffiv, a generation — for a peculiar possession ) He twice mentions two remarkable sentences, which signify the relation of believers, as towards their Father and towards their God : Is. xliii. 20, 21, Septuagint, ro y'evog ftou ro sx.Xsx.r6v' Xaov /mov ov ‘irepieffoiyffd/Ariv, rag dperdg ,aou diriyMai: My nation [_u people”~\, My chosen: My people whom I have reserved as a possession [“ formed ”] for Myself to u show forth My praises.” Ex. xix. 5, 6, Xaog rrepiouffiog dno ndvruv ruv eOvu v, (3uoiXeiov hpdrsv/jja, 7tai edvog ayiov: a peculiar people from all the nations , a royal priesthood , and a holy nation. Tlepi in composition often denotes some- thing surviving: as <7repiyiveffdai, to conquer, the enemy being driven back; 'xepiKoieTadai, to reserve something, when you give up the rest ; vtpifiiovv, not to put to death; veptovr eg, DH'HE?, the surviving, Job xxvii. 15. And thus for rfeiD the Septuagint has nepiovaiog, Exodus, as quoted above, etc.; ^epiovffiaff/xbg and ‘xepmoiriGtg, Mai. iii. 17. Peter does not add, aero ntdvrm ruv sdvuv, from all the nations; because he honours the Gentiles also with this title : ver. 10. — exXexrbv) chosen , excellent. — (3afflXsiov iepdrev/ua, e Qvog ayiov , Xaog eig ‘Trepi^oirjffiVj a royal priesthood , a holy nation , a people for a peculiar possession) A kingdom of priests is a Hebrew expression. God is a king; His priests are the faithful: Rev. i. 6. Comp. 2 Sam. viii. 18 with 1 Chron. xviii. 17. A holy nation , the property of God. Uepi<Toi7i<rig in the abstract is the same as ers picvffiog in the concrete, in the Septuagint. Comp. Eph. i. 14, note. — rdg dperdg , His excellencies) His wonderful glory in this verse, His mercy in the following verse, His goodness in ver. 3.1 St Paul only once uses the word dperv\ , Phil. iv. 8, of the righteous: St Peter, in this one passage only of this Epistle, of God : in the second Epistle, ch. i. 3, he employs it a second time of God, and in ver. 5 (of the same chapter) he uses it of the faithful. The Hebrew is v6nn at the passage already quoted; which word in Is. xlii. 8, 12, lxiii. 7, the 1 Comp. Num. xiv. 17. — V. g.