Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Peter · About this commentary
A Chosen Race
1 Peter 2:9-10
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. · WEB
Four titles belonging to Israel at Sinai are handed to former pagans without argument, and the purpose attached to them is speech.
Every phrase in verse 9 is quoted or nearly quoted. A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession — the middle two come almost word for word from what was said at Sinai to a nation just brought out of Egypt Exodus 19:5–6, and the outer two from a prophet describing a people formed to declare God's praise Isaiah 43:20–21.
What makes the passage striking is who is receiving them. These readers' former life is described elsewhere in the letter as gentile and as inherited from their fathers 1 Peter 1:18 1 Peter 4:3. The titles are transferred without a defense, a transition, or any acknowledgment that a transfer is taking place.
The purpose clause is worth separating from the titles. They are given this standing in order to proclaim the excellencies of the one who called them — the identity exists to be spoken about. A priesthood in the older arrangement stood between God and the people; this one is pointed outward, at the neighbors of verse 12.
Verse 10 then states the before and after in two clauses of almost brutal economy: once not a people, now God's people; once without mercy, now shown mercy. The letter offers no third term. There is nothing they were in between.
settled What this mark means