1 Peter 2:23

2:18-25 Servants in those days generally were slaves, and had heathen masters, who often used them cruelly; yet the apostle directs them to be subject to the masters placed over them by Providence, with a fear to dishonour or offend God. And not only to those pleased with reasonable service, but to the severe, and those angry without cause. The sinful misconduct of one relation, does not justify sinful behaviour in the other; the servant is bound to do his duty, though the master may be sinfully froward and perverse. But masters should be meek and gentle to their servants and inferiors. What glory or distinction could it be, for professed Christians to be patient when corrected for their faults? But if when they behaved well they were ill treated by proud and passionate heathen masters, yet bore it without peevish complaints, or purposes of revenge, and persevered in their duty, this would be acceptable to God as a distinguishing effect of his grace, and would be rewarded by him. Christ's death was designed not only for an example of patience under sufferings, but he bore our sins; he bore the punishment of them, and thereby satisfied Divine justice. Hereby he takes them away from us. The fruits of Christ's sufferings are the death of sin, and a new holy life of righteousness; for both which we have an example, and powerful motives, and ability to perform also, from the death and resurrection of Christ.

And our justification; Christ was bruised and crucified as a sacrifice for our sins, and by his stripes the diseases of our souls are cured. Here is man's sin; he goes astray; it is his own act. His misery; he goes astray from the pasture, from the Shepherd, and from the flock, and so exposes himself to dangers without number. Here is the recovery by conversion; they are now returned as the effect of Divine grace. This return is, from all their errors and wanderings, to Christ. Sinners, before their conversion, are always going astray; their life is a continued error.

Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but {24} committed himself to him {25} that judgeth righteously: (24) He shows them a remedy against injuries, that is, that they commend their cause to God, by the example of Christ. (25) He seems now to turn his speech to masters, who have also themselves a master and judge in heaven, who will justly avenge the injuries that are done to servants, without any respecting of people.

Reviled - again (ἀντελοιδόρει) Only here in the New Testament. Committed himself (παρεδίδου) But this gives a reflexive force to the verb which has no parallel. Commentators are divided, some supplying his cause, as Rev., in margin; others, his judgment; others, his revilers. Better, the subject of the contest - his insults and injuries. Salmond renders, but left it to him, etc. Judgeth righteously Compare without respect of person, 1 Peter 1:17.

1 Peter 2:23 . Οὐκ ἀντελοιδόρει , He reviled not again ) Isaiah 53:7 .— οὐκ ἠπείλει , He threatened not ) although, as Lord, He might have done so.[20] The more befitting is it that servants should exercise patience.[21]— παρεδίδου δὲ , but committed ) viz. the judgment .— δικαίως , righteously ) The righteousness of God is the foundation of tranquility to the afflicted. [20] And although He openly declared His coming again, Matthew 26:64 .—V. g. [21] It is in fact arms of this sort which are often used by those who are feeble: such as slaves especially were, who might therefore be readily disposed to threaten their masters with the Divine judgment.—V. g.

By Christ’s being reviled, we are to understand all those injurious words, reproaches, slanders, blasphemies, which his persecutors cast out against him. Reviled not again; therefore when he told the Jews they were of their father the devil, John 8:44 , that was not a reviling them, but a just accusation of them, or reproof of their devilish behaviour. When he suffered; when he was affected not only with verbal but real injuries, buffeted, spit upon, crowned with thorns, crucified. He threatened not; he was so far from avenging himself, or recompensing evil for evil, that he did not so much as threaten what he would afterward do to them. But committed himself; or his cause; neither is in the Greek, but either may be well supplied, and to the same purpose: the sense is, Christ did not retaliate, nor act any thing out of private revenge, but so referred himself, and the judgment of his cause, to his Father’s good pleasure, as rather to desire pardon for his persecutors, than vengeance on them, Luke 23:34 . To him that judgeth righteously: the apostle adds this of God’s judging righteously, for the comfort of servants to whom he speaks, as Ephesians 6:8,9 Col 3:24 4:1 , and for the terror of masters, that the former might learn patience, and the latter moderation.

1 Peter 2:23 . Combination of the Scripture οὐκ ἀνοίγει τὸ στόμα ( Isaiah 43:7 ) with the saying ὅταν ὀνειδίσωσιν και διώξωσιν ( Matthew 5:11 ). For λοιδ . cf. 1 Corinthians 4:12 . λοιδορούμενοι εὐλογοῦμεν of Matt. l.c. ), John 9:28 , the Jews ἐλοιδόρησαν the once blina man as Jesus’ disciple and, for O.T. type Deuteronomy 33:8 , ἐλοιδόρησαν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ ὕδατος ἀντιλογίας (Levi = Christ the Priest, cf. ἀντιλογία , Hebrews 12:3 ).— οὐκ ἠπείλει the prophecy ἀπειλήσει τοῖς ἀπειθοῦσιν ( Isaiah 66:14 ) is yet to be fulfilled ( Luke 13:27 ). Oec. notes that He threatened Judas, seeking to deter him and reviled the Pharisees, but not in retort.— παρεδίδου . It is doubtful what object, it any, is to be supplied. The narrative of the Passion suggests two renderings: (i.) He delivered Himself ( ἑαυτὸν omitted as in Plato, Phaedrus , 250 E). cf. Luke 23:46 ( Psalm 31:5 ), παρατίθεμαι τὸ πνεῦμά μου and Isaiah 53:6 ; κύριος παρέδωκεν αὐτόν , Isaiah 53:12 παρεδόθη . (ii.) He delivered the persecutors (latent in passive participles λοιδ . and πάσχων ), when He said Father forgive them . In ordinary Greek παραδίδωμι without object = permit ; but this hardly justifies the rendering He gave way to ( cf. δότε τόπον τῇ ὀργῇ , Romans 12:19 ), i.e. , permitted God to fulfil His will. But most probably παρ . τῷ … represents the Hebrew ellipse, גל אלֹ י״ commit to Jehovah ( Psalm 22:9 ) for the normal commit, way, works, cause ; LXX (Syriac) has ἤλπισεν = Matthew 27:43 . Compare Joseph.

23. Servants are apt to "answer again" (Tit 2:9). Threats of divine judgment against oppressors are often used by those who have no other arms, as for instance, slaves. Christ, who as Lord could have threatened with truth, never did so. committed himself—or His cause, as man in His suffering. Compare the type, Jer 11:20. In this Peter seems to have before his mind Isa 53:8. Compare Ro 12:19, on our corresponding duty. Leave your case in His hands, not desiring to make Him executioner of your revenge, but rather praying for enemies. God's righteous judgment gives tranquillity and consolation to the oppressed.

23 . Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again ] Here again, though we have no direct quotation, it is impossible to overlook the allusive reference to the silence of the sufferer as portrayed in Isaiah 53:7 . Personal recollection was, however, the main source of the vivid picture which the Apostle draws, dwelling mainly on those features which the life of the slaves best enabled them to reproduce. They were tempted to return “railing for railing” (chap. 1 Peter 3:9 ). Christ had met taunts and revilings with a silent patience. They in their passionate indignation too often threatened revenge in some near or distant future. He, though he might have asked His Father for twelve legions of angels, had uttered no threats of judgment, but had committed Himself (as in the words on the Cross, “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,” Luke 23:46 ) to the righteous Judge. So should the slaves who suffered wrongfully commit their cause to God in the full assurance that they will one day have righteous judgment. The strange rendering in the Vulgate, “tradebat judicanti se injuste ” as though the words referred not to God, but to Pilate, for which there is no Greek MS. authority, must be regarded as an arbitrary alteration made on the assumption that this was the crowning act of submissive patience.

Verse 23. - Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not (comp. Isaiah 53:7 ). The Lord again and again denounced the hypocrisy and unbelief of the Pharisees; he bade Caiaphas remember the coming judgment. But that was the language of prophetic warning, the sternness of love. He sets before them the impending punishment, that they may take heed in time and escape from the wrath to come. In the midst of his strongest invective against the sins and hollow unreality of Pharisaism there is an outburst of the deepest love, the tenderest concern ( Matthew 23:27 ). But committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. The verb "committed" παρεδίδου ) is without an object in the original. Most commentators supply "himself," or "his cause;" others, "his sufferings;" some, as Alford, "those who inflicted them." Perhaps the last explanation is the best: he left them to God, to God's mercy, if it might be; to his judgment, if it must be. There may be a reference to his prayer, "Father, forgive them." Compare by contrast the language of Jeremiah, speaking in the spirit of the Old Testament ( Jeremiah 11:20 and Jeremiah 20:12). There is a curious reading, entirely without the authority of existing Greek manuscripts, represented by the Vulgate, Tradebat judicanti se injuste , as if the words were understood of the Lord's submitting himself "to one who judged unrighteously," that is, to Pilate. 1 Peter 2:23

(23) Who, when he was reviled. —This “who” might be rendered by and yet He. Conscious though He was of being blameless ( John 8:46 ), it did not make Him retaliate upon His accusers by counter-accusations, true though these might have been. The word here translated “revile” is the same which reappears in 1Peter 3:9 as “railing,” and a sample of what it means is given in John 9:28 . The servants would be particularly liable to be thus abused, and instances are not wanting in the comic poets where they lose their self-control under it, and openly rate their owners in return. The “suffering,” on the other hand, implies actual bodily maltreatment, “buffeting” ( 1Peter 2:20 ) and the like, to which the slaves could not answer directly by striking in return, but would sometimes take their revenge by “threats” of what they would do—run away, or burn the house, or poison the food, or do little acts of spite. Instances of our Lord’s silence or meekness under “reviling” may be seen in John 7:20 ; John 8:40 ; Matthew 12:24 , as well as in the accounts of the Passion. There are no recorded instances, until the last day of His life, of His “suffering” in the sense here intended; but the tense of the verbs “reviled,” “threatened,” “committed,” shows that the writer was not thinking exclusively of any one occasion, but of our Lord’s constant habit, though naturally there would be uppermost in St.