2 Peter 1:17 - Exposition

For he received from God the Father honour and glory. The construction here is interrupted; the literal translation is, "Having received," etc., and there is no verb to complete the sense. Winer supposes that the apostle had intended to continue with some such words as, "He had us for witnesses," or, "He was declared to be the beloved Son of God," and that the construction was interrupted by the direct quotation of the words spoken by the voice from heaven ('Grammar,' 3:45, b). (For a similar anacoluthon, see in the Greek 2 Corinthians 5:6 .) "Honour" seems to refer to the testimony of the voice from heaven; "glory," to the splendour of the Lord's transfigured Person. When there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory; more literally, when such a voice was borne to him. The same verb is used in Acts 2:2 of "the rushing mighty wind" which announced the coming of the Holy Ghost; and in 1 Peter 1:13 of "the grace which is being brought." It is repeated in the next verse. It seems intended to assert emphatically the real objective character of the voice. It was not a vision, a dream; the voice was borne from heaven; the apostles heard it with their ears. The preposition ὑπό must be rendered "by," not "from." The "excellent" (rather, "majestic," or "magnificent") glory was the Shechinah, the visible manifestation of the presence of God, which had appeared in ancient times on Mount Sinai, and in the tabernacle and temple above the mercy-seat. God was there; it was he who spoke. For the word rendered "excellent" ( μεγαλοπρεπής ) compare the Septuagint Version of Deuteronomy 33:26 , ὁ μεγαλοπρεπὴς τοῦ στερεώματος , literally, "the Majestic One of the firmament;" where our Authorized Version gives a more exact translation of the Hebrew, "in his excellency on the sky" (see also the 'Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians,' Deuteronomy 9:1-29 , where the occurrence of the same remarkable words, μεγαλοπρεπὴς δόξα , suggests that Clement must have been acquainted with this Epistle). This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Our translation makes these words correspond exactly with the report given by St. Matthew in his account of the Transfiguration, except that "hear ye him" is added there. In the Greek there are some slight variations. According to one ancient manuscript (the Vatican), the order of the words is different, and there is a second pen, "This is my Son, my Beloved." All uncial manuscripts have here, instead of the ἐν ᾦ of St. Matthew's Gospel, εἰς ὃν ἐγὼ εὐδόκησα . The difference cannot be represented in our translation. The construction is pregnant, and the meaning is that from all eternity the εὐδοκία , the good pleasure, of God the Father was directed towards the Divine Son, and still abideth on him. The same truth seems to be implied in the aorist εὐδόκησα (comp. John 17:24 , "Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world"). An imitator of the second century would certainly have made this quotation to correspond exactly with the words as given in one of the synoptic Gospels.