1 Peter 1:25
The word preached to you
- The gospel’s word εὐαγγελίζομαι euangelizomai · to speak good news
Original
Translations
but the word of the Lord stands forever.” And this is the word that was proclaimed to you.
But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
but the saying of the LORD remains—throughout the age; and this is the saying of good news that was proclaimed to you.
오직 주의 말씀은 세세토록 있도다 하였으니 너희에게 전한 복음이 곧 이 말씀이니라
오직 주의 말씀은 영원토록 지속되나니 복음으로 너희에게 선포된 말씀이 이 말씀이니라.
Commentaries
Matthew Henry on 1Pet 1:17-25 as a whole
Holy confidence in God as a Father, and awful fear of him as a Judge, agree together; and to regard God always as a Judge, makes him dear to us as a Father. If believers do evil, God will visit them with corrections. …
Read the whole commentary →Wesley
Nothing on this verse itself.
Read the whole commentary →
Note
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands. Peter quotes Isaiah and then adds one short sentence of his own: that lasting word is the good news you were told.
For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” And this is the word that was proclaimed to you.
1 Peter 1:24–25Peter has just urged his readers to "love one another deeply, from a pure heart" (1 Peter 1:22), and he gives the reason: "you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God" (1 Peter 1:23). To show that this word endures he quotes Isaiah 40:6–8. Isaiah 40 is the chapter that begins "Comfort, comfort My people" (Isaiah 40:1), words of hope to a people in exile. Peter writes to "exiles of the Dispersion" (1 Peter 1:1) and sends greetings at the end from "The church in Babylon" (1 Peter 5:13), a name many readers take as Rome's. The comfort first spoken to exiles is heard again by a church of exiles.
The gospel word comes in Peter's own sentence after the quotation: to rhēma to euangelisthen eis humas, "the word that was brought to you as good news." The verb is , an aorist passive participle describing the word. The noun for "word" here is , a thing spoken, which Peter carries over from Isaiah. In effect he says: the word of the Lord that the prophet said would outlast all flesh is the same word the apostles preached to you. In Isaiah, too, the very next line hails Zion as "herald of good news" (Isaiah 40:9), so Peter's verb picks up where Isaiah's text goes on.
The BSB reads simply "the word that was proclaimed to you," and an English reader would not know that the gospel's verb stands here. The KJV keeps it: "this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you." The LSV has "the saying of good news that was proclaimed to you." The Korean Bibles both keep it, in two ways. The 흠정역 follows the KJV (복음으로 너희에게 선포된 말씀), so that the word was spoken as gospel. The 개역한글 turns the participle into the noun: 너희에게 전한 복음이 곧 이 말씀이니라, "the gospel preached to you is this word," which makes the gospel and the everlasting word one. It also adds 하였으니, "so it said," to mark where Isaiah ends and Peter begins, as the BSB does with its closing quotation mark.
Wesley comments on how fast the flower drops: "Is fallen off - As it were, while we are speaking" Wesley. Human glory, "His wisdom, strength, wealth, righteousness" Wesley, goes the same way. Matthew Henry sets against it "the word of God planted in the heart by the Holy Ghost," which "is a means of spiritual life" Matthew Henry, and he urges his readers to "lodge it in our hearts as our only treasures here" Matthew Henry.
What people say, and what they achieve, fades like grass in summer. This verse says that the gospel is not one more saying of that kind. In whoever hears and receives it, the word that was preached is a seed that does not perish.