Attributed commentary excerpt
John Gill's Exposition on 2 Corinthians 6:17
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Exposition of the Old and New Testament
John Gill (1697–1771) · 18th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
Wherefore come out from among them, etc..] Since they were the temple of the living God, built up an habitation for the Most High; since he resided among them, took his walks in the midst of them, was their God, and they were his people. These words are taken out of (<235211>Isaiah 52:11) where the several phrases here used may be observed. They seem to be directed to the Israelites, and particularly to the priests and Levites, who bore the vessels of the Lord; and are fitly applied to believers under the Gospel dispensation, who are by Christ made priests unto God. They are usually interpreted by the Jewish writers, as a call to the Jews to come out of captivity, to quit Babylon and Persia, and the several cities and countries where they were; and are applied in (<661804>Revelation 18:4) to mystical Babylon, the church of Rome, as a call to God's people, to leave the superstitions and idolatries of that church, lest they be partakers of her plagues; and here, by the apostle, as an exhortation to believers in general, to forsake the company and conversation of the men of the world: who may be said to come out from among them at first conversion, when they are called to forsake their own people, and their Father's house, to leave their native country, and seek an heavenly one; and when, in consequence of effectual calling grace, their conversations are different from what they were before, and from other Gentiles; when they dislike their former companions, abhor their sinful conversation, abstain from it, keep out of it, as being infectious, hurtful, and detrimental to them; when they have no fellowship with the workers of iniquity, but reprove them both by words and deeds, which is their incumbent duty: the phrase in Isaiah is, “go ye out from the midst of her”; which Kimchi interprets, “out of the midst of every city in which thou art”; that is, in which idolaters lived; and well agrees with ek mesou autwn here, “out of the midst of them”: and be ye separate, saith the Lord; this phrase is not to be met with expressly in our version of the above text in Isaiah, but is signified by several expressions in it; the words rendered “depart ye, depart ye”, are by the Targum, or Chaldee paraphrase on the place, expressed by wçrpta wçrpta, “be ye separate, be ye separate”, which are the very words of the apostle here; and the phrase, “touch no unclean thing”, is explained by R. Aben Ezra, µlw[h twmwam wldbyç, “that they might be separate from the nations of the world” and another word, wrbh, “be ye clean”, signifies such a purgation as is made by separation, by removing the clean from the unclean, by separating the wheat from the chaff. The people of God are a separate people in election, redemption, and the effectual calling, and ought to be so in their conduct and conversation; they ought to separate themselves from all superstition and will worship in religious matters, and from the evil customs and manners of the world, though they are sure to become a prey, and to expose themselves to the contempt and rage of it: and touch not the unclean thing. The allusion is to several laws under the former dispensation, which forbid touching many things which were accounted unclean, whereby pollution was contracted, and the persons were obliged to a ceremonial cleansing; (see <030502>Leviticus 5:2,3) (<041911>Numbers 19:11,16). It has no regard to touching, tasting, and eating any sort of food, which was forbid as unclean by the ceremonial law; for…
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