1 Peter 2:23

Who when he was reviled, reviled not again,.... When he was reproached as a glutton, a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners, all the reply he made was, that Wisdom is justified of her

Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Servants are apt to 'answer again' (Titus 2:9).

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, , 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, . To him that judgeth righteously: the apostle adds this of God’ s judging righteously, for the comfort of servants to whom he speaks, as ,9 Colossians 3:24 4:1, and for the terror of masters, that the former might learn patience, and the latter moderation.

23 Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Ver. 23. But committed himself] Or, the whole matter. We also shall do ourselves no disservice, by making God our chancellor, when no law else will relieve us. And indeed the less a man strives for himself, the more is God his champion. He that said, I seek not mine own glory, adds, But there is one that seeketh it, and judgeth. God takes his part ever that fights not for himself.

(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 1 Peter 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” (1 Peter 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. Peter’s mind the hours while he stood warming himself at Caiaphas’ fire, with the denial on his lips, and saw the Messiah blindfold and buffeted. He is also thinking of Isa 53:7. But committed himself.—This was His only form of revenge. As the Greek does not express the grammatical object of the verb, it is better not to supply one so definite as “Himself” or “His cause,” rather, “but would leave it to Him that judgeth righteously.” M. Renan (Antéchrist, p. 117) says that this passage “requires it to be understood that the incident of Jesus praying for His murderers was not known by Peter;” and other critics have held the same view. But (1) St. Peter, as we have said, is speaking of what was the constant habit of Jesus, not of what He did on the day of His crucifixion only. (2) The word does not necessarily imply any act or word of direct appeal to God to judge between His murderers and Him; on the contrary, the leading thought is that of “passing the matter over” to God (comp. Romans 12:19), by simply refusing to take any action in self-defence. (3) It would have been unlike the usual method of the Epistles to make direct reference to any of the minor details of our Lord’s history. (4) Such a reference here would be beyond the point, for St. Peter said nothing in 1 Peter 2:19 about praying for the bad masters, and here he is only justifying by Christ’s example the position he had laid down there.

Verse 23. But committed himself] Though he could have inflicted any kind of punishment on his persecutors, yet to give us, in this respect also, an example that we should follow his steps, he committed his cause to him who is the righteous Judge. To avoid evil tempers, and the uneasiness and danger of avenging ourselves, it is a great advantage in all such cases to be able to refer our cause to God, and to be assured that the Judge of all the earth will do right. The Vulgate, one copy of the Itala, St. Cyprian, and Fulgentius, read, Tradebat autem judicanti se injuste; "He delivered himself to him who judged unrighteously;" meaning Pontius Pilate. Some critics approve of this reading, but it has not sufficient evidence to recommend it as genuine.

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.

Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again - He did not use harsh and opprobrious words in return for those which he received: (1) He was reviled.

23. His patience next appears. Reviled—Mocked, slandered, insulted, blasphemed. Yet for it all he had no reviling retort. Repeatedly, indeed, did he speak with severity, but never in revenge.