1 Peter 2:3

If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) If so be ye have tasted.—The “if so be,” as elsewhere (2Thessalonians 1:6, Note), constitutes a strong appeal to the readers to say whether it were not so. St. Peter confidently reckons that it is so. It should rather be ye tasted, looking back to a quite past time, probably that of the first conversion, when the taste of spiritual things is the most delicious. How sad to be past the relish for evangelical truth! The quotation, or rather adaptation, from Psalm 34:8 is, no doubt, suggested by the metaphor of “milk.” A curious little point about our translation here is that the word “gracious” has been adopted to suit the Prayer Book version of the Psalm. It is scarcely suitable to the Greek word, which, originally signifying “usable,” “serviceable,” passes on to be used of anything mild and pleasant, as, for instance, in Luke 5:39, of the mellowness of old wine. Here, therefore, the word seems to be peculiarly used with reference to the sense of taste. A more important point, doctrinally, is that St. Peter is here applying to Jesus Christ (as the next verse shows) a passage which otherwise we might not have thought of applying to Him in particular. It gives quite a new complexion to the 34th Psalm, when we see that in St. Peter’s view the Psalmist was speaking prophetically of our Lord. We shall find him quoting the same Psalm in the same sense again in 1Peter 3:10.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:1-10 Evil-speaking is a sign of malice and guile in the heart; and hinders our profiting by the word of God. A new life needs suitable food. Infants desire milk, and make the best endeavours for it which they are able to do; such must be a Christian's desires after the word of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ is very merciful to us miserable sinners; and he has a fulness of grace. But even the best of God's servants, in this life, have only a taste of the consolations of God. Christ is called a Stone, to teach his servants that he is their protection and security, the foundation on which they are built. He is precious in the excellence of his nature, the dignity of his office, and the glory of his services. All true believers are a holy priesthood; sacred to God, serviceable to others, endowed with heavenly gifts and graces. But the most spiritual sacrifices of the best in prayer and praise are not acceptable, except through Jesus Christ. Christ is the chief Corner-stone, that unites the whole number of believers into one everlasting temple, and bears the weight of the whole fabric. Elected, or chosen, for a foundation that is everlasting. Precious beyond compare, by all that can give worth. To be built on Christ means, to believe in him; but in this many deceive themselves, they consider not what it is, nor the necessity of it, to partake of the salvation he has wrought. Though the frame of the world were falling to pieces, that man who is built on this foundation may hear it without fear. He shall not be confounded. The believing soul makes haste to Christ, but it never finds cause to hasten from him. All true Christians are a chosen generation; they make one family, a people distinct from the world: of another spirit, principle, and practice; which they could never be, if they were not chosen in Christ to be such, and sanctified by his Spirit. Their first state is a state of gross darkness, but they are called out of darkness into a state of joy, pleasure, and prosperity; that they should show forth the praises of the Lord by their profession of his truth, and their good conduct. How vast their obligations to Him who has made them his people, and has shown mercy to them! To be without this mercy is a woful state, though a man have all worldly enjoyments. And there is nothing that so kindly works repentance, as right thoughts of the mercy and love of God. Let us not dare to abuse and affront the free grace of God, if we mean to be saved by it; but let all who would be found among those who obtain mercy, walk as his people.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious - Or rather, as Doddridge renders it, "Since you have tasted that the Lord is gracious." The apostle did not mean to express any doubt on the subject, but to state that, since they had had an experimental acquaintance with the grace of God, they should desire to increase more and more in the knowledge and love of him. On the use of the word "taste," see the notes at Hebrews 6:4.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. Peter alludes to Ps 34:8. The first "tastes" of God's goodness are afterwards followed by fuller and happier experiences. A taste whets the appetite [Bengel].

gracious—Greek, "good," benignant, kind; as God is revealed to us in Christ, "the Lord" (1Pe 2:4), we who are born again ought so to be good and kind to the brethren (1Pe 1:22). "Whosoever has not tasted the word to him it is not sweet it has not reached the heart; but to them who have experienced it, who with the heart believe, 'Christ has been sent for me and is become my own: my miseries are His, and His life mine,' it tastes sweet" [Luther].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

If so be; this doth not imply a doubting, but a supposition, as was before observed, 1 Peter 1:17.

Ye have tasted; not lightly tasted by a bare ineffectual knowledge, as Hebrews 6:4; but experienced and perceived by the taste of your spiritual palate; your spiritual sense, and ability to judge of spiritual things, being restored to you, with your new birth. He refers to Psalm 34:8, and possibly to Isaiah 66:11.

The Lord; the Lord Jesus Christ, as appears by the next verse.

Is gracious; good, kind, or rather, sweet: the same word is applied to wine, Luke 5:39. The sense of the whole is: If ye have by faith received the gospel as glad tidings, and worthy of all acceptation, 1 Timothy 1:15, and therein perceived and experienced the sweetness of those consolations which are in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2:1; or, which is the same, how sweet he is, who, in the preaching of the gospel, exhibits himself to your spiritual senses, to be fed upon and tasted by you.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Reference is had to Psalm 34:8, "O taste and see that the Lord is good"; and the Syriac version here adds, "if ye have seen": by the Lord is meant, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the following words show, who is gracious and amiable, and lovely in his person; who has a fulness of grace in him for his people; has displayed his grace towards them, in engaging for them as a surety, in assuming their nature, obeying, suffering, and dying in their stead; he is gracious in his word and promises, truths and ordinances, and in all his offices and relations; and regenerate persons have tasted that he is so: an unregenerate man has no spiritual taste; his taste is vitiated by sin, and not being changed, sin is a sweet morsel in his mouth, and he disrelishes everything that is spiritual; but one that is born again savours the things of the Spirit of God; sin is exceeding sinful to him, and Christ exceeding precious; he, and his fruit, his promises, and blessings of grace, his word and ordinances, are sweet unto his taste: and the taste he has is not a mere superficial one, such as hypocrites may have of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come; but such a taste of Christ, and of his grace, as, by a true faith, to eat his flesh, and drink his blood, and so have everlasting life; such have a saving and experimental knowledge of Christ, an application of him, and his saving benefits to them, a revelation of him in them, so that they find and feel that he dwells in them, and they in him; such receive out of Christ's fulness, and grace for grace, and live by faith upon him, and receive nourishment from him; and of this the apostle made no doubt concerning these persons, but took it for granted that they had had such tastes of Christ, and therefore could not but desire the Gospel, which is a revelation of Christ, and sets forth the glory of his person, and the riches of his grace: and whereas, such as have truly tasted of his grace cannot but desire to have more, and fresh tastes of it; where should they have them, but in his word and ordinances? and therefore, would they grow in grace, and know more of Christ, and taste more of his goodness, it is their interest, as it is their spiritual nature, to desire the Gospel, in the purity and sincerity of it.

Geneva Study Bible

{3} If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

(3) He commends that spiritual nourishment for the sweetness and profit of it.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

1 Peter 2:3. εἰ [εἴπερ] ἐγεύσασθε, ὅτι κ.τ.λ.] Based on the Old Testament passage, Psalm 34:9 : γεύσασθε καὶ ἴδετε, ὅτι χρηστὸς ὁ κύριος; the words καὶ ἴδετε are omitted, not being suitable to the figure γάλα.

εἰ is here, as in 1 Peter 2:17, hypothetical indeed: “if,” but it does not express a doubt; thus Gerhard correctly explains εἴπερ: non est dubitantis, sed supponentis, quod factum sit. Comp. Romans 8:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:6.

γεύομαι is used here of inward experience, comp. Hebrews 6:4-5; it alludes to the figurative γάλα, inasmuch as the Christian tastes, as it were, of the kindness of the Lord in the spiritual milk tendered to him. The apostle takes for granted that the Christians had already made inward experience of the goodness of their Lord (κύριος; in the Psalms, God; here, Christ), not merely in the instruction which preceded baptism, or in baptism itself (Lorinus), or cum fidem evangelii susceperunt (Hornejus), but generally during their life as Christians; as the new-born child, not once only, but ever anew refreshes itself on the nourishment offered by a mother’s love. With such experience, it is natural that believers should ever afresh be eager for the spiritual nourishment, in the imparting of which the χρηστότης of the Lord is manifested: nam gustus provocat appetitum (Lorinus).[113]

ὍΤΙ, not equal to quam (Grotius), but: “that.”

χρηστός, “kind, gracious,” not exactly suavis (Grotius: ut a gustu sumta translatio melius procedat); in this sense it would be more applicable to γάλα than to ΚΎΡΙΟς.

Several interpreters assume that in ΧΡΗΣΤΌς Peter plays upon the word ΧΡΙΣΤΌς; but this is more than improbable.

[113] Schott insists “that the apostle is not here anxious about the readers’ desire in general for the word, but that such desire should be combined with the purpose of finally attaining salvation.” But is there anywhere a desire after the word of God without such intent?—Nothing in the context indicates that that in which the χρηστότης of the Lord is manifested is “those rare moments of heavenly joy in which this life is a foretaste of eternal glory” (Schott).

Expositor's Greek Testament

1 Peter 2:3. St. Peter adopts the language of Psalm 34:9, omitting καὶ ἔδετε as inappropriate to γάλα. χρηστός (identical in sound with χριστός) = dulcis (Vulg.) or kind (cf. χρηστότης θεοῦ, Romans 2:4; Romans 11:22). Compare Hebrews 6:4 f. γευσαμένους τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς ἐπουρανίου … καὶ καλὸν γευσαμένους θεοῦ ῥῆμα.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious] Better, if ye tasted, as referring more definitely to the experiences of the first period of their life as Christians. The word “tasted” as applied to those experiences follows naturally, as in Hebrews 6:4, on the imagery of the milk. The Greek word for “gracious” itself carries on the metaphor of the tasting, being applied in Luke 5:39 to express the mellowness of wine ripened by age. The words are a quotation from Psalm 34:8 as it stands in the LXX. version. We can scarcely doubt that the Apostle saw in the Master he had owned in Christ the “Lord” of whom the Psalmist spoke. It is possible that he may have been led to choose the quotation from the close resemblance in sound between the two Greek words for “Christ” (Christos) and “gracious” (Chrestos). The acceptance of the name of Christian as carrying with it this significance, and being, as it were, nomen et omen, was common in the second century (Tertullian Apol. 100:3), and it would have been quite in accordance with Jewish habits of thought for St Peter to have anticipated that application.

Bengel's Gnomen

1 Peter 2:3. Ἐγεύσασθε, ye have tasted) A taste excites the appetite.[14]—ὍΤΙ, that) Psalm 34:8. Peter quotes the same Psalm in the next chapter.—χρηστὸς, good) Therefore they, who are born again, are and ought to be like Him.—ὁ Κύριος, the Lord) יהוה, Christ, 1 Peter 2:4 : Psalm 47:6.

[14] Comp. Malachi 3:10.—V. g.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious; rather, if ye tasted. If ye once tasted the good Word of God (Hebrews 6:4, 5), if ye tasted of the heavenly gift which comes through that Word (1 Peter 1:23), long after it that ye may g-row therein. The "if" does not imply doubt; the apostle supposes that they have once tasted, and urges them, on the ground of that first taste, to long for more. The first experiences of the Christian life stimulate God's people to further efforts. The words are a quotation from Psalm 34:8, "Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!" This makes it less probable that St. Peter is intentionally playing, as some have thought, on the similarity of the words χρηστός and Ξριστός. The confusion was common among the heathen; and Christian writers, as Tertullian, sometimes adopted it; Christus, they said, was chrestus, "Christ was good;" and Christians, followers of the good Master, followed after that which is good. But St. Peter is simply quoting the words of the psalm, and applying them to the metaphor of milk. It is possible that there may be an under-current of allusion to the Lord's teaching in John 6. The Lord himself is the Bread of life, the food of the soul. The epithet χρηστός is not infrequently used of food (see Luke 5:39). 1 Peter 2:3

Vincent's Word Studies

Ye have tasted (ἐγεύσασθε)

Aorist tense. More literally, ye tasted. "A taste excites the appetite" (Bengel). Compare long for, 1 Peter 2:2, and Psalm 34:8.

Gracious (χρηστὸς)

Actively benignant, "as distinguished from other adjectives which describe goodness on the side of its sterling worth and its gentleness" (Salmond). See on Matthew 11:30.