What Does 1 Peter 1:24 Mean?

(24) **For all flesh is as grass.**—The citation is from Isaiah 40:6-8, and varies between the Hebrew and the LXX. in the kind of way which shows that the writer was familiar with both. But the passage is by no means quoted only to support the assertion, in itself ordinary enough, that the Word of the Lord abideth for ever. It is always impossible to grasp the meaning of an Old Testament quotation in the mouth of a Hebrew without taking into account the context of the original. Nothing is commoner than to omit purposely the very words which contain the whole point of the quotation. Now these sentences in Isaiah stand in the forefront of the herald’s proclamation of the return of God to Sion, always interpreted of the establishment of the Messianic kingdom. This proclamation of the Messianic kingdom comprises words which St. Peter has purposely omitted, and they contain the point of the quotation. The omitted words are, “the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely *the people”*—*i.e., *Israel—“is grass.” Immediately before our quotation went the words, “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and *all flesh* shall see it together;” statements which so shocked the LXX. translator that he entirely omitted 1Peter 1:7, and changed the previous verse so as to make *some* difference between Jew and Gentile (as Godet points out on Luke 3:6), into “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.” *i.e., *to Israel, “and all flesh shall see *the salvation* of God.” The comment of Bishop Lowth on the original passage will well bring out what St. Peter means here: “What is the import of [the proclamation]? that the people, the flesh, is of a vain temporary nature; that all its glory fadeth, and is soon gone; but that the Word of God endureth for ever. What is this but a plain opposition of the flesh to the Spirit; of the carnal Israel to the spiritual; of the temporary Mosaic economy to the eternal Christian dispensation?” Here, then, St. Peter is quoting one of the greatest of Messianic prophecies; and his Hebrew readers would at once understand the Hebrew method of the quotation, and see that he was calling attention to the absolute equality of Jew and Gentile there proclaimed. Generation of the corruptible seed, physical descent from Abraham, was “the glory of the flesh” (observe that according to the best text St. Peter does *not* follow the LXX., and insert “of man,” but follows the Hebrew, and says “all the glory thereof,” *i.e., *of the flesh). On this “the *Spirit* of the Lord” had breathed (Psalm 104:30); and the merely fleshly glory had withered like grass. But “the word of our God,” which, mark well, St. Peter purposely changes into “the Word of the Lord,” *i.e., of Jesus Christ, *incidentally showing his Hebrew readers that he believed Jesus Christ to *be *“our God”—this “abideth for ever.” The engendering by *this* is imperishable, *i.e., *involves a privilege which is not, like that of the Jewish blood, transitory: it will never become a matter of indifference whether we have been engendered with this, as is the case now (Galatians 6:15) with regard to the “corruptible seed;” no further revelation will ever level up the unregenerate to be the equals of the regenerate. And in this regeneration “all flesh” share alike. The teaching of the Baptist, who fulfilled this prophecy, is here again apparent. (See Matthew 3:9.)