What Does 1 Peter 2:3 Mean?

(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.