What Does 2 Corinthians 6:17 Mean?

(17) **Wherefore come out from among them.**—Another composite quotation follows, beginning with Isaiah 52:11. In their primary historical sense, the words were addressed as to the priests and Levites who were to return from Babylon. They were not to bring back with them any symbol of that “unclean” ritual which they had witnessed there. The local and historical meaning has for the Apostle passed away, and the “unclean thing” is identified with the whole system of heathenism. The close connection of this verse with the great prophecy of the atoning work makes it probable that, in writing of that work, St. Paul had remembered, or, perhaps, actually turned to Isaiah 53, as it stood in the LXX. version, and so was led on to the verse which almost immediately preceded it. “I will receive you” comes, in lieu of the ending of Isaiah, from the Greek of Ezekiel 11:17; Jeremiah 24:5.