What Does Exodus 19:5 Mean?

(5) **A peculiar treasure.**—The Hebrew *sĕgullah *is from a root, found in Chaldee, signifying “to earn,” or “acquire,” and means primarily some valuable possession, which the owner has got by his own exertions. (Comp. 1Chronicles 29:3, where the English Version translates it by “mine own proper good.”) God views the Israelites as made His own by the long series of mighty works done for their deliverance, whereby He is sometimes said to have “redeemed” (Exodus 6:6; Exodus 15:13), or “purchased” them (Exodus 15:16). The word *sĕgullah *is here used for the first time. Later it be comes an *epitheton usitatum *of Israel. (See Deuteronomy 7:6; Deuteronomy 14:2; Deuteronomy 26:18; Psalm 135:4; Malachi 3:17; and comp. also Titus 2:14;1Pe 2:9.) **Above all people: for all the earth is mine.**—While claiming a peculiar right in Israel, God does not mean to separate Himself from the other nations, to cease to care for them, or give them up to their own devices. He is always “the Most High *over all the earth*” (Psalm 83:18), “a light to lighten *the Gentiles,” *one who “judges *the people *righteously, and *governs all the nations upon earth” *(Psalm 67:4). Israel’s prerogative does not rob them of their birthright. He is the favoured son; but they, too, “are, all of them, children of the Most High” (Psalm 82:6).