2 Peter 1:17

For he received from God the Father honour and glory The Greek construction is participial, For having received …, the structure of the sentence being interrupted by the parenthetical clause which follows, and not resumed. The English version may be admitted, though it conceals this fact, as a fair solution of the difficulty. "Honour and glory." The two words are naturally joined together as in Romans 2:7; Romans 2:10; 1 Timothy 1:17; Hebrews 2:7; Hebrews 2:9; Revelation 4:9; Revelation 4:11; Revelation 5:12. If we are to press the distinctive force of each, the "honour" may be thought of as referring to the attesting voice at the Transfiguration, the "glory" to the light which enveloped the person of the Christ, like the Shechinah cloud of 1 Kings 8:10-11; Isaiah 6:1; Isaiah 6:4; Matthew 17:1-5; Mark 9:2-7; Luke 9:28-36.

when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory Literally, when such a voice as this was borne to Him. The choice of the verb instead of the more usual word for "came," connects itself with the use of the same verb in St Luke's account of the Pentecostal gift (Acts 2:2), and the Apostle's own use of it in 2 Peter 1:21 in connexion with the gift of prophecy. The word for "excellent" (more literally, magnificent, or majestic, as describing the transcendent brightness of the Shechinahcloud), not found elsewhere in the New Testament, is, perhaps, an echo from the LXX. of Deuteronomy 33:26, where God is described as "the excellent (or majestic) One of the firmament." The corresponding noun appears in the LXX. of Psalms 21:5, where the English version has "majesty." The Greek preposition has the force of "by" rather than "from" the glory, the person of the Father being identified with the Glory which was the token of His presence.

This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased The words are given, with one slight variation not perceptible in the English, as we find them in Matthew 17:5. It is obvious, assuming the genuineness of the Epistle, that we have here a testimony of great value to the truth of the Gospel records. As there is no reference to any written record of the words, and, we may add, as St Peter omits the words "Hear ye Him," which St Matthew adds, the testimony has distinctly the character of independence. Had the Epistle been the spurious work of a pseudonymous writer, it is at least probable that they would have been given in the precise form in which they are found in one or other of the Gospels. St Mark and St Luke, it may be noted, omit the words "in whom I am well pleased." The tense used in the Greek of these words is past, and not present, implying that the "delight" with which the Father contemplated the Son had been from eternity. The whole passage has a special interest, as pointing to the place which the Transfiguration occupied in the spiritual education of the three disciples who witnessed it. The Apostle looked back upon it, in his old age, as having stamped on his mind ineffaceably the conviction that the glory on which he had then looked was the pledge and earnest of that hereafter to be revealed. Comp. the probable reference to the same event in John 1:14.