1 Peter 2:2

as newborn babes The Greek noun, like the English, implies the earliest stage of infancy. See Luke 1:41; Luke 1:44; Luke 2:12; Luke 2:16.

the sincere milk of the word The English version tries to express the force of the original but has had recourse to a somewhat inadequate paraphrase. Literally, the words may be rendered as the rational (or intellectual) milk, the adjective having very nearly the force of "spiritual" in such passages as 1 Corinthians 10:3-4. The "milk" of which he speaks is that which nourishes the reason or mind, and not the body, and is found in the simpler form of the Truth as it is in Jesus which was presented by the Apostolic Church to the minds of its disciples. Looking to the other instances of parallelism between St Peter's language and those of the Epistles of St Paul, we can scarcely be wrong in thinking that here also he more or less reproduces what he had read in them. The word for "rational" meets us in Romans 12:1 ("reasonable" in the English version), in the same sense as here, and is not found elsewhere in the New Testament. The thought that those who are as yet in spiritual childhood, must be fed with the spiritual milk adapted to their state, is found in 1 Corinthians 3:2. Comp. also Hebrews 5:12-13. There is almost as striking a coincidence in the adjective sincere(better, pure or unadulterated), which expresses precisely the same thought as that of St Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 2:17 ("we are not, as the many, adulterators of the word of God") and 2 Corinthians 4:2 ("not dealing with the word of God deceitfully"). The thought implied in the word is that, however simple may be the truths which men teach, according to the capacities of their hearers, they should at all events be free from any admixture of conscious falsehood. The words fix the sentence of condemnation on the "pious frauds," on the populus vult decipi et decipiatur, on which even Christian teachers and Churches have too often acted. In the word "desire," or long after (the word expressing an almost passionate yearning), we have a sad reminder that the spiritual appetite is not as spontaneous as the natural. Infants do not need to be told to seek the mother's breast.

that ye may grow thereby The better MSS. add the words unto salvation. Though not essential to the sense, they give a worthy completeness to it, and it is not easy to understand how they came to be omitted in the later MSS.