1 Peter 3:11

1 Peter 3:11. And let him turn from evil and do good. The best authorities introduce the connecting ‘and,' or ‘further,' which the A. V. omits. The ‘eschew' of the A. V. (comp. Shakespeare's ‘What cannot be eschewed, must be embraced,' Mer. Wives, v. 5, 251), connected with the old French eschever, German scheuen, English shy, means to shun, and sufficiently ex-presses the idea, which is that of turning away from something which comes in one's way. See specially Proverbs 4:15. To this avoidance of evil is added the duty of active goodness, as these two things are coupled elsewhere in the Psalms (Psalms 37:27), in the burden of prophetic exhortation (Isaiah 1:16-17), and in Paul (Romans 12:9).

Let him seek peace and pursue it. This blamelessness and kindliness of life, at once in word and in deed, should take the still more definite form of a determination to secure peace. This indicates that the irreproachable goodness in view is still that of those who are under peculiar temptation to the opposite. Those who suffer from slander or other kinds of wrong are not to imagine themselves exempt from these great laws of Christian duty. All the more are they called to guard against every form of evil, to resist the inclination to take their case into their own hand. They are to meet evil by doing positive good, and cultivating all that makes for peace. This last is represented as something worth straining every effort for. It is to be sought, nay, it is to be pursued, with the expenditure of strenuous and unflagging endeavour which the hunter devotes to the chase. The old English ‘ensue,' which the A. V. adopts only in this one instance (comp. Shakespeare's ‘I know repentant tears ensue the deed,' Lucrece, 502), comes from the French ensuivre, and has now almost lost this transitive force. With the view of the good of life, which Psalmist and Apostle thus proceed upon in their ethical counsels, may be compared such parallels, although they are but partial, as this from Young

‘That life is long which answers life's great end;'

and Bailey's familiar lines

‘We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;

In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives

Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.'