2 Peter 1:18

2 Peter 1:18. And this voice we heard borne out of heaven, when we were with him in the holy mount. The character of the Divine testimony to Christ is thus yet more carefully described, in respect both of its own directness and of the credibility of the report which was given of it. It came immediately from heaven. It was reported, too, by those who were present with Christ Himself on the occasion, and were both eyewitnesses and ear-witnesses of what took place, not only seeing with their own eyes the scene, but hearing with their own ears the voice. By the ‘holy mount' is to be understood not the temple-mount (as if the voice referred to were, as Grotius imagined, that recorded in John 12:28), but the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter does not identify it with either Hermon or Tabor. He gives it, however, the same honourable title that Zion enjoyed in the Old Testament. The sacred associations now connected with it, and the fact that it had been the scene of a manifestation of Divinity, had made it ‘holy' ground. So, as Calvin notices, the spot where Jehovah appeared to Moses became ‘holy' ground. - It is interesting to observe how in his old age Peter's mind is filled with the wonders of the Transfiguration, and how he finds in the glory which he witnessed there a presage of the glory in which Christ was to return. It may be asked why he singles out this particular event, and only this one, when he feels called to assert the historical basis of his teaching, and to repudiate all suspicion of legendary mixture. The answer is obvious. The truths which at present he is pressing on the attention of his readers, are those relating to the Second Coming of Christ, that Coming in power and judgment which was doubted, denied, and scoffed at. It was natural, therefore, that he should instance the sudden glory which he had witnessed breaking forth from and encircling Christ's person on the Mount. In that he recognised an earnest of the power in which Christ was to return. It is rightly observed, too, that this entire statement, given as it is independently, with variations of its own, and not professing to be quoted from any written narrative, is an important confirmation of the truth of the Gospel narrative of the Transfiguration (so Plumptre, etc.).