They have corrupted themselves Notwithstanding that God hath fully displayed these excellences in his dealings with the Israelitish nation, yet how corrupt and ungrateful hath been their behaviour! Their spot The wickedness with which they are stained; is not of his children Plainly shows they are not his children, but of their father the devil, John 8:44. God's children have no such spot. Indeed, the text does not affirm that they have any spot at all. The Hebrew לא בניו מומם lo banau, mumam, may be properly rendered as in the margin, or, as Le Clerc has it, according to the Samaritan version, the sons of pollution are not his. The true characteristic of the sons of God is to imitate and resemble God, 1 John 3:10. It is true they are not without infirmities of various kinds, from which none dwelling in flesh are exempt. But they do not give that name to known sin, which they are always careful to avoid, and to walk in all well-pleasing before God. On the contrary, the Israelites are here denominated a perverse and crooked generation; froward and untractable; irregular and disorderly. In opposition to such characters the sons of God are described (Php 2:15) as “being blameless and harmless in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, shining as lights in the world, and holding forth the word of life.”

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