Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Peter 2:10

"who in time past were no people, but now are the people of God: who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." — 1 Peter 2:10 (ASV)

Which in time past were not a people.—Some say that here, at last, we have distinct proof that the Epistle was written to the Gentiles only, or at least, to churches that contained a very small proportion of Jews. Such, however, is by no means the case; in fact, the opposite is true. We have here an emphasized adaptation of Hosea 2:23: And I will have mercy upon Lo-ruhamah, and I will say to Lo-ammi, ‘Thou art Ammi,’ i.e., My people.

Now who were Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi? They were types of Israel left unpitied and rejected from their covenant with God. And this unpitied and rejected Israel, after being “scattered,” or sown, all over the earth, was to be restored again to favor, together with the increment of the Gentiles who joined them as the result of the “sowing.”

St. Peter means, then, that this promise given by Hosea had found its fulfillment in his Hebrew readers and the brethren from among the Gentiles, who by the gospel of St. Paul had adhered to them. But, as usual, the quotation demands a more searching scrutiny of the context from which it is taken. The name Diaspora, or Dispersion, by which St. Peter, in 1 Peter 1:1, designates those to whom he writes, was applied by the Jews to themselves in direct allusion (as seems probable) to the name Jezreel, or God will scatter, in Hosea 1:4.

Now note that St. Peter does not say “which in time past were not God’s people,” but were not a people. This was the effect of the dispersion, or “scattering.” Though each Jew of the dispersion retained, and still retains, in isolation, his national characteristics and aspirations, yet their unity—that which made them a “people”—was, and is, temporarily broken. The Hebrews had not only ceased to be in covenant as “God’s people,” but had ceased to be “a people” at all. But in Christ, that very “scattering” becomes a “sowing” (Hosea 2:23), as the name Jezreel means both equally. Their very dispersion becomes the means of their multiplication by union with the Gentiles in Christ. Thus, spiritually, they recover the lost unity and become once more a solid and well-governed confederation: i.e., “a people,” and that “the people of God.” (See John 11:52, and Dr. Pusey’s notes on Hosea.)

It is a mistake to take St. Paul’s quotation of this passage in Romans 9:26 as if it referred solely to the Gentiles, for he expressly affirms that the title “My people” belongs to neither section exclusively, but to both in reunion—us whom He called, not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles.