I will take you to me for a people. — Comp. Exodus 19:5-6; Deuteronomy 7:6. The selection of Israel as a “peculiar people” did not involve the abandonment of all other nations, as we see by the instances of Balaam, Ruth, Job, Nebuchadnezzar, Darius the Mede, Cyrus, and others. God always continued to “govern all the nations upon the earth” (Psalms 67:4); and “in every nation those that feared him and worked righteousness” were accepted with him (Acts 10:35). The centurion of the Gospels (Matthew 8:5-13; Luke 7:2-10) and Cornelius in the Acts (Acts 10:1-33) carry the same principle into Gospel times.
I will be to you a God. — See Genesis 17:8.