And account; reckon with yourselves, and be confidently persuaded; or take for granted. The longsuffering of our Lord; viz. in his not yet coming to judgment, and bearing with so much sin in the world without presently punishing it. Is salvation; i.e. tends or conduceth to salvation, in that hereby he gives space for repentance to the elect unconverted, and alloweth time for the building up and perfecting those that are converted, 2 Peter 3:9. Even as our beloved brother Paul; not only brother in Christ, as a saint, but in office, as an apostle. According to the wisdom given unto him; that eminent and profound knowledge in the mysteries of the gospel in which Paul did excel, 1 Corinthians 2:6,7 Ephesians 3:3,4. Peter makes such honourable mention of Paul:
1. That he might commend to the Jewish Christians the doctrine Paul had preached, though a minister of the uncircumcision;
2. To show that he had nothing the worse thoughts of him for being so sharply reproved by him, Galatians 2:1-21; and:
3. That he might arm the saints against those heretics that abused Paul's writings, and wrested them to their own meaning, probably, to patronize their errors. Hath written unto you; unto you Jewish believers, viz. either:
1. In his Epistle to the Romans, Romans 2:4, where is a passage very like this: or:
2. In his Epistle to the Hebrews, which, though it were not entitled to the Jews of the dispersion, yet was written to their nation; and in that Epistle several places there are of the same purport with this here; \see Hebrews 9:28, Hebrews 10:23,25,36,37\ and other Epistle of Paul to the Jews we have none: and in this he shows much of that wisdom God gave him in the mystery of the gospel; and in this likewise are many things hard to be understood.