2 Peter 3:8 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

One day is with the Lord, &c.— "I have taken notice, that the scoffers are voluntarily ignorant of, or inattentive to these things. But as to the distance of time, with which they insult you, be not you ignorant of, or inattentive to this one thing; namely, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.It makes no differencewith God, whether the thing which he has engaged to do is to be performed now, or a thousand years hence: he will as certainly and punctuallyaccomplish it; and time makes no alteration, as to his wisdom, goodness, power, or veracity." This was a proverbial expression among the Jews, (see Psalms 90:4. Sir 18:9, &c.) and was plainly intended to signify, that no finite duration bears any proportion to the eternity of God. Plutarch has a passage exactly parallel to it, in his discourse "On the Slowness of the divine vengeance." It may be proper just to observe further, that if St. Peter had been speaking here, as some suppose, of the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened within three years, it is not likely that he would have talked of a thousand years. The most natural answer to the scoffers, if they had inquired about that event, would have been, "It is just at hand; the Jewish war is broke out; and by many of the signs and forerunners of it, you may be sure that the desolation thereof draweth near."