The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you,.... He had done both, and the one as the effect and evidence of the other; he loved them, and therefore he chose them; but neither of them,
because ye were more in number than any people; not for the quantity of them, nor even for the quality of them:
for ye were the fewest of all people; fewer than the Egyptians, from whence they came, and than the Canaanites they were going to drive out and inherit their land, Deuteronomy 7:1. Those whom God has loved with an everlasting love, and as a fruit of it has chosen them in Christ before the world began to grace and glory, holiness and happiness, are but a small number, a little flock; though many are called, few are chosen; nor are they better than others, being by nature children of wrath even as others, and as to their outward circumstances the poor of this world.