And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.
Stone of stumbling ... - from Isaiah 8:14. Not merely they stumbled, in the sense that their prejudices were offended, but that they suffered the judicial punishment of their rejection of the Messiah: they hurt themselves in stumbling over the corner stone (cf. Jeremiah 13:16; Daniel 11:19).
At the word - join 'being disobedient to the word:' so 1 Peter 3:1; 1 Peter 4:17.
Whereunto - to penal stumbling; the judicial punishment of unbelief.
Also - an additional thought; not that God ordains to sin, but they are given up to "the fruit of their own ways" according to God's eternal counsel. The moral ordering of the world is altogether of God. God appoints the ungodly to be given up unto their own reprobate mind and its necessary penalty. Were appointed, х etetheesan (G5087)] - 'set,' answers to "I lay," 'set' (1 Peter 2:6). God is said to appoint Christ and the elect (directly). Unbelievers are appointed (God acting less directly in the appointment of the sinner's awful course) (Bengel). God ordains the wicked to punishment, not to crime (J. Cappel). "Appointed" (not here 'FORE-ordained') refers, not to God's eternal counsel so directly as to His penal justice. Through the same Christ whom sinners rejected, they shall be rejected; unlike believers, they are appointed unto wrath, as FITTED for it (Romans 9:22). The lost shall lay all the blame on their own perversity, not on God's decree; the saved shall ascribe all the merit to God's electing grace.