(7) 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" (Psalm 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.

Verses 7, 8. - The promises are continued, heaped one upon another.

1. God will take them for his own people.

2. He will be, in a special sense, their God.

3. They shall clearly know that it is he who brings them forth out of Egypt.

4. They shall be brought into the promised land.

5. The land shall be made over to them, and become their own inheritance.

The Israelites were formally taken to be God's people at Sinai (Exodus 19:5, 6); where, at the same time, he became (specially but not exclusively) their God (Exodus 20:1; Exodus 29:45, 40). They had evidence that it was he who brought them forth in the pillar of fire and of a cloud (Exodus 13:21; Exodus 14:19, 20, etc.). They were brought into the promised land by Joshua (Joshua 4:1), and given the full possession of it by him and his successors - the various judges and kings, until at last, under David and Solomon, they held the entire tract that had been promised to Abraham (see 1 Kings 4:21; 2 Chronicles 9:26).

6:1-9 We are most likely to prosper in attempts to glorify God, and to be useful to men, when we learn by experience that we can do nothing of ourselves; when our whole dependence is placed on him, and our only expectation is from him. Moses had been expecting what God would do; but now he shall see what he will do. God would now be known by his name Jehovah, that is, a God performing what he had promised, and finishing his own work. God intended their happiness: I will take you to me for a people, a peculiar people, and I will be to you a God. More than this we need not ask, we cannot have, to make us happy. He intended his own glory: Ye shall know that I am the Lord. These good words, and comfortable words, should have revived the drooping Israelites, and have made them forget their misery; but they were so taken up with their troubles, that they did not heed God's promises. By indulging discontent and fretfulness, we deprive ourselves of the comfort we might have, both from God's word and from his providence, and go comfortless.And I will take you to me for a people,.... Out of the hands of the Egyptians, and out of their country, to be in a political sense his kingdom and subjects; and in a religious sense a holy people to himself, to fear, serve, worship, and glorify him, by walking according to laws and rules given them by him; and this he did by setting up and establishing a civil and ecclesiastical polity among them:

and I will be to you a God; their King and their God to rule over them, protect and defend them, they being a theocracy; and their covenant God and Father, giving them various spiritual privileges, the adoption, the glory, the covenant, the law, service, and promises:

and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God; by the promises fulfilled, the favours granted, and the deliverances wrought for them:

which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians; see the preceding verse Exodus 6:6.