And shall not God avenge his own elect
Who are a select number, a special people, whom he has loved with
an everlasting love, so as of his own sovereign good will and
pleasure to choose in his Son Jesus Christ unto everlasting life
and salvation, through certain ways and means of his own
appointing, hence they are peculiarly his: and these he will
avenge and vindicate, right their wrongs, do them justice, and
deliver them from their adversaries, and take vengeance on them;
as may be concluded from his hatred of sin, his justice, and his
holiness, from his promises, and from his power, and from the
efficacy of prayer, and the regard he has to it: for it follows,
which cry unto him day and night;
whose prayers he always hears; whose tears he puts up in his
bottle; and whose importunity must surely be thought to have more
regard with him, than that of the poor widow with the unjust
judge:
though he bear long with them?
either with their adversaries, their oppressors, and persecutors,
who are vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction, whom he endures
with much longsuffering, till the sufferings of his people are
accomplished, and the iniquities of these men are full; or rather
with the elect, for the words may be rendered, "and is
longsuffering towards them": delays his coming, and the execution
of vengeance, as on the Jewish nation, so upon the whole world of
the ungodly, till his elect are gathered in from among them; see
( 2 Peter
3:9 ) .