The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 19:5

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Now therefore. Instead of asking the simple question—"Will ye promise to obey me and keep my covenant.—God graciously entices the Israelites to their own advantage by a most loving promise. If they will agree to obey his voice, and accept and keep his covenant, then they shall be to him a peculiar treasure (segullah)—a precious possession to be esteemed highly and carefully guarded from all that might injure it.

(Compare Psalms 135:4; and see also Isaiah 43:1-4.) and this preciousness they shall not share with others on equal terms, but enjoy exclusively—it shall be theirs above all people. No other nation on the earth shall hold the position which they shall hold, or be equally precious in God's sight.

All the earth is his: and so all nations are his in a certain sense. But this shall not interfere with the special Israelite prerogative they alone shall be his "peculiar people" (Deuteronomy 14:2).

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