---
title: Exodus 19:6
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/exodus-19-6/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/exodus-19-6.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Exodus 19:6
testament: OT
section: Law
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Exodus 19:6

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> And unto Me you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to speak to the Israelites.”

## JW Usage

JWs acknowledge Exodus 19:6 — "you will become to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" — as a corporate description of national Israel's relation to God. Its New Testament echo in 1 Peter 2:9 is read as applying specifically to the 144,000 anointed, not to the whole church. The Great Crowd is seen as the modern equivalent of "the people" whom the priests serve, not as priests themselves.

## Protestant Usage

Exodus 19:6 describes *every Israelite* — not a sub-set — as part of "a kingdom of priests." The whole nation stood in that priestly identity before God. Peter deliberately reuses that language for the whole church in 1 Peter 2:9: "you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for special possession." Peter writes to "the temporary residents scattered about in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia" (1 Peter 1:1) — all the Christians of five Roman provinces, tens of thousands of people. If only 144,000 can be priests, the 144,000 were nearly full by AD 65 when Peter wrote, long before most of the New Testament was finished. Revelation 5:9-10 settles the matter: Christ "bought people of every tribe and tongue and people and nation" (the same phrase the Watchtower uses for the Great Crowd in Revelation 7:9) and "made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God." The priesthood is universal — the Old Testament pattern amplified in Christ, not narrowed.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [A Royal Priesthood — Every Believer is a Priest](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/universal-priesthood-1peter29.md) — 1 Peter 2:9 / Revelation 1:6 / 5:10 — The end of mediating classes [Authority]