2Pe 2:4, Jude 6 | JFB | STEP | 4. if-- The apodosis or consequent member of the sentence is not expressed, but is virtually contained in . If God in past time has punished the ungodly and saved His people, He will be sure to do so also in our days (compare end of ). angels-- the highest of intelligent creatures (compare with this verse, Jude 6), yet not spared when they sinned. hell-- Greek, "Tartarus": nowhere else in New Testament or the Septuagint: equivalent to the usual Greek, "Gehenna." Not inconsistent with ; for though their final doom is hell, yet for a time they are permitted to roam beyond it in "the darkness of this world." Slaves of Tartarus (called "the abyss," or "deep," ; "the bottomless pit," ) may also come upon earth. Step by step they are given to Tartarus, until at last they shall be wholly bound to it. delivered-- as the judge delivers the condemned prisoner to the officers ( ). into chains-- (Jude 6). The oldest manuscripts read, "dens," as Alford translates: the Greek, however, may, in Hellenistic Greek, mean "chains," as Jude expresses it. They are "reserved" unto hell's "mist of darkness" as their final "judgment" or doom, and meanwhile their exclusion from the light of heaven is begun. So the ungodly were considered as virtually "in prison," though at large on the earth, from the moment that God's sentence went forth, though not executed till one hundred twenty years after.

‏ 2 Peter 2:4

4. if--The apodosis or consequent member of the sentence is not expressed, but is virtually contained in 2Pe 2:9. If God in past time has punished the ungodly and saved His people, He will be sure to do so also in our days (compare end of 2Pe 2:3).

angels--the highest of intelligent creatures (compare with this verse, Jude 6), yet not spared when they sinned.

hell--Greek, "Tartarus": nowhere else in New Testament or the Septuagint: equivalent to the usual Greek, "Gehenna." Not inconsistent with 1Pe 5:8; for though their final doom is hell, yet for a time they are permitted to roam beyond it in "the darkness of this world." Slaves of Tartarus (called "the abyss," or "deep," Lu 8:31; "the bottomless pit," Re 9:11) may also come upon earth. Step by step they are given to Tartarus, until at last they shall be wholly bound to it.

delivered--as the judge delivers the condemned prisoner to the officers (Re 20:2).

into chains--(Jude 6). The oldest manuscripts read, "dens," as Alford translates: the Greek, however, may, in Hellenistic Greek, mean "chains," as Jude expresses it. They are "reserved" unto hell's "mist of darkness" as their final "judgment" or doom, and meanwhile their exclusion from the light of heaven is begun. So the ungodly were considered as virtually "in prison," though at large on the earth, from the moment that God's sentence went forth, though not executed till one hundred twenty years after.

‏ Jude 6

6. (2Pe 2:4.)

kept not their first estate--Vulgate translates, "their own principality," which the fact of angels being elsewhere called "principalities," favors: "their own" implies that, instead of being content with the dignity once for all assigned to them under the Son of God, they aspired higher. Alford thinks the narrative in Ge 6:2 is alluded to, not the fall of the devil and his angels, as he thinks "giving themselves over to fornication" (Jude 7) proves; compare Greek, "in like manner to these," namely, to the angels (Jude 6). It seems to me more natural to take "sons of God" (Ge 6:2) of the Sethites, than of angels, who, as "spirits," do not seem capable of carnal connection. The parallel, 2Pe 2:4, plainly refers to the fall of the apostate angels. And "in like manner to these," Jude 7, refers to the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, "the cities about them" sinning "in like manner" as "they" did [Estius and Calvin]. Even if Greek "these," Jude 7, refer to the angels, the sense of "in like manner as these" will be, not that the angels carnally fornicated with the daughters of men, but that their ambition, whereby their affections went away from God and they fell, is in God's view a sin of like kind spiritually as Sodom's going away from God's order of nature after strange flesh; the sin of the apostate angels after their kind is analogous to that of the human Sodomites after their kind. Compare the somewhat similar spiritual connection of whoremongers and covetousness. The apocryphal book of Enoch interprets Ge 6:2 as Alford. But though Jude accords with it in some particulars, it does not follow that he accords with it in all. The Hebrews name the fallen angels Aza and Azael.

left--on their own accord.

their own--Greek, "their proper."

habitation--heaven, all bright and glorious, as opposed to the "darkness" to which they now are doomed. Their ambitious designs seem to have had a peculiar connection with this earth, of which Satan before his fall may have been God's vicegerent, whence arises his subsequent connection with it as first the Tempter, then "the prince of this world."

reserved--As the Greek is the same, and there is an evident reference to their having "kept not their first estate," translate, "He hath kept." Probably what is meant is, He hath kept them in His purpose; that is their sure doom; moreover, as yet, Satan and his demons roam at large on the earth. An earnest of their doom is their having been cast out of heaven, being already restricted to "the darkness of this present world," the "air" that surrounds the earth, their peculiar element now. They lurk in places of gloom and death, looking forward with agonizing fear to their final torment in the bottomless pit. He means not literal chains and darkness, but figurative in this present world where, with restricted powers and liberties, shut out from heaven, they, like condemned prisoners, await their doom.