Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church Manhattan KS, 18 Feb. 2024
Translation: 1 Nevertheless, there were also false prophets among the people, as also among y’all there will be false teachers – those who will slip destructive heresies in, even denying the Master Who bought them, thus bringing upon themselves sudden destruction. And many will follow into their immoralities, on account of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. In greed they will also market themselves to y’all using plastic words, against whom the judgment from of old is not inactive, and their destruction is not dormant. For, since God did not spare – but rather dungeoned – angels in chains of gloom when they sinned (He committed them so they are kept-secure for judgment.), nor did He spare the ancient world, but rather protected the eight [under the name of] Noah the preacher of righteousness, after bringing on the flood upon the world of those who were ungodly, and He condemned to catastrophe the cities of Sodom and of Gomorrah, turning them to ash (thereby instituting an example of the things about to happen to the ungodly), yet rescued righteous Lot, who was overwhelmed by the lifestyle of those who were depraved in immorality (because while that righteous man was dwelling down among them, day by day, he was tormenting a righteous soul by seeing and by listening to unlawful exploits), the Lord knows how to rescue those who are godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous for the Day of Judgment when they will be punished.
This passage is an extended “If … Then” statement. In v.4, we have the “If” and the first of the three “If” statements. The “Then”comes in v.9.
All three “If” statements refer to actual historical events mentioned in the Bible:
God’s punishment of the demons who rebelled against Him,
God’s punishment of the corrupt world by a flood in Noah’s day,
and God’s punishment of the lawless immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire.
So the argument goes that if God could ensure just judgment in those three cases, then surely God can maintain justice today.
But even more than that, God not only punishes; He can also save. And if God could save Noah and Lot, then He can also save you!
Let’s look at the first exhibit of God’s judgment:
God “delivered/committed them to chains of gloomy darkness in the pit of hell so they are reserved/held/kept-secure for judgment.”
The Greek verb ταρταρώσας, translated “cast down to hell,” is found nowhere else in the Bible. It is related to the noun Tartarus, which, according to Greek mythology was the lowest part of hell.
Tartarus also appears a few times in the Greek O.T. denoting places so deep underwater or underground as to be inaccessible to mankind.
I suspect that the “bottomless pit” in the Apostle John’s book of Revelation might be the same thing as what Peter is talking about here.
As powerful as evil spirits are, God has demonstrated that He has the power to bring them to justice, although, for now, it seems He contains them in the spiritual equivalent of a jail.
The Present tense emphasizes that the incarceration of these demons is the present situation and that it is ongoing. They will continue to be kept secure for judgment, and when Judgment Day comes, they will not escape punishment.
Now the question is, what historical event is Peter describing?
There is only one other verse in the Greek Bible which associates “angels” with any of the punishments listed in this verse, and that is Jude 1:6 “...He [God] has been keeping in everlasting chains1 under gloom for the judgment of the Great Day the angels which did not keep their own principality but instead have left their proper home.” (NAW)
At some point in the created order, God made spirits called “angels.” Hebrews 1:6-7 says that God “makes His angels spirits and servants” and that when He brought Jesus “in to the world, He said, ‘Now, let all the angels of God worship Him!’” (NAW) As beings that were created by God, it was only proper for the angels to be in submission to God and to obey His authority.
But from the third chapter of Genesis on, we see some of these spirit-beings living in rebellion against God – working at cross-purposes to God’s design,
tempting Adam and Eve to disobey God,
hurting believers (like Satan did to Job)
and working to get believers to put their trust anywhere but in God (like when Satan moved King David to trust in his army instead of in God – 1 Chron. 21:1),
working to sift Christians (like Satan did to Peter trying to get him to deny Jesus forever –Luke 22:31),
and even trying to tempt Jesus away from His plan to save sinners (Mt. 4:10, 16:23).
The result is God’s condemnation of these evil spirits and the temporal punishments and restrictions placed on them:
Job 4:18 revealed that God “charged His angels with error” and 1 Tim. 3:6 mentions Christ’s “condemnation of Devil.”
Genesis 3:14-15 records God’s curse upon Serpent, showing mankind a type of God’s condemnation and temporal judgment upon Satan.
There was also the casting of Satan out of heaven to earth, and thence from earth to hell, mentioned in:
Isaiah 14:12-15 “How you are fallen from the heavens, Lucifer, son of Dawn! How you are felled to the earth, prostrator of nations! You! You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to the heavens... I will make myself like the Most High.' However, you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit [θεμέλια].” (NAW)
Luke 10:17-19 “...the seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.’ And He said to them, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents... and over all the power of the enemy…’” (NKJV)
Revelation 12:9-10 “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, ‘Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down…. 20:2-3 “He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit...” (NKJV)
1 John 3:8 says, “[T]he one who is committing the sin is out of the devil, because, from the beginning, the devil is sinning. Into this situation the son of God was revealed in order that He might destroy the works of the devil.” (NAW)
During His earthly ministry, Jesus indeed “destroyed the works of the Devil” by redeeming persons who were ensnared in sin and by casting out unclean spirits (called “demons” in the New Testament), bringing fresh torments to the demonic world, revealed in Jesus’ cryptic comment in Matthew 12:43 about how demons that are cast out of human hosts “wander through dry places seeking rest and finding none.”
Many who hold the a-millennial position on eschatology believe that the thousand years in which the Devil is contained in the “bottomless pit” of Revelation 20 are a description, parallel to 2 Peter 2, of this temporal condemnation and restriction of the Devil and his angels between the first and second comings of Christ.
But the Bible is clear that there will be a “great day” of judgment in the future in which Satan and demons are “handed” over from temporal bonds to eternal punishment.
Jude 1:6 mentions this, as does Peter in v.4.
But even in the first book of the New Testament, we see demons talking with dread about the coming of that Day when Jesus would make them “suffer”2, and we see Jesus speaking of the “eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).
Then, in the last book of the New Testament, we see the same Jesus with full power over Satan and his demons, binding them with chains and ultimately casting them into the lake of fire for eternal judgment: Revelation 20:1-10 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit [αβυσσου] and a great chain [αλυσιν] in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit... But after these things... The devil... was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” (NKJV)
(Half of the oldest-known manuscripts of 2 Peter 2:4 also have the word “tormented,” so you’ll see that word in the old Latin and Syriac Bibles, but not in the standard Greek Bibles.)
So the first example of God’s power to punish evil is seen in the spirit world. But what about the physical world? Does God have power to punish and save here too? Absolutely! This was illustrated in the worldwide flood in the year 2,349 BC3.
In Mathew 24:37-39 Jesus said what amounts to the same thing Peter is saying, that there is a real correspondence between the past judgment-event of Noah’s flood and the future judgment-event when Christ returns: both are initiated by God, not anticipated by man, global in scope, and absolutely devastating: “And just as the days of Noah were, so also the coming of the Son of Man will be, for [just] as, in the days before the flood, they were munching and drinking, getting married and marrying off – until that day Noah entered into the ark, and they did not understand until the flood4 came and took away absolutely all men, thus also will be the coming of the Son of Man.” (NAW)
Genesis 6-9 tells the original story: 6:6-9 “And the Lord God, having seen that the wicked actions of men were multiplied upon the earth, and that every one in his heart was intently brooding over evil continually... And God said, I will blot out man whom I have made from the face of the earth, even man with cattle, and reptiles with flying creatures of the sky, for I am grieved that I have made them. But Noe found grace before the Lord God… 7:1 And the Lord God said to Noe, Enter thou and all thy family into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. And of the clean cattle take in to thee sevens, male and female, and of the unclean cattle pairs male and female. And of clean flying creatures of the sky sevens, male and female, and of all unclean flying creatures pairs, male and female, to maintain seed on all the earth. For yet seven days having passed I bring rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will blot out every offspring which I have made from the face of all the earth. And Noe did all things whatever the Lord God commanded him. And Noe was six hundred years old when the flood of water was upon the earth. And then went in Noe and his sons and his wife, and his sons' wives with him into the ark, because of the water of the flood…. 23 And God blotted out every offspring which was upon the face of the earth, both man and beast, and reptiles, and birds of the sky, and they were blotted out from the earth, and Noe was left alone, and those with him in the ark… 9:28 And Noe lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.” (Brenton) And everyone alive today is a descendant of Noah and his three sons and their wives whom God protected in the ark and afterwards.
The participial phrase at the end of v. 5 about God “bringing down the flood” is in the Greek Aorist tense, adding the nuance that God’s preservation of Noah’s family lasted beyond the flood itself, enabling them to survive even after the flood and restart the world.
Peter also says that Noah was a “preacher of righteousness5.” Stringing together all that the various accounts in the Bible say about Noah and righteousness, we see,
from Genesis 6:8-9 that “Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD,” and so was “justified,” and in Genesis 7:1 that God “saw to it” that Noah would be “righteous.” God was the one who made Noah righteous, and it was by God’s grace that God made Noah right.
Hebrews 11:7 tells us more: “With faith, Noah, after being informed concerning the things which were not yet seen, taking good heed, constructed an ark for the purpose of saving his household, through which he condemned the world and became an inheritor of the righteousness according to faith.” (NAW)
Noah trusted God to make him right and was obedient to the commands God gave him regarding the way of salvation (the ark), and God gave him righteousness.
Noah understood enough of this to be able to preach a gospel message of salvation through faith in God’s justifying grace, as Peter told us in his first epistle: 1 Peter 3:19-20 “...He preached to… those who were un-persuaded then when the patience of God was waiting in Noah's days during the equipping of an ark, into which a few (that is, eight) souls were saved through water” (NAW) Noah didn’t manage to persuade anybody but his own family, so only his family was protected from the flood.
Noah’s power was limited, but God’s is unlimited. God could not only cast rebellious angels into a spiritual prison, He could also generate an earthly cataclysm to kill the entire population of the world because of their rebellion against Him, and not only that, God also had the power to preserve the lives of an entire family that He wanted to save through the midst of that deadly cataclysm. “He who keeps fire and water from hurting his people (Isa. 43:2) can make either to destroy his enemies.” ~Matthew Henry
Now, verses 6-8 give us a third and final example of God’s power to judge and to save, and that is in the ancient account of Lot from the city-state of Sodom.
This account is found in Genesis 19 “...angels hastened Lot, saying, ‘Arise and take thy wife, and thy two daughters whom thou hast, and go forth; lest thou also be destroyed with the iniquities of the city.’ And they [Lot’s family] were troubled [lingeredKJV, hesitatedNASB], and [so] the angels laid hold on his hand, and the hand of his wife, and the hands of his two daughters, in that the Lord spared him... And [then] the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. [Peter used the same Greek root of catastrophe as is found in the Greek versions of the Genesis account here.] And He overthrew [catastrophized/destroyed/extinguished] these cities, and all the country round about, and all that dwelt in the cities, and [even] the plants springing out of the ground.” (Genesis 19:15-16, 24-25 Brenton) Thus Peter says God “reduced them to ashes.”
It is important to note that this was not an incident of random bad luck for Sodom; 2 Peter 2:6 says it was God’s judicial “condemnation” of a people, and Genesis 18:20 says it was for “sin” which had become “extremely heavy.”
By enacting this judgment, God “made an example to those who afterward would live ungodly” or better, as the NIV and ESV translated it: “an example of the things about to happen to the ungodly.” This example is referred to again and again throughout the Bible:
Amos 4:11 “‘I overthrew some of you [Israelites], As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, And you were like a firebrand plucked from the burning; Yet you have not returned to Me,’ Says the LORD.” (NKJV)
Isaiah 1:9 “If Yahweh of Hosts had not left for us [Jews] a small remnant, we would have been like Sodom, we would be like unto Gomorrah.” (NAW, cf. Deut. 29:23, Rom. 9:29)
Isaiah 13:19 “And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendor and pomp of the Chaldeans, will be like God's overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.” (NAW)
Zephaniah 2:9 “‘Therefore, as I live,’ Says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Surely Moab shall be like Sodom, And the people of Ammon like Gomorrah Overrun with weeds and saltpits, And a perpetual desolation...’” (NKJV)
Matthew 10:15 Jesus told His disciples that if the Israelite cities they preached in would not listen to them, then “...it will be more tolerable in the land of Sodom and Gomorrah during judgment day than it will be in that city!” (NAW)
Then Jesus said of His own hometown in Matt. 11:23 “And you, Capernaum, you won't be lifted up to heaven will you? You will be brought down as low as Hell, because if the miracles which occurred in you had occurred in Sodom, it would have remained until today.” (NAW)
Then, of His second coming, Jesus said in Luke 17:28-30 “Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.” (NKJV)
Jude 1:7 “In similar manner to these [angels kept in everlasting chains], Sodom and Gomorra and the towns around them, after acting out sexual immorality and degradingly going off into abnormal physical relations, are laid out as an example, when they suffered the justice of eternal fire.” (NAW) This act of judgment still stands today as an example of what is about to happen, when Jesus returns, to everyone who doesn’t obey God.
And yet, in this act of catastrophic judgment, v.7 tells us that God also brought rescue to one man, Lot, and his family who were struggling with sin.
V. 7 says that Lot was “overwhelmed/vexed/oppressed/distressed by the lifestyle/conversation/conduct of the wicked/lawless/unprincipled men in [their] immorality/filth/sensuality.
For Lot and his family, seeing the sins of the people living all around them was like getting beat up (Acts 7:24) every day, and yet they couldn’t bring themselves to leave. You may feel the same way; reading the news of all the terrible things happening in the world makes my heart feel like it’s getting beat up.
In Psalm 119:136, David describes the same experience: “Rivers of water run down from my eyes, Because men do not keep Your law.” (NKJV)
Later on, Ezekiel 9:4 described the experience as “sigh[ing] and cry[ing] over all the abominations that are done within… the city” (NKJV), and he said God sees and blesses those who mourn over sin like that.
v.8 describes Lot’s experience of witnessing sinful deeds day after day as “tormenting/vexing/torturing” his own “soul.”
In Genesis 19:9, when Lot told his neighbors that he wasn’t going to let them mess with the angels who had come into his house, the Sodomites retorted, “Back off, Lot! You came here to be one of us; quit being so judgmental! Now we’re going to hurt you worse than we were going to hurt them!” And they piled on to Lot and tried to bash the door in.”6 Lot was living in a dangerous situation among such wicked men!
The New Testament book of Romans 1:28 describes the same kind of depravity in the Roman Empire as Lot experienced in the ancient world: “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting…” (NKJV)
And the same can be seen today in our world. Sin isn’t something to play around with. It’s not something you can keep nearby and not be burned by. Sin, when it is tolerated, callouses our consciences and leads to more-depraved sin.
(That’s why the David said in Psalm 101:3 “I will set nothing wicked before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; It shall not cling to me.” ~NKJV)
But notice that Peter calls Lot “righteous.” This is really hard to reconcile with
Lot’s greedy choice to edge his uncle Abraham out of the best pastureland,
and all the moral compromises Lot had to make to settle in Sodom,
and the ungodly character of his wife (who looked longingly back at Sodom after God told her not to and who got turned into a pillar of salt), the ungodly character of his children (considering their sexual perversion later on) and the ungodly character of his in-laws (who scoffed when Lot warned them of God’s impending judgment),
and then there was his cowardly permission to the Sodomites to abuse his own daughters the night the angels came to rescue him.
How can such a messy person be called “righteous”?
This requires us to consider “righteousness” in a different light than it is usually thought of in Pietistic circles.
Biblically speaking, “righteous” does not mean “having an awesome track record of doing good,” instead it means “made right by God” – it is not an earned credential; righteousness/justification is God’s gracious gift to sinners whom He loves:
Romans 5:8-9 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him… 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (NKJV) It is in this sense that we can say Lot was “righteous.”
The reason Lot was “righteous” was because God decided to make him righteous.
Before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham had haggled God down to committing that He would not destroy those cities if there were at least 10 “righteous” persons residing there (Gen. 18:32). But God found only four. Lot’s wife and daughters were not very Godly people, but God saved them because they were part of Lot’s household. God knew exactly who He wanted to save and “make right” with Him, so He personally went in to Sodom and rescued Lot and his family before laying waste to the rest of the population.
God gives His people the grace to recognize the sinfulness of sin and gives us the means to flee from sin (1 Cor. 10:13), but Christ will return “to execute justice against all men and to lay out a case against all the ungodly among them concerning all their works of ungodliness” (Jude 1:15, NAW).
But even those who, like Lot, find themselves floundering pitifully against sin in the midst of a depraved culture (cf. Ps. 120:5) – even these, according to 2 Peter 2:7-8, can be “saved” and made “righteous” by Christ!
Now, after these three examples of God’s just punishment and gracious salvation, we have the summary statement in v.9 that extrapolates God’s past examples with what we can continue to expect from God in the future:
God knows how to rescue the godly from temptation.
For what it’s worth, this isn’t saying that God will only rescue us once or twice and then no more after that. The idea is that God keeps His people from losing faith in Him whenever they face any temptation, however many temptations that may be.
We also see from the rest of Scripture that “rescuing from temptation” does not mean insulating you from ever experiencing hardships – I’m sure Lot would be quick to tell you that, even though he was rescued, his faith was stretched and it was a really traumatic experience!
It just means that God will make sure that you come through all your trials still trusting Jesus to make you right with God, even if it means He has to send an angel to grab your hand and get you moving in the right direction when you when you can’t seem to take the first step, like He did with Lot and his family. 2 Timothy 4:18 “And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom….” (NKJV)7
So don’t worry that the Christian life is ever going to get too hard for you8. God loves you so much that He actually wants you with Him in heaven, and so He is going to do whatever it takes to make sure you are successful in persevering in the faith so that you do get to heaven.
The Lord also knows how to handle ungodly folks with perfect justice and safety.
Wicked people certainly get to doing horribly-bad things to other people, and that can be scary for us, but believe God’s word, brothers and sisters, that those bad guys are all under limitations from a God who is much more powerful than them. The God who can put a lid on Satan can certainly “keep” evil men from getting out-of-control9.
And that God who had the power to punish all the evil in the world through Noah’s flood still has the power to punish all the evil in the world today.
The Greek participle at the end of v.9 translated “punish” gets translated two different ways in the English versions:
The NET Bible, following the King James interpreted it as a purpose statement “kept in order to be punished [for punishment] on Judgment Day,”
but it seems all the other contemporary English versions followed the old Geneva Bible, interpreting it as a description of the current circumstances: “keep under punishment [continuing their punishment now] until Judgment Day.”
Other passages which are more clear about the timing of things indicate that the divine punishment of the wicked will happen both during the intermediate state (between their death and the return of Christ to judge the earth) and also in the age to come (from Judgment Day10 forever into the future), for instance:
In Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man & Lazarus in Luke 1611, the ungodly man who died was tormented in flames before Judgment Day, because his brothers were still living on earth and unaware of the judgment yet to come.
And then in Jesus’ Judgment Day description in Matthew 25:46, after the judgment, those on His left “...will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous ones into eternal life!” (NAW, cf. Luke 3:17, Romans 2:5)
So, “Don’t be anxious about evil men….” (Psalm 37:1) God knows how to handle them safely, how to punish them fairly, and how to make everything right. So don’t you worry about what you can’t control. God’s got this, ok?
GNTA |
NAWB |
KJVC |
MurdockD (Peshitta) |
RheimsE (Vulgate) |
1 ᾿Εγένοντο δὲ καὶ ψευδοπροφῆταιF ἐν τῳ῀ λαῳ῀, ὡς καὶ ἐν ὑμῖν ἔσονταιG ψευδοδιδάσκαλοιH, οἵτινεςI παρεισάξουσινJ αἱρέσειςK ἀπωλείαςL, καὶM τὸν ἀγοράσανταN αὐτοὺς δεσπότηνO ἀρνούμενοιP, ἐπάγοντεςQ ἑαυτοῖς ταχινὴνR ἀπώλειαν· |
1 Nevertheless, there were also false prophets among the people, as also among y’all there will be false teachers – those who will slip destructive heresies in, even denying the Master Who bought them, thus bringing upon themselves sudden destruction. |
1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. |
1 But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there shall be among you lying teachers who shall X bring in sects of perdition and deny the Lord who bought them: bringing upon themselves swift destruction. |
1
But in the |
2̈ καὶ πολλοὶ ἐξακολουθήσουσινS αὐτῶν ταῖς ἀσελγείαιςT, δι᾿ οὓςU ἡ ὁδὸς τῆς ἀληθείας βλασφημηθήσεται· |
2 And many will follow into their immoralities, on account of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. |
2 And many shall follow X their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. |
2 And many shall follow X their riotousness, throughV whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. |
2 And many will go after X their profaneness; on account of whom, the way of truth will be reproached. |
3̈ καὶ ἐν πλεονεξίᾳW πλαστοῖςX λόγοις ὑμᾶς ἐμπορεύσονταιY, οἷς τὸ κρῖμα ἔκπαλαιZ οὐκ ἀργεῖAA, καὶ ἡ ἀπώλεια αὐτῶν οὐ νυστάζειAB. |
3 In greed they will also market themselves to y’all using plastic words, against whom the judgment from of old is not inactive, and their destruction is not dormant. |
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment [now] of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. |
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you. Whose judgment [now] of a long time lingereth not: and their perdition slumbereth not. |
3
And, in
the cupidity
of |
4̈ εἰAC γὰρ ὁ Θεὸς ἀγγέλωνAD ἁμαρτησάντωνAE οὐκ ἐφείσατο, ἀλλὰ σειραῖςAF ζόφουAG ταρταρώσαςAH παρέδωκεν εἰςAI κρίσιν τηρουμένουςAJ, |
4 For, since God did not spare – but rather dungeoned – angels in chains of gloom when they sinned (He committed them so they are kept-secure for judgment.), |
4 For if God spared not [the] angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, [and] delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; |
4
For if God spared not [the]
angels that sinned, but delivered
them, drawn
down by |
4 For, if God spared not [the] angels that sinned, but cast them down to the infernal regions in chains of darkness, and delivered them up to be kept unto the judgment [of torture], |
5̈ καὶ ἀρχαίου κόσμου οὐκ ἐφείσατο, ἀλλὰ ὄγδοονAK Νῶε δικαιοσύνης κήρυκα ἐφύλαξε, κατακλυσμὸνAL κόσμῳ ἀσεβῶν ἐπάξαςAM, |
5 nor did He spare the ancient world, but rather protected the eight [under the name of] Noah the preacher of righteousness, after bringing on the flood upon the world of those who were ungodly, |
5
And spared not the old
world, but |
5
And spared not the original
world, but preserved
Noe, the eighth person,
the preacher of |
5
and spared not the former
world, but preserved
Noah the eighth person,
a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world
of the |
6 καὶ πόλεις ΣοδόμωνAN καὶ Γομόρρας τεφρώσαςAO καταστροφῃ῀AP κατέκρινενAQ, ὑπόδειγμα μελλόντωνAR ἀσεβε[σ]ῖνAS τεθεικώςAT, |
6 and He condemned to catastrophe the cities of Sodom and of Gomorrah, turning them to ash (thereby instituting an example of the things about to happen to the ungodly), |
6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; |
6
And reducing
the cities of the Sodomites
and of the Gomorrhites
into ashes, condemned
them to
|
6
and
burned up the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah,
and condemned them by
an overthrow, making
[them]
a |
7̈ καὶ δίκαιον Λὼτ καταπονούμενονAU ὑπὸ τῆς τῶν ἀθέσμωνAV ἐν ἀσελγείᾳAW ἀναστροφῆςAX ἐρρύσατο· |
7 yet rescued righteous Lot, who was overwhelmed by the lifestyle of those who were depraved in immorality |
7
And delivered
just Lot, vexed
with the |
7
And delivered
just Lot, oppressed
by the injustice and |
7
and [also]
delivered righteous Lot, who was tormented
with the |
8̈ βλέμματι γὰρ καὶ ἀκοῃ῀ ὁ δίκαιος, ἐγκατοικῶνAY ἐν αὐτοῖς, ἡμέραν ἐξ ἡμέρας ψυχὴν δικαίαν ἀνόμοις ἔργοις ἐβασάνιζεν· |
8 (because while that righteous man was dwelling down among them, day by day, he was tormenting a righteous soul by seeing and by listening to unlawful exploits), |
8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day [to] day with their unlawful deeds;) |
8
For in sight and hearing he was X just,
dwelling among them [who]
from day [to]
day vexed
[the]
just soul with un |
8 for that upright man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing from day [to] day, [was] distressed [in his] righteous soul by [their] lawless deeds; |
9 οἶδε Κύριος εὐσεβεῖς ἐκ πειρασμοῦAZ ῥύεσθαι, ἀδίκους δὲ εἰς ἡμέραν κρίσεως κολαζομένουςBA τηρεῖν, |
9 the Lord knows how to rescue those who are godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous for the Day of Judgment when they will be punished. |
9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: |
9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly from temptation, but to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be tormented: |
9
the Lord knoweth how to rescue from afflictions
those who fear [him];
and he |
1δεσμοῖς a synonym for the word Peter used
2Matthew 8:29 “Did you come here before the appointed time to make us suffer?’” (NAW)
3According to Ussher’s chronology.
4Underlining shows where the LXX used the same Greek word roots found in 2 Peter 2. The name “Noah” is also in common, but I didn’t underline that.
5So did Josephus, about 30 years later when he wrote his Antiquities of the Jews (1.3.1).
6My paraphrase of Brenton’s version: “And they said to him, ‘Stand back there, thou camest in to sojourn, was it also to judge? Now then we would harm thee more than them.’ And they pressed hard on [παρεβιάζοντο] the man, even Lot, and they drew nigh to break the door.” (Brenton)
7Cf.
cf. Isaiah 46:4 “Even until old age I am He, and until gray hair I
myself will carry you. I, I made you, and I, I lift you up, and I, I
will carry, and I will deliver.” (NAW)
Hebrews 2:18 “for
He Himself has suffered, having been tested; by such means He is
able to come to the rescue with those who are being tempted.”
(NAW)
8Job
5:19 “He shall deliver you in six troubles, Yes, in seven no evil
shall touch you.” (NKJV)
Psalm 91:3 “Surely He shall
deliver you from the snare of the fowler And from the perilous
pestilence.” (NKJV)
Rev. 3:10 “Because you have kept My
command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial
which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on
the earth.” (NKJV)
9Job 21:30 “For the wicked are reserved for the day of doom; They shall be brought out on the day of wrath.” (NKJV)
10Heb. 9:27 “And furthermore, it is in store for humans to die only-once, and for there to be judgment after this” (NAW)
11Luke 16:24 “And he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’” (NKJV)
A1904 "Patriarchal" edition of the Greek Orthodox Church, as published by E-Sword in June 2016. Annotated by NAW where the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland GNT differs.
BNathan A Wilson’s translation
CKing James Version of the Holy Bible (a.k.a. Authorized Version), 1769 edition, as published by E-Sword in July 2019.
DTranslation of the Peshito Syriac New Testament into English by James Murdock. Published in 1851. Republished by E-sword in June 2016.
ERheims New Testament first published by the English College at Rheims, A.D. 1582, Revised by Bishop Richard Challoner, A.D. 1749-1752, as published by E-sword in June 2016.
FThis term “false-prophet” shows up in Zechariah 13:2 and Jeremiah 6:13; 33:7-16, and 34:9-36:8. In the NT, Jesus mentioned “false-prophets” in Matt. 7:15-17 and indicated that a proliferation of false prophets would be a “sign” of the “close of the age” before His “return” in Matt. 24:4-27 . Paul and Barnabas ran into a false prophet in Crete on their first missionary journey in Acts 13:6-11, and John mentioned how to identify false prophets in 1 John 4:1-3 and prophesied of the coming of a singular “false prophet” who will ultimately be cast into hell in Rev. 16:13, 19:20, and 20:10.
G“Peter
speaks of them as future, and Jude (Jude 1:4) as present.”
~Vincent
Gordon Clark theorized that if there were an initial
peaceful stage in church-planting without challenges from false
teachers yet, followed by the inevitable rise of false teachers,
this could explain the difference between Peter’s future tense and
Jude’s present tense.
D.F.
Zeller suggested that it was a “future of certainty” referring
to present conditions which should be taken for granted in the
future.
HHapex Legomenon. “The change in wording from pseudo prophetai to pseudo didaskaloi may indicate that prophets and apostles are on a level, but that teachers are on a lower level. At any rate, the Christian community of the second century, as well as the first, made a sharp distinction.” ~Gordon Clark
I“This indefinite relative pronoun is used qualitatively in order to bring out the characteristic, or the class of people to which these false teachers belonged.” ~D.F. Zeller
JHapex Legomenon. An adjectival form occurs once in Galatians 2:4, when Paul relates how “false brothers secretly brought in… came… that they might bring us into bondage” but “we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue…” (NKJV)
KFausset: “heresies — self-chosen doctrines, not emanating from God (compare “will-worship,” Col. 2:23).”
L“Descriptive genitive” ~A.T. Robertson. Regarding this “destruction,” cf. Phil. 1:27-28 & 3:8-9, 2 Thess. 2:1-4, and 2 Peter 3:15-18.
MLander tagged this conjunction as Louw & Nida semantic domain #89.93a “even, indeed (ascensive).” “Heresies” is plural, so the singular action of “denying Christ” seems to describe the worst of (or epitome of?) these heresies.
NJohn Gill, J.B. Mayor, and Gordon Clark postulated that this is referring to Yahweh who redeemed the Jews from slavery in Egypt rather than to Christ redeeming His elect by His blood on the cross. They argue that the absense of any other name for Christ but “despot” and the absense of anything else about the theology of redemption and the cross, and the presuppositions of the Jewish-background audience of Peter’s ministry would all support this interpretation. Gill and Clark were further motivated to by their reformed theology to avoid asserting that God had actually redeemed these false teachers, an assertion that A.T. Robertson didn’t hesitate to make. Problems with this position include the strong parallel with Jude which identifies the “despot” as “Jesus Christ” and the fact that nowhere in the Old Testament is this verb root used to referr to God’s redemption of the Jews from Egypt, whereas it is used to refer to the redemption of Christians by Jesus on the cross in four places in the New Testament (1 Cor. 6:20 & 7:23, and Rev. 5:9 & 14:3-4). John Calvin, Matthew Henry, Alford, Lenski, and D.F. Zeller interpreted it as Jesus’ redemption of Christians, and A.R. Fausset concurred, “The denial of His propitiatory sacrifice is included in the meaning (compare 1 Jn. 4:3).” Lenski and Alford used this as a platform to advocate universalism, whereas the others did not grapple with the problem of a redeemed person being a false teacher. The New Geneva Study Bible seems to offer the best solution that this is “describing the false teachers in terms of their own profession,” in other words, “the Master whom [they profess to have] bought them” - and, as such they should not be in rebellion against Him, but since their profession is fake, they are not actually redeemed but destined for perdition.
OAlthough uncommon as a designation for God, this term is used as such in the N.T. a few other times: Lk. 2:29, Acts 4:24, 2 Tim. 2:21, Jude 1:4, and Rev. 6:10. It matches the Accusative Masculine Singular substantive participle “the one who bought.”
PThis Present tense participle is epexegetical, explaining at least one (perhaps the worst) of the aforementioned heresies. It is the same verb Peter used to describe what the Jews did to Jesus in Acts 3:13. (See also: 2 Tim. 2:12, Titus 1:16, 1 John 2:22-23, Jude 1:4, Rev. 2:13 & 3:18.)
QThis Present tense participle denotes the result of the previous action. Fausset commented, “[C]ompare ‘God bringing in the flood upon the world,’ 2 Pet. 2:5. Man brings upon himself the vengeance which God brings upon him.”
RWhen
God’s “punishment” comes, it will be “swift” and
“destructive,” as we’ll see in chapter 3, but, as we will also
see in chapter 3, that “swiftness” does not necessarily
characterize the entire length of time between the commission of sin
and the judgment of it.
“Peter’s death is tachine;
the destruction of the false teachers is tachinen.
It seems to make little difference whether we translate it as
suddenly or swiftly.” ~G. Clark
SThis verb is used in the NT only in 2 Peter. Cf. 1:16 “... it was not after following sophisticated stories that we made [Christ] known to y'all...” and 2:15 “...following the way of Balaam…” In the LXX, it appears in Job 31:9; Amos 2:4; Isa. 56:11; Jer. 2:2; and Dan. 3:41, sometimes indicating faithfully “following” God, and sometimes indicating “following” ungodly influences into apostasy. The standard English versions are missing something by translating this word as simply “follow.”
TCf. Gal. 5:19, Eph. 4:17-19, 1 Peter 4:3-5, and Jude 1:4. Textus Receptus reads apwleiaiV (“destructions”), which is why the NKJV reads “destructive ways,” but there is no known Greek manuscript which contains that word. The word in all the Greek manuscripts is the alpha-privative of the Greek word for “continent.” But in both the Greek manuscripts and the T.R., this noun is Dative. It is appropriate to render the Dative case by the English preposition “into,” but no standard English translation does this, perhaps because, in almost every occurrence of this verb “follow” in the Greek Bible, the thing followed is in the Dative case (the exception being Dan. 3:41), so it is assumed by many that the verb requires the Dative case and that the Dative case therefore has no lexical meaning in this instance, but I am not convinced, nor was A.T. Robertson, who labelled this as an “Associative instrumental.”
UThe Greek is unclear whether this relative pronoun in the Accusative case (“whom”) relates to the Nominative (“many”) or to the Genitive “their” (presumably identical with the Nominative “pseudo-prophets” and “pseudo-didactics” in the previous verse). Calvin thought it was the former, but Fausset, ATR, Clark, Zeller, and I think the latter.
VThis Greek preposition indicates instrumentality (“through/by means of”) when its object is Genitive, but causality (“because/on account of”) when its object is Accusative, and the object is Accusative here.
WThe Dative case of this noun indicates the emotional state “in” which the false teachers exist and which motivates them to “market” falsehood (cf. Fausset & Vincent). It occurs again in v.14. This is in stark contrast to the ministry of the Biblical Apostles who upheld the value of Holy Scripture and operated under the authority of Christ and so were not greedy or man-centered. (1 Thess. 2:4-6 “But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness--God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ.” ~NKJV) This “covetous/greed” is the exact opposite of relying on God’s word according to Psalm 119:36 “Incline mine heart to thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.” (Brenton) Biblical prophets spoke out against covetousness in the leaders of their days (Jeremiah 22:17, Ezek. 22:27), and Jesus said, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” (Luke 12:15, NKJV) In Ephesians 4:1-19, the Apostle Paul adds, “...you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” (NKJV) That is life without the truth of the Bible or the divine authority of Christ.
XHapex
Legomenon. The tendency
for Secular
Humanists
to fabricate new vocabulary is an intriguing thesis. (c.f.
Orwell’s 1984)
“...not
necessarily ‘false’ words, but... words suited to their
objective – greed for money… [I]n the papyri and Josephus it is
used to refer to a forged document.” ~D.F. Zeller
YThis Greek word denotes “doing business/conducting trade/marketing,” and nowhere else in the Bible does it connote doing so dishonestly, as all the contemporary English versions imply here (Viz. Gen. 34:10, 21; 42:34; 2 Chr. 1:16; 9:14; Prov. 3:14; 31:14; Hos. 12:2; Amos 8:6; Ezek. 27:13, 21; Jas. 4:13. A noun form is in John 2:16 “...my Father’s house an emporium.”). This verb is in the middle voice, which would normally mean that they “market themselves.” Throughout the Biblical use of this verb, the things traded are marked with the Dative (or Genitive) case, whereas the persons with whom the trade is conducted are marked with the Accusative case; “y’all” here is accusative, so “y’all” are the ones to whom they are trying to “market themselves” (i.e. their false teachings).
ZThe only other occurrence of this word is in 3:5, where it describes the “being of the heavens.” Without the ek- prefix, the root refers to the “beginning” of things – as in creation in Isa. 37:26 & 48:5-7 (and probably Heb. 1:1), or to relatively “long ago” in Matt. 11:21 || Lk. 10:13 (“they would have repented long ago”), or to a “long duration” of time Mk. 15:44 (“has he been dead long?”). (See also 2 Cor. 12:19 & Jude 1:4). Fausset, Vincent, Clark, and Zeller advocated for “long ago” over “of long duration.”
AAThis verb is found nowhere else in the NT, but is in Ezr. 4:24, 2 Mac. 5:25, Eccl. 12:3, and Sir. 33:28, indicating people pausing an activity. The NIV is quite a stretch from this idea of “not suspending.”
ABCuriously, the majority of Greek manuscripts throw this word into the future tense (nustaxei), emphasizing the future-ness of the judgment, but all 5 of the oldest-known manuscripts, as well as a sizable minority of the Byzantine manuscripts, read Present tense (nustazei, matching the previous verb “is idle”), emphasizing the current-ness of the operations of God’s judgment. The latter is followed by both Critical GNT editions and Textus Receptus editions, as well as by the ancient Latin and Syriac versions and all the standard English versions (except for the NIV, which oddly rendered both verbs perfect tense). Greek Orthodox GNT editions are split between the two spellings. It is often paired with the verb for “sleep” coming after it, so it could indicate the early stages of falling asleep. It is also found in Matt. 25:5 and in the LXX 2 Sam. 4:6, Ps. 75:7, 120:3-4, Prov. 6:10, 24:33, Nah. 3:18, Isa. 5:27, 56:10, & Jer. 23:31.
ACThis is not a hypothetical “if,” since it refers to historical facts as the grounds for knowing what God will do. Thus ATR calls it a first class conditional, even though it is not a textbook example. (Normally a first class condition would use present indicatives but this uses aorists.) This extended conditional contains three protases, and the apodosis is in v.9.
ADThe
fact that “angels” has no definite article led ATR to believe it
was emphatic “even angels.”
What
historical event is Peter describing? This Greek noun could
mean “angels” or could mean human “messengers,” but nowhere
else in the Greek Bible is this noun
the subject of the verb “sin,” or the verb “delivered” or of the verb “Tartarized/cast into hell” (or even associated with “Tartarus/the depths”)
or the object of the verb “spare” (or “not spare” - although there are 3 instances of God sending “angels” to “spare” His people: Gen. 19:16-Lot, 2 Chr. 36:15; Isa. 63:9),
nor is it ever associated with the word for “chains” mentioned in this verse (although Jude 1:6 associates it with a synonym for this word for “chains”).
There is one (and only one) verse in the Greek Bible, however, which associates “angels” with the word for “darkness/gloom” as well as with God “keeping them for judgment,” and that is Jude 1:6 “...He [God] has been keeping in everlasting chains [δεσμοῖς] under gloom for the judgment of the Great Day the angels which did not keep their own principality but instead have left their proper home.” (NAW)
The fact that it would be hard to understand this verse in 2 Peter without the book of Jude to explain it is a point in favor of Jude being written first and Peter alluding to Jude here.
AEThe contemporary English versions translate this participle temporally “when they sinned,” while the older versions translate it adjectivally “who/that sinned.” D.F. Zeller commented that “it is probably best to consider it as both [temporal and adjectival].”
AFThis noun occurs only two other places in the Greek Bible: in Judges 16:13-19 (Describing the seven ‘locks’ of Sampson’s hair) and in Prov. 5:22 (describing the way sin ‘binds up’ the wicked). The NASB (followed by the NLT) decided to use the odd spelling of a single Greek manuscript (Sinaiticus, the curators of which recognized that the original word was misspelled and corrected it in the margin to the root found in all other Greek manuscripts, two of which are older than Sinaiticus) and identified it with a Greek word used nowhere else in the Bible (“σιρός ... a pit for grain storage” ~NASEC). The parallel passage in Jude, however, uses a synonym for “chains,” not “pits,” and nowhere in the Bible is the place of the dead a plurality (as in “pits”), whereas “chains” are naturally plural. D. F. Zeller left his usual deference to the UBS to support “chains.”
AGcf. Jude 1:6 where this “gloomy darkness” is part of the punishment of rebellious angels, and Jude 1:12-13 (|| 2 Pet. 2:17) where this is part of the punishment for wicked men.
AHHapex Legomenon. A cognate noun appears 3 times in the Greek O.T. (Prov. 30:16; Job 40:20; 41:24) seeming to denote places so deep underwater or underground as to be inaccessible to mankind, but accessible to mysterious creatures. D. F. Zeller labeled it as “almost an apposition clause to… ‘delivered (them) over to the gloomy darkness.’”
AILander chose Louw & Nida semantic domain #89.57 (“intent... expected result - 'for the purpose of, in order to.'), and most English versions were thinking along the same lines when they rendered this preposition “for” or “unto.” The ESV, NET, and NLT, however, rendered it temporally “until,” which is the second meaning for this word listed in Arndt & Gingrich’s Greek lexicon.
AJHalf of the oldest-known manuscripts add the word “be punished/tortured” which made it into the Vulgate and Peshitta, but not into the popular Greek editions. The Textus Receptus turns the present tense spelling into a perfect tense (tethrhmenouV), which makes slightly clearer sense historically (“they have been kept” rather than “they are being kept”), but is not supported by any known Greek manuscripts, and the KJV & NKJV which followed the T.R. didn’t even give it a perfect tense translation. The Present tense emphasizes that the incarceration of these demons is the present situation and that it is ongoing. Most English versions translated this participle with an English infinitive, but the participle denotes the purpose for which God delivered/committed the demons: so that they will be kept secure for judgment.
AKThe spelling of this word is ordinal, so it is literally “eighth,” the previous seven (Noah’s wife, three sons, and their wives) going unnamed. It is lost on me why the NASB, NIV, and ESV should think that changing the number to “seven” and adding the word “others” is any more accurate a translation than the old versions (“the eighth person”). Lightfoot wrote of another possible interpretation: “Noah, the eighth preacher of righteousness,” calculating from Enos, but why would Enos be the starting point? And, since the Bible doesn’t associate any form of the word for “righteousness” with any of Noah’s ancestors, what basis is there to assume they were all “preachers of righteousness”?
ALThe is the word the LXX uses for Noah’s “flood” in Gen. 6-9.
AMThe Aorist tense of this participle denotes that the flood came on before God’s guardianship of the eight, however, all the English versions translate this participle as though it were in present tense and happened only during the flood. This is only a minor point, but the Greek Aorist adds the consideration that God’s preservation of the eight lasted beyond the flood itself so that they could survive and repopulate the world.
ANMoule, ATR, and Wallace all considered “of Sodom” and “of Gomorrah” to be “genitives of apposition,” identifying what was meant by “cities,” but, as ATR admitted, they could just as well be genitives of possession, because there were cities or suburbs surrounding these capitols which were part of their political body.
AOApocryphal instances make clear that this has to do with “ash” but this root appears nowhere else in the Greek Bible. I think many translators chose to pair it with the word “turn” because “στροφη/turn” is part of the following word (“catastrophe”). DFZ believed that the root not only contained the idea of “ash” but also of “covering with ash,” however, he didn’t explain why, and I found no other source confirming him. The Aorist tense could mean that God prepared ashes to be the means of destruction before the condemnation.
APLit. “downturn” This is transliterated “catastrophe,” and it is the word used of God’s destruction of those cities by fire and brimstone in the LXX (Genesis 19:28-29 “And he looked towards Sodom and Gomorrha, and towards the surrounding country, and saw, and behold a flame went up from the earth, as the smoke of a furnace. And it came to pass that when God destroyed [ἐκτρῖψαι] all the cities of the region round about, God remembered Abraam, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when the Lord overthrew those cities in which Lot dwelt.” ~Brenton) The word is often translated “overthrow” in the Bible, although it shouldn’t be conceived of here in terms of one human agency overthrowing another, but of God wiping out a people whose wickedness could no longer be tolerated (and who were utterly unresponsive to warning or grace). About half of the oldest-known Greek manuscripts do not have the word, but the word was carried through into the Vulgate and Peshitta and into the overwhelming majority of later manuscripts and therefore into both the traditional and (most of the) critical editions. Its omission does not damage the overall meaning, since “condemned, burning to ashes” is not significantly different from “condemned to catastrophe, burning to ashes.” The KJV translated the Dative case of this word with the English word “with,” whereas the contemporary versions translated the Dative case with the English word “to,” the ESV following what Turner suggested in 1963 in his Grammar, “to extinction.”
AQThis is the main verb of Peter’s third instance of God’s judgment: “God did not spare…. Nor did He spare… He also condemned…,” and there are two participles dependent on this main verb: “turning to ash,” and “having set an example.”
ARThe Genitive case of this participle should be more naturally translated “of” than “to,” predisposing the meaning to “of the things about to happen” (NIV, ESV) rather than “to the men about to come” (Alford, NKJV, NASB). The root meaning has to do with what is “impending,” not what is “after.” ATR and DFZ agreed.
ASAbout 10 Greek manuscripts, including a couple of the oldest-known ones, insert a sigma into the ending, transforming the infinitive (“to be ungodly”) into a dative noun (“to the ungodly men”), which makes good sense, and was followed by the ancient Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian versions as well as most contemporary critical Greek editions. The infinitive spelling in the majority of Greek manuscripts (as well as the Textus Receptus and Greek Orthodox editions and the ancient Latin versions) seems odd as a verb, but could be interpreted as a substantive infinitive, meaning the same as the noun form, so the variants aren’t substantially different.
ATThe perfect tense of this participle is hard to translate. The NASB and NET are the only English versions I found which actually translated it (“having made [them] an example”). The idea is that at the time of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, God set up an example of judgment which still stands as an example in the present.
AUOnly here and Acts 7:24 (describing a Hebrew slave being mercilessly beaten by an Egyptian) but also in 3 Maccabees 2:2&13. I wonder if this might correlate with παρεβιάζοντο in the LXX of Genesis 19:9. The “righteousness” of Lot and his being “tormented” by the sins of Sodom are hard to reconcile with his greedy choice to edge his uncle Abraham out of the best pastureland, the compromises he made to live in Sodom, the ungodly character of his wife and children and in-laws, and his cowardly permission to the Sodomites to abuse his daughters. But the reason Lot was “righteous” was because God decided to make Abraham righteous, and so everyone in Abraham’s household was holy, from the hundreds of foreign slaves Abraham retained, to his children, to his nephew Lot who lived with him for a time. Before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham had haggled God down to committing not to destroy those cities if there were at least 10 “righteous” persons residing there (Gen. 18:32).
AVRare alpha-privative of tithemi (“not positioned” or “dis-oriented” or “de-ranged”) only here and 3:17, where it is also translated “wicked/unprincipled/lawless.” (It’s also in 3 Macc. 5:12.) It reminds me of Rom. 1:28 and Psalm 81:11-12. In Greek, the prepositional phrase “by their conduct” is interrupted by the two prepositional phrases “of the unprincipled/lawless men” and “in sensuality/immorality,” so “in sensuality/filthy” is grouped together with “of unprincipled/lawless/wicked men” and together, the phrases “of those who are disoriented/lawless in sensuality/immorality” then describes what kind of “conduct” was “distressing/oppressing/vexing” Lot.
AWcf. v.2, where the KJV, NKJV, NIV, Murdock, & Rheims all translated it differently. Here, it is a prepositional phrase “in licentiousness,” but all standard English versions translated it as an adverb, which is a legitimate possibility, but curious that this less-usual way of translating it would be unanimous.
AXLit. “upturn” Even if you count Hebrews under Paul’s writings, Peter still uses this word twice as many times, more than any other Biblical author (1 Pet. 1:15, 18; 2:12; 3:1-2, 16; 2 Pet. 2:7; 3:11). It denotes one’s lifestyle and its outcome.
AYHapex Legomenon. The egkata- prefix means “in,” so it emphasizes “making your home among.” DFZ noted, “...Lot was living there as a resident, not just a temporary visitor,” and added, “Here is another participle which can be described as having both a temporal and adjectival emphasis.”
AZ10 Greek manuscripts (the oldest being Sinaiticus) spelled “temptations” plural, and the KJV/NKJV, followed by Scrivener’s and Tischendorf’s editions of the Greek New Testament, followed by the NIV, NET, ESV, and NLT all render “temptations” plural. However, the majority of Greek manuscripts (including P72, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, and Ephraemi Rescriptus) all spell “temptation” singular, and the editions of the GNT which follow the majority text are the Textus Receptus, Patristic and contemporary Greek Orthodox, Westcott-Hort, Nestle-Aland, Tregelles, and UBS. Among the versions, the ancient Latin Vulgate, the Geneva Bible, and the ASV/NASB kept it singular. There is no significant difference in meaning, for in the whole counsel of Scripture, it is never suggested that God will only rescue us once or twice – or three times but then no more after that. The idea is that God keeps his people from losing faith in Him whenever they face any temptation, however many temptations that may be. We also see from the rest of Scripture that “rescuing from temptation” does not mean protecting you from ever experiencing hardships.
BAThis word only occurs here and Acts 4:21 in the Greek Bible, but there are 21 more instances in the Apocrypha. English versions interpret the participial form in two different ways: (1) Calvin, KJV, NET, Rheims, and Murdock interpreted it as purposive: “kept in order to be punished on Judgment Day,” (2) The Geneva Bible, Vincent, NKJV, NASB, NIV, ESV, and NLT interpreted it as descriptive of the circumstances of the main verb: “keep under punishment until Judgment Day,” implying that God punishes before He judges. Of those two options, the former makes better sense to me, but I would suggest that yet another interpretation could be made which is temporal, the present tense of the participle making it contemporary to the event described in the phrase immediately prior to it, namely Judgment Day, thus punishment starting on the day the judgment comes down, although this does not preclude punishment coming before the event as well. DFZ was the only commentator I found to say anything about this, and what he said was, “...where they go first is only temporary… incarceration awaiting the final sentencing which is described in Rev. 20:10, and there is some degree of punishment as they wait for the judgment.”