The Teachers Who Sell What They Deny

“Heresies” is haireseis, originally choices, then schools or parties, as in “the sect of the Sadducees” (Acts 5:17); here it takes on the sense of teaching that divides. “Lord” is despotes, the ordinary word for a slave’s owner. “Damnable” and “destruction” translate the same noun, apoleia, which comes three times in the first three verses.

Early believers called their faith “the Way” (Acts 9:2, 24:14), and this chapter uses the word four times: the way of truth, the right way, the way of Balaam, the way of righteousness. For “pernicious ways” the oldest manuscripts read “their licentiousness”, aselgeia. The complaint echoes Isaiah 52:5, God’s name blasphemed because of his own people.

“Feigned” is plastos, moulded, from the verb for shaping clay: words formed to fit the customer. “Covetousness” is pleonexia, the appetite for more. “Of a long time” is ekpalai, from long ago; the verdict on such teachers was pronounced in the past and has simply been waiting.

The manuscripts divide over one letter: some read “chains” of darkness, seirais, and others “pits”, sirois, the underground pits used to store grain. In 1 Enoch 10:4–6 the angel Azazel is bound hand and foot and thrown into darkness until the great day. “Reserved” is tereo, to keep under guard, a verb that recurs through this chapter and the next.

“The flood” is kataklysmos, the source of “cataclysm”. Genesis 6:11 describes the old world as “filled with violence”. “Saved” is phylasso, to guard, so the angels are kept under guard for judgment while Noah is kept under guard for life: the same idea of custody, pointed in opposite directions.

“Turning into ashes” is tephroo, found only here in the New Testament, a verb Greek writers used of ground covered by volcanic ash. Genesis 19:28 records Abraham looking toward the plain and seeing the smoke go up “as the smoke of a furnace”, and Deuteronomy 29:23 remembers a land of “brimstone, and salt, and burning”.

“Vexed” here is kataponeo, to wear down or oppress, the word used of the Israelite Moses saw being beaten (Acts 7:24). “The wicked” is athesmoi, people with no settled law or custom, a word used only here and in 3:17. “Filthy conversation” is conduct without restraint, aselgeia again.

Genesis never calls Lot righteous; the word here goes back to Abraham’s plea, “wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?” (Genesis 18:23), and Wisdom 10:6 calls him “the righteous man” who fled the fire of the five cities. This verse’s verb is basanizo, to torment, used of the disciples’ boat “tossed with waves” (Matthew 14:24).

“Temptations” is peirasmos, trials of any kind, the “manifold temptations” of 1 Peter 1:6. “To be punished” is a present participle in Greek, “being punished”, which some read as punishment already under way while the unjust are kept for the day itself. “Knoweth how” means has the skill and the means.

“Government” is kyriotes, lordship or dominion, the word Paul uses for one of the angelic ranks in Colossians 1:16. “Presumptuous” is tolmetes, a daredevil, found only here. “Are not afraid” is tremo, to tremble: these men do not shake, where even the devils of James 2:19 shudder.

When Joshua the high priest stood before the angel with Satan accusing him, the angel said only “The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan” (Zechariah 3:2), leaving the verdict to God. “Railing accusation” is a slanderous verdict, blasphemos krisis. Some manuscripts do not have the words “before the Lord”.

“Made to be taken and destroyed” is literally “born for capture and destruction”, like animals bred for the hunt. The Greek repeats one root, phthora, in a grim echo: “in their destroying they shall be destroyed”. The King James renders it “shall utterly perish in their own corruption”.

Feasting by day was a proverbial mark of decadence: “Woe to thee, O land, when… thy princes eat in the morning!” (Ecclesiastes 10:16). At Pentecost Peter had defended the disciples as sober, “seeing it is but the third hour of the day” (Acts 2:15). “Spots and blemishes” reverses the lamb “without blemish and without spot” of 1 Peter 1:19.

“Full of adultery” is literally “full of an adulteress”, eyes always looking for one. Plutarch plays on the same idea, since the Greek kore means both a girl and the pupil of the eye. “Unstable” is asteriktos, unfixed, the opposite of the “established” of 1:12. “Exercised” is gymnazo: their hearts have been trained, like an athlete, in greed.

The angel who blocked Balaam’s road told him, “thy way is perverse before me” (Numbers 22:32). Later Numbers 31:16 blames Balaam’s counsel for the seduction of Israel by the women of Moab, and Revelation 2:14 remembers him for teaching Balak “to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel”.

“Rebuked” is elenxis, a reproof, and “madness” is paraphronia, being out of one’s mind; both words appear only here in the New Testament. “Dumb” is aphonos, voiceless. The ass saw the angel three times before its rider did (Numbers 22:23–27), and it was the LORD who “opened the mouth of the ass” (22:28).

“Mist of darkness” is zophos, the murky gloom Homer used for the land of the dead, the same word as the “darkness” of the chains in verse 4. “Clouds” here is homichlai, low mists that bring no rain, where Jude 12 has proper clouds, nephelai.

“Allure” is deleazo, to bait a hook, the same verb as “beguiling” in verse 14. The King James “clean escaped” follows copies reading “truly”; the oldest manuscripts read “barely escaped”, oligos, people only just out. “Wantonness” is aselgeia once more, the chapter’s recurring word.

Jesus had said, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin” (John 8:34), and Paul argues the same in Romans 6:16. “Liberty” may be these teachers’ own slogan, perhaps borrowed from Paul’s letters, which 3:16 says some twist; that is an inference. “Overcome” is hettaomai, to be defeated in battle.

“Pollutions” is miasmata, defilements, the source of the English “miasma”, used only here. “Entangled” is emploko, to weave in, the verb Paul uses of the soldier who “entangleth himself with the affairs of this life” (2 Timothy 2:4). “Overcome” picks up the defeat of verse 19.

“Better… than” is the form of Jesus’ saying about his betrayer: “good were it for that man if he had never been born” (Mark 14:21). “Delivered” is paradidomi, handed down as a trust, the verb of Jude 3, “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints”. “Turn” is hypostrepho, to turn back.

Proverbs 26:11 in full reads “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly”; the unquoted half names the fool. The sow saying is found in the ancient tale of Ahikar, where a son is compared to a pig that went to the baths and then rolled in the first muddy ditch it saw. “Was washed” is middle voice: she bathed herself.