2 Peter 2:6

2Pe 2:6-8. And turning the cities of Sodom, &c., into ashes — When the inhabitants of those places were sunk into the lowest degeneracy; and condemned them with an overthrow — Punished them with utter destruction, both of their persons and habitations; making them an ensample — Not an example to be imitated, but an example to be avoided, as the word υποδειγμα, here used, signifies. Hence Jude, to express the same idea, uses the word δειγμα. And delivered just Lot — By the miraculous interposition of his providence; vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked — Exceedingly grieved by the lewd behaviour of the lawless Sodomites. For that righteous man, dwelling among them — Lot appears to have dwelt sixteen years in Sodom, after he parted from Abraham; a long space to abide in one of the lewdest and most outrageously wicked cities in the world, and not be tainted with their vices. Doubtless, as he was so exceedingly grieved with their lewd conduct from day to day, he often earnestly desired to leave the place, but he was directed, it seems, by God, to remain, that he might be an example of the divine goodness and power in delivering the godly from temptation, sin, and punishment. In seeing their base actions, and in hearing their lewd speeches, he vexed — Εβασανιζεν, tormented; his righteous soul from day to day — For their wickedness was incessant; with their unlawful deeds — The cry of which came up at length to heaven, and brought down upon them flaming destruction.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2:6 The third example of judgment is that God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The people of these cities were so immoral that God rained down sulfur from heaven to destroy them (Gen 19:24). Peter focuses on the result of this action: The cities were turned into heaps of ashes.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

2Pe 2:6. Πόλεις, cities) There were therefore sins of the same description in the neighbourhood of Sodom, Gomorrha, etc.—τεφρώσας καταστροφῇ, turning them into ashes with an overthrow) The words καταστρέφειν and καταστροφὴ are thus used, Gen 19:25; Gen 19:29, Septuagint.—τεθεικὼς, placing) [rendering them]. It was an imperishable memorial of God and of the Divine judgment.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Pe_2:6. Third example: The overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah; cf. Jud_1:7.

This verse also is still dependent on εἰ. Schott, without any adequate reason, asserts that the author has even here forgotten the construction of his expression in the protasis with εἰ.

πόλεις Σοδόμων καὶ Γομόῤῥας] The gen. as apposition.

τεφρώσας] Suidas: equivalent to ἐμπρήσας, σποδώσας: by burning them to ashes, by reducing them to ashes.

καταστροφῇ κατέκρινεν] not equal to eversione s. subversione damnavit i. e. unditus evertendo punivit (Gerhard, Dietlein, Schott), but καταστροφῇ is the dative of reference; see Buttmann, p. 144; cf. κατακρ. θανάτῳ, Mat_20:18; Pott correctly: in cineres redigens damnavit ad eversionem; thus also Wahl, de Wette, Wiesinger, Steinfass, Fronmüller, Hofmann; only it must be here remarked that κατακρίνειν includes within it the punishment, the putting into execution of the judgment of condemnationwhich Hofmann, without reason, denies, cf. Rom_8:3.

It is incorrect to connect καταστροφῇ with τεφρώσας (Bengel).

καταστροφή, in the N. T. besides here, only in 2Ti_2:14; there, however, in a figurative sense; the same word occurs in the narrative of the destruction of the cities of the plain, Gen_19:29, LXX.

ὑπόδειγμα μελλόντων ἀσεβεῖν τεθεικώς] Jud_1:7; with ὑπόδειγμα, not equal to example, but to type, cf. Jam_5:10; Heb_4:11, etc. The perf. τεθεικώς corresponds with the πρόκεινται, Jud_1:7; Hofmann correctly: God has made them, as the perf. shows, a lasting type of those who ever afterwards should live a godless life.[68]

[68] Hofmann attaches particular importance to the circumstance, that the judgment which was effected by water was followed by another, which was effected by fire.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Pe 2:6 . πόλεις Σοδ . καὶ Γομορρ . Not genitive of apposition, but cities of the district, where Sodom and Gomorrah were situated. cf. Jud 1:7 . Σ . καὶ Γ . καὶ αἱ περὶ αὐτὰς πόλεις καταστροφῇ κατέκρινεν . καταστροφῇ is dative of instrument, “condemned them by overthrow”. Gen 19:24-25 seems to imply some further destruction after the fire. Perhaps an earthquake is meant, a common accompanying phenomenon of volcanic disturbance. ὑπόδειγμα … τεθεικώς , “constituting them an example to ungodly persons of things in store for them.” With μελλ . cf. Heb 11:20 , Col 2:17 . τεφρώσας = “cover up with ashes” (not “reduce to ashes”) found in a description of the eruption of Vesuvius. (Dio. Cass. lxvi. p. 1094).

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

with, &c.--"TO overthrow" [ALFORD].

ensample--"of (the fate that should befall) those who in after-time should live ungodly." Compare Jde 1:7, "set forth for an example."

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 6. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrha] See the notes on Gen. 19, for an account of the sin and punishment of these cities.

Making them an ensample] These three words, υποδειγμα παραδειγμα, and δειγμα, are used to express the same idea; though the former may signify an example to be shunned, the second an example to be followed, and the third a simple exhibition. But these differences are not always observed.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

6 The cities of Sodom. This was so memorable an example of Divine vengeance, that when the Scripture speaks of the universal destruction of the ungodly, it alludes commonly to this as the type. Hence Peter says, that these cities were made an example. This may, indeed, be truly said of others; but Peter points out something singular, because it was the chief and a lively image; yea, rather, because the Lord designed that his wrath against the ungodly should be made known to all ages; as when he redeemed his people from Egypt, he has set forth to us by that one favor the perpetual safety of his Church. Jude has also expressed the same thing, calling it the punishment of eternal fire. [Jude 1:7.]

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(6) And turning. . . .—The construction still depends upon the “if” in 2Pe_2:4. (See Note on Jud_1:7.)

Condemned them with an overthrow.—Or, perhaps, to an overthrow, like “condemn to death” in Mat_20:18. The very word here used for “overthrow”—catastrophe—is used by the LXX. of the overthrow of these cities (Gen_19:29); in the New Testament it occurs in 2Ti_2:4 only.

An ensample unto those.—Literally, an ensample of those—i.e., of the punishment which such sinners must expect. (Comp. “Are set forth for an example,” Jud_1:7.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6. and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes …] The parallelism with Luk_17:26-29 continues and here runs on side by side with Jude (2Pe_2:7), who omits, however, any reference to the deluge, and does not dwell on the deliverance of Lot.

making them an ensample …] St Peter does not see in the supernatural destruction of the cities of the plain an exception to the normal order of the Divine government. It was rather a pattern instance of the judgment sure to fall, sooner or later, on all who were guilty of like sins. It may be noted that that destruction had been used as an illustration by the older prophets (Isa_1:9-10; Eze_16:48-56) as well as by our Lord.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes,.... By raining brimstone and fire upon them from heaven, Gen 19:24 which soon reduced them to ashes, with Admah and Zeboiim, Deu 29:25, cities delightfully situated, which were as the garden of God, and the land of Egypt, together with the inhabitants of them; and after they had received a signal mercy, in being rescued by Abraham from the kings who had carried them captive; and though Abraham, the friend of God, interceded for them, and righteous Lot dwelt among them. The first of these cities is in the Hebrew language called Sedom; Philo the Jew (w) calls it Sodoma, as in Rom 9:29 and in the Septuagint on Gen 13:10 here it is said to be a city, and Josephus (x) always calls it the city of the Sodomites, but in Mat 10:15 we read of the land of Sodom; and so Philo (y) the Jew speaks of the region or country of the Sodomites; here the word is of the plural number, as in Mat 10:15 as it is also in the Septuagint in Gen 10:19 and in Philo the Jew (z), and so is Gomorrah in some copies of this, place, as in Mat 10:15. Solinus, the historian, gives an account of these cities, in agreement with this;

"a good way off of Jerusalem (he says (a)) is opened a sorrowful gulf, which the black ground, "in cinerem soluta", "reduced to ashes", shows it to be touched by heaven; there were two towns, or cities, the one called Sodom, and the other Gomorrah; where an apple is produced, which, although it has an appearance of ripeness, cannot be eaten; for the outward skin that encompasses it only contains a sort of soot, or embers within, which, ever so lightly squeezed, evaporates into smoke and dust;''

and so the author of the book of Wisdom 10:7 speaking of the five cities, on which fire fell, says,

"of whose wickedness, even to this day, the waste land that smoketh is a testimony; and plants bearing fruit, that never come to ripeness.''

Philo the Jew (b) says, that

"there are showed to this day in Syria monuments of this unspeakable destruction that happened; as ruins, ashes, sulphur, smoke, and a weak flame, breaking forth as of a fire burning:''

condemned them with an overthrow; by this sad "catastrophe" God condemned the sins of those men of Sodom and Gomorrah, and condemned their persons to everlasting damnation; of which their temporal punishment was an emblem and figure; see Jde 1:7, the word "overthrow" is generally used when this destruction is spoken of, Deu 29:23 and therefore retained by the apostle here:

making them ensamples unto those who after should live ungodly; in the commission of any sins, and be open, bold, and impudent in them, and declare them as they did; and especially that should live in the commission of the same sins, those unnatural lusts and uncleannesses, which to this day go by the name of "sodomy", and "sodomitical" practices; now the punishment of the inhabitants of these cities was an ensample to such wicked conduct, showing what they must expect, and was a representation of those everlasting burnings, which such sinners, as a righteous retaliation for their burning lusts, shall be cast into. The Jews say (c) the same of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah as of the old world;

"the men of Sodom have no part in the world to come, as is said Gen 13:13 "but the men of Sodom were wicked, and sinners before the Lord exceedingly"; wicked in this world, and sinners in the world to come;''

See Gill on .

(w) De Temulentia, p. 272. (x) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 8. sect. 3. c. 11. sect. 3. (y) De Abrahamo, p. 381. (z) De Temulentia, p. 272. (a) Polyhistor. c. 48. (b) De Vifa Mosis, l. 2. p. 662. (c) Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 11. sect. 3. Vajikra Rabba, sect. 4. fol. 149. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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;

Ver. 6. And turning the cities] Burying them likewise in the Dead Sea, after that he had rained down hell from heaven upon them. {See Trapp on "Gen 19:24"} {See Trapp on "Gen 19:25"}

Making them an ensample] Hanging them up in gibbets, as it were, that others might hear and fear.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes - Gen 19:24-25. This is a third example to demonstrate that God will punish the wicked. Compare the notes at Jud 1:7. The word here rendered “turning into ashes” τεφρωσας tephrōsas, occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It is from τέφρα tefra, ashes, and means to reduce to ashes, and then to consume or destroy.

Condemned them with an overthrow - By the fact of their being overthrown, he showed that they were to be condemned, or that he disapproved their conduct. Their calamity came expressly on account of their enormous sins; as it is frequently the case now that the awful judgments that come upon the licentious and the intemperate, are as plain a proof of the divine disapprobation as were the calamities that came upon Sodom and Gomorrah.

Making them an ensample ... - That is, they were a demonstration that God disapproved of the crimes for which they were punished, and would disapprove of the same crimes in every age and in every land. The punishment of one wicked man or people always becomes a warning to all others.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The cities of Sodom and Gomorrha; which being the chief of the five, include Admah and Zeboim, Zoar, the fifth, being spared for Lot’s sake, Gen 14:18, compared with Gen 19:25.

Condemned them with an overthrow; i.e. punished them with a total subversion, or brought that destruction upon them to which he had condemned them.

Making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; of his wrath and vengeance ready to be poured out upon others that should live ungodly, to deter them from the imitation of the sins of those that had so miserably perished. The word may be rendered a type, (as it is, Heb 8:5, and Heb 9:23), viz. of hell-fire, which is to be the punishment of wicked men at the last day: Jud 1:7 implies as much. As the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt was a kind of type of the deliverance of all God’s people to the end of the world; so the subversion of these cities was so memorable an instance of Divine vengeance, that the Scripture frequently alludes to it, as a type or pattern, when it speaks of the general destruction of the wicked of the world.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

c. Third case—The cities of the plain.

6. Sodom—Interceded for by Abraham, but lacking its needed ten righteous men to save it. Gen_18:32. The occasion and the manner of the destruction of these cities is narrated in Genesis 19. They are a standing ensample for ungodly men in all after time, warning them of the doom to which they are exposed. There are a full score of references to it in Scripture.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow. The striking word tefrwsav, turning into ashes, occurs nowhere else in the New Testament; and the word for "overthrow" (katastrofh) only in 2Ti_2:14. It is used in the Septuagint Version of Gen_19:29 of this same judgment. Perhaps "to an overthrow" is a better translation. comp. Luk_17:26. (Jud_1:7) Making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; rather, having made. The example is to be a lasting warning; literally, an example of those that should live ungodly; i.e., an example of their punishment, their end. In this verse the Vatican Manuscript omits "with an overthrow," and reads "an example of things to come unto the ungodly."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6. Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes. The third example of judgment on sin. See Gen. 19:29.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

6. πόλεις Σοδόμων. The genitive, as in urbs Romae, is of apposition.

τεφρώσας. Examples are quoted from Dion Cassius describing an eruption of Vesuvius, and from Lycophron (who in his so-called play the Alexandra or Cassandra heaps together all the obscure words he can find): l. 227 τεφρώσας γυῖα Λημναίῳ πυρί. This means “reduce to ashes.” The passage in Dion Cass. means “covered with ashes.”

καταστροφῇ κατέκρινεν is the reading of the large mass of authorities, BC alone omitting καταστροφῇ, and P reading κατέστρεψεν. The meaning would be either “condemned by overthrowing” or “condemned to overthrow” (the latter unclassical, but paralleled by Mat 20:18 κατακρίνουσιν αὐτὸν θανάτῳ). I think the word should be restored to the text.

ὑπόδειγμα μελλόντων ἀσεβέσιν τεθεικώς = Jude πρόκεινται δεῖγμα πυρὸς αἰωνίου. For ἀσεβέσιν (BP) the bulk of authorities read ἀσεβεῖν, induced probably by the presence of μελλόντων, with which an infinitive is expected. A good parallel to these verses is in 3Ma 2:4-5 (in a prayer of the high-priest Simon):

Σὺ τοὺς ἔμπροσθεν ἀδικίαν ποιήσαντας ἐν οἷς καὶ γίγαντες ἦσαν ῥώμῃ καὶ θράσει πεποιθότες διέφθειρας, ἐπαγαγὼν (cf. ἐπάξας) αὐτοῖς ἀμέτρητον ύδωρ. Σὺ τοὺς ὑπερηφανίαν ἐργαζομένους Σοδομίτας … πυρὶ καὶ θείῳ κατέφλεξας, παράδειγμα τοῖς ἐπιγενομένοις καταστήσας.

The date of 3 Macc. is uncertain, but it is a Jewish book, probably written about the Christian era.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6.] Third historical proof: the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha, Jud 1:7Jud 1:7. And burning to ashes (Suidas, τεφρώσας, ἐμπρήσας, σποδώσας. The aor. part. is contemporary with the aor. following) the cities of (gen. of apposition) Sodom and Gomorrha, condemned (them) (κατέκρινεν, not imperf., but first aor. as παρέδωκεν and ἐφύλαξεν in the co-ordinate verses above) to (better than “with:” see reff.: not “eversione damnavit,” “funditus evertendo punivit,” as Gerh.: but “in cineres redigens damnavit ad eversionem,” as Pott, Wahl, Winer, De Wette, Huther) overthrow (καταστροφή is the word used (ref. Gen.) in the history), laying down an example (cf. πρόκεινται δεῖγμα, Jud 1:7) of (i. e. that which might shew forth the fate of) those that should in after time live ungodly (so the E. V. well, but with “after”):

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Turning into ashes [τεφρωσας] . Only here in New Testament.

Having made them an example [υποδειγμα τεθεικως] . Compare 1Pe 2:21. The word for example is condemned as unclassical by the Attic grammarians, and paradeigma is substituted, which means, properly, a sculptor's or a painter's model, or an architect's plan.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.