2 Peter 3:5

(5) For this they willingly are ignorant of.—Literally, For this escapes their notice of their own will. They voluntarily blind their eyes to this fact—at once an explanation of their argument, and first answer to it, drawn from the Mosaic account of the Creation.

The earth standing out of the water and in the water.—The margin is nearer the true meaning with “consisting” for “standing,” and the same word is translated “consist” in Col_1:17. The notion is that of coherence, solidarity, and order, as distinct from chaos. “Out of [the] water” indicates the material out of which the earth was made; not, as our version leads us to suppose, that out of which the earth rose, like an island from the ocean. “In the water” is wrong, and again the error is probably derived from Geneva, though Tyndale has it also. We should render rather, by means of [the] water. In both clauses the article should perhaps be omitted—the earth consisting out of water and through water. (Comp. Psa_24:2; Psa_136:6.) In the Clementine Homilies (XI. xxiv.) we have the idea of all things being made by water. In the Greek “by the word of God comes last, not first; emphasis is obtained either way. “By the word of God;” not by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, not by spontaneous generation. In the Shepherd of Hermas (I. Vis. I. iii. 4) we read, “Behold, the God of virtues (powers). . . . by His mighty word has fixed the heaven, and laid the foundation of the earth upon the waters.” (See above on ii. 1, 3, 13, 15, 20.) In an Apology of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, addressed to Antoninus Caesar about A.D. 170, there is a passage bearing a considerable amount of resemblance to these verses (2Pe_3:5-7).

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

2Pe_3:5-7

This they willingly are ignorant of.

Willing ignorance

Nelson, at St. Vincent, putting the telescope to his blind eye, and swearing that he could not see the signal to cease firing, affords an apt illustration of ninny who, for less worthy motives, will not, because they wish not, see the truth.

I. The avowed infidels and atheists. They are willingly ignorant--

1. Of the teachings of the Bible which they affect to despise.

2. Of the evidences of its Divine origin and inspiration.

3. Of the evidences of the being, wisdom, and love of God.

4. Of the evidences of the Divine origin of Christianity.

II. Many men of science and culture.

III. Multitudes who profess and call themselves Christians. All those who habitually neglect the sanctuary, and to whom the Bible is an unknown book. (The Study.)

The world that then was,… perished.--

The flood

I. A malefactor. The world that then was. Locally, a piece of it perished: the earth; materially, a great deal of it perished: all the riches and commodities of the earth; principally considered, all perished but eight persons: formally, there was nothing left. Only Gods quarrel to the world was for the men of the world; and His quarrel to the men of the world was for their sins. The world itself was, in this, like the sea; and sins, like the winds: the sea would be calm and quiet if the winds did not trouble it; if iniquities, like storms, had not put the course of nature into an uproar, the world had not perished.

II. An executioner. Being overflowed with water. This is an excellent servant to us, so God made it; but an ill master, so our sins make it. Nothing is so sovereign, which being abused by sin, may not, of a blessing, become a curse.

III. The conveniency of the execution. The water was not far to fetch; either with danger, as Davids water from the well of Bethlehem, through an army of Philistines; or with labour, as Jacobs water from a deep well in the bowels of the earth; but near at hand, ready. (Thos. Adams.)

Mans external universe as regarded by the thoughtful Christian

What is the Christians view of nature? The answer we get from this passage is--

I. He regards it as originally produced by the Divine word. By the Word of God the heavens were of old, etc. It had an origin--it is not eternal; it arose not from chance, but from the Divine Word.

II. He regards it as dependent every moment upon the Divine word. The heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same Word are kept in store.

1. That the past changes of nature are to be referred to the Divine Word. Peter here refers to one tremendous catastrophe. The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. The deluge was no accident. I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, etc. The earthquake, the tornado, the blight, the pestilence, all these things in nature come from the Word of God. His will is in all.

2. That the present existence of nature is to be referred to His Word. But the heavens and the earth which are now by the same Word kept in store--are preserved in their present state. If this is a right view of material nature, we may infer three important considerations.

(1) That it is absurd to cite the so-called laws of nature against the fulfilment of Gods revealed purposes. This is just what the scoffing sceptics did in the days of Peter. The laws of nature seemed against the deluge; but God purposed that these things should take place, and the laws of nature yielded. The laws of nature may seem against a resurrection, etc., but the purpose of God will be fulfilled. If material nature was originally produced by, and is ever dependent upon, the Word of God, we infer--

(2) That there can be no real contradiction between its facts and those of the Bible. Moreover, if material nature was originally produced by, and is ever dependent upon, the Divine Word, we infer--

(3) That its relation to the soul should be especially realised. As the Word of God is thus in material nature, material nature has a meaning. It is the voice of God to the human heart, a Divine appeal to the human conscience. Nature has a moral meaning, Gods Word is in it. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

One day is with the Lord as a thousand years.--

Gods estimate of time

I. First, take this statement as a general principle, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, etc.

1. In opening up this general principle we remark that all time is equally present with God. Childhood, manhood and old age belong to creatures, but at the right hand of the Most High they have no abode. Growth, progress, advancement, all these are virtues in finite beings, but to the Infinite the thought of such change would be an insult. Yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, belong to dying mortal, the Immortal King lives in an eternal to-day. This is a subject upon which we can only speak without ourselves fully understanding what we say, but yet, perhaps, a metaphor may tend to make the matter a little simpler. There is a river flowing along in gentle slope toward the sea. A boatman is upon it; his vessel is here; anon it is there; and soon it will be at the rivers mouth; only that part of the river upon which he is sailing is present to him. But up yonder, on a lofty mountain, stands a traveller; as he looks from the summit he marks the source of the river and gazes upon its infant stream, where as yet it is but a narrow line of silver; then he follows it with his clear eye until it swells into a rolling flood, and he tracks it until it is finally absorbed into the ocean. Now, as the climber stands upon that Alp, that whole sparkling line of water adorning the plain is equally present to him from its source to its fall; there is not one part of the stream that is nearer to him than another; in the long distance he sees the whole of it, from the end to the beginning. Such, we think, is the stream of time to God. From the altitude of His observance He looketh down upon it and seeth it at one gaze; taking in, not at many thoughts, but at one thought, all the revolutions of time and all the changes of ages, and seeing both the thousands of years that have gone, and the thousands that are yet to come, as present at one view before his eye.

2. The text teaches us next that all time is equally powerless with God to affect Him. A day does not make any particular change in us that we can notice. But if you take fifty years--what a difference is perceptible in any of us! But as a day seems to make no change with us, so, but far more truthfully, a thousand years make no change with God. Ages roll on, but He abideth the same. We need be under no apprehension that God will ever be affected with weakness through the revolutions of time. The Ancient of Days, ever omnipotent, fainteth not, neither is weary. And as time brings no weakness, certainly it shall bring no decay to God. Upon His brow there is neer a furrow; no signs of palsy are in His hand. And as no weakness and no decay can be brought to God by time, so no change in His purpose can ever come through revolving years. To that whereto He hath set His seal He standeth fast, and what His heart decrees, that will He do. Moreover, as there can be no change in His decree, so no unforeseen difficulties can intervene to prevent the accomplishment of it. As long as there is a work to do, He shall do it; as long as there is an enemy to conquer, that enemy shall be overcome.

3. Yet further--no doubt the text intends to teach that all time is insignificant to God. Within the compass of a drop of water we are told that sometimes a thousand living creatures may be discovered, and to those little creatures no doubt their size is something very important. There is a Creature inside that drop which can only be seen by the strongest microscope, but it is a hundred times larger than its neighbour, and it feels, no doubt, that the difference is amazing and extraordinary. But to you and to me, who cannot even see the largest creature with the naked eye, the gigantic animalcule is as imperceptible as his dwarfish friend, they both seem so utterly insignificant that we squander whole millions of them, and are not very penitent if we destroy them by thousands. But what would one of those little infusorial animals say if some prophet of its own kind could tell it that there is a creature living that could count the whole world of a drop of water as nothing, and could take up ten thousand thousand of those drops and scatter them without exertion of half its power; that this creature would not be encumbered if it should carry on the tip of its finger all the thousands that live in that great world--a drop of water; that this creature would have no disturbance of heart, even if the great king of one of the empires in that drop should gather all his armies against it and lead them to battle? Why, then the little creatures would say, How can this be; we can hardly grasp the idea? But when that infusorial philosopher could have gotten an idea of man, and of the utter insignificance of its own self, and of its own little narrow world, then it would have achieved an easy task compared with that which lies before us when we attempt to get an idea of God.

4. I think we ought also to learn from the text that all time is equally obedient to God. You and I are the servants of time, but God is its sovereign Master.

II. Gods estimate of a day. He can make a day as useful, and to Him it shall be as long as a thousand years. I think this is one of the most brilliant of the Churchs hopes. We have been saying, How many converts have been made by the Missionary Society during fifty or sixty years? and we have said, Well, at this rate, how long will it be before the world is converted? Ah! At this rate; but how do you know Gods rate? God can do as much in a day as has been done in a thousand years that are past, if so He wills it. Only let Him will it, and there shall be one day written in the records of the Church that shall be equal in achievements, and in triumphs, to any thousand years of her history recorded aforetime. This should lead us to remember that when God speaketh of judging the world at the day of judgment, He will find no difficulty in doing it. Two hundred judges might find it difficult to try in one day all the cases that might be brought before them in a single nation, but God, when He holdeth the great assize, shall be able to convict every guilty one, and to absolve every penitent, and that, too, in one day.

III. Gods estimate of a thousand years. A day is to Him as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. How long, how long? the saints under the altar cry. How long? and the saints at the altar here to-day take up the same wailing notes, How long? But He answereth, I am not long. What if I have waited and the time is long to you; yet it is not long to Me. God bids you think for a moment, that if you really measure aright, it is no lengthened period of time that He has made the vision to tarry. For see you first, the time that has elapsed since Christs crucifixion is not long compared with eternity. Then, again, when ye say that God is long in the accomplishment of His great purposes, remember that He has no need to be in hurry. Whatsoever you and I find to do, we must do it with all our might: for there is neither work nor device in the grave whither we are hastening; but God liveth for ever. Besides, there is an advantage in His being slow--it tries our faith. To win a fight when it lasteth but for an hour, what is there in it? One gallant charge and the foemen have fled. Comrade, but that is a battle worthy to be written with your Waterloos and your Marathons, when hour after hour, and day after day, valour disdains to succumb, and patience endures the fight while foot to foot the soldiers stand. Further, it is well that God should thus be long, because He is unravelling revelation. The Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to loose the seals, and to open the book for us, and year after year He reads another page, and yet another in the Churchs history. If Christ should come to-day, if we should have no more conflicts, no more trials, then we might suppose that the book had come to its brilliant golden finis; but if it keepeth on a thousand years to come, so much the better: the glowing eyes of angels wish not for the end of the story, and the bright eyes of immortal spirits before the throne, when it shall be all over, shall not regret that it was too long. No, let it go on, great Master; let a thousand years run on; our loving hearts will patiently bear it, as though it were but one day. And more: the victory of Christ at the end will be all the greater, and the redemption all the more glorious, because of this long time of strife and confusion. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Time a rate of motion

The apostle evidently wishes us to look upon the flight of the years more as God in His eternity looks down upon them. We are to approach the idea of eternity not by multiplying years together in indefinite figures of time, but more truly by remembering that with the Eternal our measurements of time have no importance.

I. I ask you to reflect, first, that time is a gift of God to the creation. Time is a bequest from the Eternal conveyed and secured in the constitution of the creation. These visible, revolving worlds are by nature temporal. Time is the rate of motion determined by the Creator in His own thought of the worlds. Now, inasmuch as time itself is an original gift of God to the creation, we may well stop to reflect upon the value of this gift. It is one of the primal evidences of the benevolence of the Creator. This original providence of perfect time for the world, true to the infinitesimal of a second through the ages of ages, is evidence of the far-seeing thoughtfulness of the Creator. It is the first condition and means of conveyance of all other good gifts of God. Time is the magna charta of all mans rights upon the earth. The ancient order of the heavens is the surety that our God is not a Sovereign who has made us of His mere pleasure, but one who has made all things according to His good pleasure; and whether mans works upon the earth be good or evil, this solar system which God made shall keep true time without variableness, or shadow of turning, until the end comes and time shall be no longer.

II. Keeping in mind this fact that time is a gift of God to the creation, reflect, secondly, that what we know as time is only the particular rate of motion to which our life on this earth has been adjusted. For example, you can easily imagine that the human race might have been put to school upon a planet of swifter revolutions than our earth, and all our vital powers adapted to the more rapid succession of day and night upon that orb--our pulses made to beat proportionally quicker, and the whole mechanism of life and thought made to run more swiftly--so that the same human history might be lived through upon that faster world. So, on the other hand, God might have graduated our rate of living and thinking to the motions of a slower planet than this earth, and still our consciousness of the duration of the years, our sense of time, have remained precisely the same. Time, then, is only a relative thing, the rate of motion of the mechanism; nothing of absolute determination or worth in itself. God has chosen this earth for our time-keeper, and adjusted our consciousness of life to its rate of motion; God has determined the existing time-rate of human history for us, out of many possibilities of different time-rates, for reasons which He thought best, and which we do not know. I may make this idea of the relative nature of time still plainer by reminding you how often in our own experiences we escape from the ordinary course of the worlds time, and in a sense make our own time for ourselves, as we live in memory or in anticipation. Fear and hope, sorrow and joy, thought and action, when intense, have a certain witchery and mastery over our time; and not the revolutions of the earth, but the beatings of our spiritual pulses, and the life of our hearts, make our days short or long upon the earth. We mortals are all of us swept along in the flood of the years; yet it seems as if we have power in sudden upspringings of thought to leap, as it were, out of this stream of time and change, and to catch some gleam upon our spirits of a higher element of existence, like Gods eternal light, and then we fall back again into the hurrying stream which is our proper element of existence now. All this superiority of soul to time in memory, thought, and hope, means that there is something timeless and deathless within us--something of the being of the Eternal in the living soul of man. You and I are made of the dust of the earth; but within these bodies bound to the earth, and destined to-morrow to return to its dust, is a godlike something which refuses to measure its life by the revolutions of the stars; a something which sinks back into its own consciousness of being, and in its brooding thought and love forgets the passing hours and separations of this mortality; a mystery of spirit within man which by its own thought of God and immortality proves itself to be above the course of nature, and possessed of a Divine birthright. First of all, let us take the help for faith in Gods character which the text was intended to give. We wonder how God can live these long ages in the calm blessedness of His presence around our human history of sin and death: where is the promise of His coming? But be not ignorant of this one thing--God does not measure His times by our clocks; a thousand of our years is as one day to Him. Everything depends upon the point of view from which things are judged; and God looks from eternity to eternity! You look out in the morning, and see a cloud overhanging the top of a mountain. At noon you glance up, and the south wind still leaves its vapours upon the mountain. At evening you may notice that the cloud is still there, though beginning to be changed by the setting sun into a glory. It has been a short day to you in your business and your pleasures. But had you been on the mountain waiting for the cloud to lift, and hoping for a clear broad view, the hours would have lengthened, and as you watched the time and the shiftings of the mists, the day would have seemed almost endless. We are now under the cloud--a very little cloud of sin and sorrow, it may be--a passing cloud--in the large, bright universe of God! We are waiting for the hour of clear revelation; and this world-age seems long. But what is it to Him who inhabiteth eternity--who sees all around? Again, these reflections may serve to teach us afresh the real value of time to us. Time, I have said, is simply the rate of the mechanism; hence it is worth in any life simply what it is used for--what is worked out in it. We should look upon our lifetime as a means towards an end--time the means, and a Christlike character, worth Gods keeping in His own eternity, the end of our life here. The one thing needful is that the soul go hence clothed in Christs wedding garment; not how long a time God gives us to dress our souls for that perfect society. Has He not already given us time enough? (Newman Smyth, D. D.)

Gods eternity considered in reference to the suspension of His promised purposes

I. Endeavour to illustrate their import, and establish the truth of the proposition which they contain. These words are designed as an answer to the objections which irreligious scoffers advance against the certainty of the accomplishment of the Divine declarations, founded on its long delay.

1. Every portion of duration is something real, and has a true and proper existence; but the epithets great and small, when applied to this (as well as to anything else), are merely comparative. We should consider fifty years as forming a very large portion of human life; but the same number of years in the history of an empire would be justly considered small. Thus is the same quantity either great or small, as you place it by the side of something much inferior to it in magnitude, or much superior.

2. Hence it results that absolute greatness belongs only to what is infinite; for whatever falls short of this, however great it may appear, its supposed greatness is entirely owing to the incidental absence of another object that is greater.

3. In duration, absolute greatness belongs only to eternity.

4. We must then conceive that He who has subsisted throughout eternal ages; who knows no beginning of days, nor end of years; who possesses eternity; to whom all its parts (if we may be allowed so to speak) are continually open, both past and future; must have a very different apprehension of that inconsiderable portion of it we call time, from creatures who are acquainted with no other. Nor let any one object, and say it must appear as it is, and therefore there is no reason to suppose it appears to Him different from what it does to us. No doubt it appears to Him exactly as it is. His apprehensions are, unquestionably, agreeable to the nature of things; but it does not follow from thence that it must appear in the same light as it does to us. That each portion of duration appears to Him real, we admit: we are not contending for its being annihilated in His view. Something it is, and something it appears, unquestionably, in His eyes. The measure by which God estimates time is, consequently, quite different from that which we are compelled to apply in its contemplation. We measure one portion of duration by another; He measures time by eternity. How inconceivably different must be the apprehension arising from these different methods of considering it!

II. The use to which the doctrine of the text may be applied.

1. It removes the ground of objection against the fulfilment of the Divine declarations, arising from the accomplishment being long delayed.

2. It accounts for the peculiar cast of Scripture language, when employed in announcing the coining of Christ, and the end of all things.

3. Though we cannot immediately change our senses, let us endeavour to conform our ideas and convictions to the dictates of Infallible Wisdom on this subject. Let us consider the whole duration of things here as very short. (R. Hall.)

Heavens clock

goes at a different rate from our little timepieces. (A. Maclaren.)

Gods calm view of events in time

is one of the marks of Divinity. For not only is it true that a thousand years are to God as one day to us, but it is also true, as St. Peter tells us, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years are with us. We know what the effect of a thousand years past (for of a thousand years to come we cannot know the effect) is upon the human mind. We regard things that happened a thousand years ago very calmly, without any of the passion which thrilled the breasts of the men who lived when the events we now read of in history were taking place. That is the way in which God regards events the very day they happen. They are to Him as if they had happened a thousand years ago; so calm is the Divine temper, so far from the impatience and haste characteristic of us men who live for threescore years and ten. This comes of His being the Everlasting One. Yet, strange to say, while God takes things so calmly and never hurries, He at the same time never forgets. A thousand years are to Him as one day to us. He is as much in earnest in His purpose at the end of a millenium as we are with ours the day we form it. (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)

The Lord is not slack … but is long-suffering.--

Reasons why God delays the punishments of wicked men

I. That men may re brought to a sense of their condition, and led to use those methods which may serve to avert Gods anger.

II. That in many cases ready punishment cannot be inflicted on bad men without laying a considerable share of it on the good, and therefore God spares them for the present that the righteous may not be involved in the calamities of the wicked.

III. the agency of ill men may be made use of in order to liking about many great designs of providence, and, in particular, the delays of vengeance on some ill men may serve for the chastisement of others.

IV. But it is much one, with respect to the divine being, when punishment is inflicted on ill men if it be inflicted at all: one day is with Him as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Nor can the sinner, if he reflects, take any great satisfaction in thinking that those punishments are distant which are yet certain.

V. That the present delays of vengeance, if they do not work their proper effects and lead men to that repentance they were intended to produce, will but aggravate their ruin. (Bp. John Conybeare.)

Gods forbearance to sinners

I. I am to give some account and to assign some reasons of Gods forbearance to sinners.

1. That the delay bears no proportion either to the eternity of His own or to the future continuance of our being.

2. God never intended this world for the place of our final recompense, and therefore is the less concerned to interpose with frequency for the immediate punishment of the sinner.

3. We may presume it designed in much mercy to sinners that He does not catch at every advantage.

4. It is designed to lead us to repentance. There are critical junctures in religion, as well as in life and fortune.

II. The long-suffering of God is no reason to believe he will never take vengeance. The reasons which account for His forbearance destroy that inference.

1. If the end of the world and the dissolution of all things be the vengeance expected, it was no way proper to raise so vast a fabric except it had been designed for some ages continuance.

2. For if sin could never be committed without immediate vengeance closely pursuing it, there could be no proper foundation of reward to our obedience.

3. Whatever continuance the world may seem made for, yet the lives of particular men are short and uncertain.

III. The delay of His vengeance can be no just reason for our continuance in sin. It does not lessen the danger; it gives no colour to the notion that God is an unconcerned spectator of wickedness. But now His present forbearance makes proof that He will hereafter pursue the wicked with His vengeance.

IV. His long-suffering is much rather an argument to us to forsake sin, and to proceed henceforward in all holy obedience.

1. It is so in point of gratitude, because we have seen that it is an effect of His mercy.

2. But if the motives of gratitude fail of persuading us, we should at least consider that our interest is very deeply concerned in this matter. For it is a very great aggravation to turn the means of grace into occasions of sin. (N. Marshall, D. D.)

The long-suffering of God a proof of His power

Suppose I were one of those scoffers, what should I be most inclined to doubt from observing how Gods threatenings did not take effect? I suppose the power of God. I should be inclined to say, God has threatened what He is not able to perform; hence, the reason why sun, moon, and stars still rise and set in their appointed order. Well, if this were my way of arguing, would it be any answer to me to say, The Lord is long-suffering to us-ward. Yes, indeed it would. There is no proof of the Divine power so great as the Divine long-suffering. How beautifully does one of our collects express this truth! O God, who declarest Thine almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity. Now, before beginning to prove to you that long-suffering is a great proof of the power of God, we would allow this idea to be at variance with that most commonly entertained. We have only to make mention of the power of God, and the thoughts are instantly far away amid the fields of immensity, busying themselves with accumulations of the workings of Almightiness--star upon star, and system upon system. And, from the fact of creation, we pass onward to that of preservation: we tell you that the complicated machinery of the universe is superintended and upheld by God. Far be it from us to imply that such a mode of demonstrating the power of God is other than correct. But it would appear to be possible, that whilst searching through the universe for evidence of the power of God, we may pass by the more signal demonstration lying individually in ourselves. We speak not of the testimony which is undoubtedly given by the construction of our bodies, and by the surprising manner in which the material incloses the immaterial. But there may be evidence which is still more overlooked, and that, too, an evidence which each may fetch from his own experience and his own habits. Towards each transgressor there has been an exercise of long-suffering on the part of the Almighty; so that if the greatest demonstration of Gods power be Gods long-suffering, then each of us may find in himself that great demonstration in all its completeness. With an hatred of sin which outruns our conception, and much more our imitation, God is looking down on every misdoing by which the earth is polluted. He is present at the perpetration of each species of crime--standing by the blasphemer whilst pouring out his curses, and by the murderer whilst bearing down on his victim. If this fact be pondered, it must always startle us. And yet He strikes not. We just ask you to imagine a tender-hearted man standing by whilst some monster of his species was foully ill-treating some fellow-creature or animal. Suppose him possessed of the most perfect ability of putting a stop to the cruelty, and awarding due punishment. The first impulse would be to exercise this ability. And if, in place of yielding to the impulse, he should reflect within himself--If I spare this guilty one awhile, if I visit not on him, on the instant, his iniquity, he may possibly repent--why we do not deny that, by a great effort, reflection might carry over the impulse, and the man might pass on in the hope of future amendment, resolved to administer no present correction. We allow that there is no actual impossibility against the exercise of such forbearance. But we think you will all agree that a vast moral effort would be needed for the repressing his feelings. Long-suffering is power over ones self. If, then, it be reverent so to speak, Gods long-suffering is power over Himself. And assuredly Gods power over Himself must be greater than the power which He puts forth when He deals with what is material and finite. You may read of such instances as of a man in the hardihood of his Atheism challenging, so to speak, the Deity to prove His existence by striking him to the earth. If there be a God, let Him show Himself, by smiting me, His denier. Now you can hardly picture to yourselves a Being exercising over Himself so much control as that, with all the apparatus of fiery reply at His disposal, He should not answer the challenge by levelling him who utters it with the ground. Can you measure to me the effort which it would be to the Creator to keep back the thunderbolt and chain up the lightning? Yet the Atheist is allowed to depart unscathed. What lesson does the believer in God derive from this absence of all anger. He learns Gods might a hundredfold more from the unbroken silence of the firmament than he would do from the hoarse tones of vengeance rushing down to the destruction of the rebel. The Atheist overthrown is as nothing to the exhibition of the Atheist spared. We shall probably arrive at right apprehensions of Gods long-suffering as connected with Gods other attributes, if we carefully review two simple facts. The first is that God can punish every sin; the second, that God can pardon every sin. It is essential to the long-suffering of God that each of these assertions should, in the largest sense, hold good. Unless there be the power of punishing, there can be no long-suffering; for long-suffering necessarily pre-supposes that the Being, who might on the instant take vengeance, passes over for a while the iniquity. On the other hand, unless God can pardon every sin, what is there in His long-suffering? We can have no idea of long-suffering except as exhibited in our text--that it is bearing with the offender in order that, time being given him to consider his ways, he may yet by repentance turn away punishment. If we can satisfactorily show that God is pre-eminently powerful, inasmuch as He is both the punisher and the pardoner of sin, we shall have established the point under debate--that Gods long-suffering is a great measure of His power. You will readily admit that it is proving God powerful to prove Him superior to every creature, so that were the whole universe banded against Him, it would have no power in trenching upon His sovereignty. But how can we more thoroughly assure ourselves of Gods superiority to every creature than by ascertaining that over every creature who swerves from obedience God can exercise the office of avenger. Whoever the creature who apostatises from God, whether standing high or low in the scale of intelligence beyond all question the power of God can reach to restrain or crush this creature. It may indeed be that the creature is permitted to go on in rebellion; and thus no direct evidence is given of the supremacy of God. Wherein, then, would be the proof of Gods power? Simply in Gods long-suffering. Long-suffering is the greatest exhibition of power on this side the day of judgment. It is our evidence that God now possesses all that God shall then exercise. And when I am told that God is long-suffering, and no limitations are placed on the attribute, you bring before me a picture as overwhelming in its details as stupendous in its outlines, I see at once that if God can be long-suffering, then God can punish every sin. He could not be long-suffering unless He could punish; He could not punish unless He were supreme. And then observe, secondly, that God can pardon every sin. Of all extraordinary truths, perhaps the most extraordinary is that sin can be forgiven. It may be a bold thing to say; but if you examine carefully, you will see that there is a strong sense in which it may be said that long-suffering is not natural to God. For was God long-suffering without effort? Could He be long-suffering without a preparation? He could be long-suffering only as He had resolved to give up His well-beloved Son to the fiercest agonies and the foulest wrongs. And when I think of the difference between God, the Creator of worlds, and God, the Pardoner of sin, the one done without an effort, and the other demanding an instrumentality nobly sublime; the one effected by a word, the other wrought out in agony and blood oh! the world created is as nothing to the sin blotted out! That God can pardon is the very summit of what is wonderful; and, therefore, O Lord, do I most know Thee, the Omnipotent, when I behold in Thee, the Long-sufferer! (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The patience of God

I. Consider the patience and long-suffering of God towards mankind, as it is an attribute and perfection of the divine nature: God is long-suffering to us-ward.

1. The patience of God is His goodness to sinners in deferring the punishment due to them for their sins; and the moderating as well as the deferring of the punishment due to sin is an instance likewise of Gods patience; and not only the deferring and moderating of temporal punishment, but the adjourning of the eternal misery of sinners is a principal instance of Gods patience; so that the patience of God takes in all that space of repentance which God affords to sinners in this life--nay, all temporal judgments and afflictions which befall sinners.

2. It is not necessarily due to us, but it is due to the perfection of the Divine nature; it is a principal branch of Gods goodness, which is the most glorious perfection of all other; and therefore we always find it in Scripture in the company of Gods milder attributes.

3. Give some proof of the great patience and long-suffering of God to mankind.

And this will evidently appear if we consider these two things--

1. How men deal with God. Every day we highly provoke Him; we grieve and weary Him with our iniquities (Isa_43:24).

2. The patience of God will farther appear if we consider how, notwithstanding all this, God deals with us. He is patient to the whole world. He presents us daily with the blessing of His goodness, prolonging our lives and vouchsafing many favours to us. But the patience of God will more illustriously appear if we consider these following particulars--

(1) That God is not obliged to spare and forbear us at all.

(2) That God spares us when it is in His power so easily to ruin us.

(3) That God exerciseth this patience even when we are challenging His justice to punish us and provoking His power to destroy us.

(4) That He is so very slow and unwilling to punish and to inflict His judgments upon us.

(a) Gods unwillingness to punish appears in that He labours to prevent punishment; and that He may effectually do this He endeavours to prevent sin, the meritorious cause of Gods judgments; to this end He hath threatened it with severe punishments that men may fear to offend.

(b) He is long before He goes about this work. Judgment is, in Scripture, called His strange work; as ii He were not acquainted with it and hardly knew how to go about it on the sudden (Deu_32:41).

(c) When He goes about this work He does it with much reluctance (Hos_11:8). He is represented as making many essays and offers before He came to it (Psa_106:26). God withholds His judgments till He is weary of holding in, as the expression is (Jer_6:11), until He can forbear no longer (Jer_44:22).

(d) God is easily prevailed upon not to punish, as in the case of Nineveh. With what joy does He tell the prophet the news of Ahabs humiliation!

(e) When He punisheth He does it very seldom rigorously and to extremity, not so much as we deserve (Psa_103:10).

(f) After He hath begun to punish, and is engaged in the work, He is not hard to be taken off (2Sa_24:1-25.). Nay, so ready is God to be taken off from this work, that He sets a high value upon those who stand in the gap to turn away His wrath (Num_25:11-13).

5. The patience of God will vet appear if we consider some eminent instances of it. His forbearance is so great that He hath been complained of for it by His own servants. Job, who was so patient a man himself, thought much at it (Job_21:7-8). Jonah challengeth God for it (Job_4:2).

II. That the patience of God and the delay of judgment is no ground why sinners should hope for impunity: God is not slack concerning His promise as some men count slackness.

III. The true reason of Gods patience and long-suffering to mankind: He is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. This is the primary end of Gods patience to sinners; and if He fail of this end through our impenitency He hath other ends which He will infallibly attain; He will hereby glorify the riches of His mercy and vindicate the righteousness of His justice; for God does not lose the glory of His patience, though we lose the benefit of it, and He will make it subservient to His justice one way or other. Lessons:

1. That nothing is more provoking to God than the abuse of His patience.

2. That the patience of God will have an end.

3. That nothing will more hasten and aggravate our ruin than the abuse of Gods patience. (Abp. Tillotson.)

Mans external universe as maintained by God for a moral purpose

I. That mans external universe is maintained by God.

1. However long He may continue to uphold it, He does not overlook the claims of His justice. There are before Him a day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

2. However long He may continue to uphold it, duration is nothing to Him. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. He is not limited to time as we are.

3. However long He may continue to uphold it, He does not forget His promise. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness.

4. However long He may continue to uphold it, His forbearance is manifest through the whole. He is long-suffering to us-ward.

II. That mans external universe is maintained by God for a moral purpose. Not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. What is the purpose? Why is this world kept in existence for so many ages? Is it that men might luxuriate amidst animal gratifications, revel amidst the elements which minister to the senses, and pander to the passions? Is it that they might train the intellect to think, and to fill the mind with knowledge? Not even this. It is the moral restora tion of man. That none should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

1. This moral restoration of man requires repentance.

2. This moral restoration of man is according to the Divine will. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

God true to His purpose

Sometimes in architecture and sculpture designs are formed as an exercise of skill, without any intention of embodying them in work. And sometimes politicians frame schemes which are intended only for Utopia, and for the carrying out of which no attempt will be made. But Gods design is for execution and His scheme for embodiment. A purpose to work out His design has firm hold of every portion and feature of that design. (S. Martin.)

That all should come to repentance.

The rules and directions for the right performing the duty of repentance

1. The first is this, implore repentance at the hands of God (2Ti_2:25).

2. Have due regard to the sacred Word. Suppose we were travelling in the dark, what could we do better in such a case than procure a light to guide us? Naturally we are in the darkness of ignorance and mists of error, and want to be illuminated in the right way (Psa_119:105; 2Pe_1:19). And that the Holy Scripture has a peculiar efficacy to purify from sin, which is done by repentance, is evident (Psa_119:9).

3. Consider the nature of God. As His word rightly heard, so His nature duly contemplated, will be not only a mighty antidote against sin, but as strong an inducement to repentance. Now the nature of God we may best learn from His glorious name (Exo_34:6-7). God in His nature is holy and even essentially and infinitely holy (Isa_60:3). And can we endure to rest in wilful sin when it is an evil abominable to God, and makes us as odious to Him as it is in its own nature? Reflect then seriously again, that He is just too. And as His perfect purity sets Him against sinners, so His absolute justice inclines and constrains Him to punish all that persist in it. And then we may consider further that He is powerful too, and armed with omnipotence. And so He is able to punish us (Psa_76:7).

4. Place the promise and assurance of pardon before your eyes (Eze_18:30; Luk_24:47; Act_3:19; Act_5:31).

5. Fix your thoughts upon Christs sufferings. They were various, sharp, and terrible; but all for our sins. (R. Warren, D. D.)

Gods willingness to pardon

I. That God is not willing that any should perish, appears by His own positive declarations.

II. That God is unwilling that any should perish, is illustrated by the invitations with which the sacred scriptures abound.

III. The same truth is still further illustrated by the encouragement God everywhere presents to those who show an inclination to return.

IV. The same truth is illustrated by the threatenings and warnings which are given to persons and nations before destruction comes on them.

V. The delay of judgment illustrates my text.

VI. The most notorious characters are specified in the offers and invitations of mercy which we find in sacred scripture.

VII. The death of Christ is an illustration of the proposition in the text.

VIII. The means employed to keep up the gospel of Christ before the world and the Church declares the same truth.

IX. The pains taken to remove distrust prove that God is not willing that any should perish. He not only gives us His declaration that He is not willing that any should perish, but He gives us His oath.

X. The proposition contained in the text is illustrated by many examples: Manasseh. Thief on cross. (W. Freeland, LL. D.)

Gods unwillingness

I. What does the apostle mean here by the expression perish? What is it to perish? This will be most appropriately answered in the words of Holy Scripture. Paul called it Being punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power (2Th_1:9). Sudden destruction (1Th_5:3). Swift destruction (chap. 2:1). The vengeance of eternal fire (Jud_1:7).

II. What reasons have we to conclude that any will thus perish?

I. Fallen angels have perished (Jud_1:6).

2. Sodom and Gomorrah have suffered the vengeance of eternal fire (Jud_1:7).

3. Other men deserve to perish. The Scripture hath concluded all under sin.

4. That part of the punishment which consists in natural death is daily being inflicted before our eyes.

5. God has said that some characters shall perish. He that believeth not shall be damned.

III. But WHO are thus in danger?

1. Despisers (Act_13:41).

2. profane persons, and all who forget God (Psa_9:17).

3. All the impenitent (Luk_13:5).

4. All unbelievers (Mar_16:16).

IV. How are we to understand the expression God is not willing that any should perish? Hell does not exist without His permission! Death is His messenger! The judgment of the great day will be held by His appointment! But then--

1. God will not punish without occasion. Nor

2. Till the guilt of man has rendered it necessary. Nor

3. Without having provided a remedy:--the best possible remedy. Nor

4. Without having authorised the publication of that remedy. Nor

5. Without having implored men to accept it. Nor

6. Without having given space for repentance.

7. Nor will He inflict eternal judgment on one soul which has not proved its filial enmity to Him, to truth, to holiness.

V. What evidences have we that God is not willing that any should thus perish?

1. The evidence arising from His character.

2. From His word.

3. From His oath (Joh_3:16).

4. From the gift of His Holy Spirit.

5. From the revelation of His truth.

6. From the exaltation of Christ as a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance.

7. From the promise of the personal help of the Holy Spirit--to them that ask it.

8. From every instance of true repentance which has occurred.

9. From sparing mercy from day to day.

10. From warnings, exhortations, invitations, directions, promises, etc., without number.

VI. What is the imperative and only alternative that men may not perish? We answer, repentance. (The Evangelist.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 27

JUDGMENT TO COME

2Pe_3:5-7

"THE world lasts on" (διαμενει) "through all time," say the scoffers, "just as it was at the Creation. There has been no change; there will be none." But out of their own mouth their folly is rebuked. How can these men speak of a creation? If there is to be no judge, why believe that there has been a Creator? That must be included in the general denial. "For this they willfully forget." Yes, here is the reason of their conduct, the root of all the evil. They forget because they wish to forget; they speak of the fathers, but of set purpose ignore the history of Noah; they are casting God out of all their thoughts: and so even to the things that are made, and by which He testifies to all men alike His eternal power and Godhead, they close their eyes, and refuse to read His wide-open lesson-book. And still less do they regard all that His written word records of the worlds past history and Gods discipline for men therein.

"That there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God." They close their ears as well as their eyes. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." As the study of nature progresses men are learning to comprehend more of the vastness of that phrase "in the beginning," and in the light of science to read a larger meaning into St. Peters words, "There were heavens from of old." But even in that generation to which the Apostle soon alludes the unchanging character of the skies spake of duration and permanence. The antediluvian world had run a long course; from Adam to Noah men had beheld the sun rise and set daily in the skies, just as it rose on the morning of the Deluge. And the mockers then living could say, and doubtless did say, to the preacher in their midst, "These things have always been as they are, and will be so for evermore." The later scorners had their prototypes of old, who pointed to the existence of an eternal law, and willfully forgot that law implies a lawgiver, and that He who made must have the power to unmake.

St. Peter takes their text, but reads from it a very different lesson. There were heavens from of old, yea, long before there was an earth fit for man to dwell in. This world in that old time was formless and void, and the waters covered its face like a garment. The word of the Lord went forth, and the waters were gathered together as a heap, and the depth was laid up in Gods storehouses. Then the dry land appeared; then there was an earth. The streams took their appointed place down the mountain-sides and in the valleys, and rivers began to roll onward to the sea; the waters of ocean learnt their bounds, neither turned again to cover the earth. The Divine word clothed in all the glory of vegetation the hitherto barren land, making it a fit home for man, who was not yet; and the water ministered sustenance to everything that grew out of the ground. Birds, beasts, and fishes were made, and the waters were the birthplace of most of these. For God said, "Let the water bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life," not its own tenants only, but fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. So there was an earth, not the bare ground only, but the whole wealth of vegetable and animal life; and this was all existent, compacted, supported out of water and by means of water (δι υδατος). For without it nothing could have flourished. God had laid up water above the firmament and water below the earth, and by means of watery vapor refreshed and blessed everything that grew. This was the reign of Gods law, and ere the Flood came men could point to it and say, "What mean you to talk of a deluge? The sand is made the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it; the earth is set high above the waters, and has been so from old time." But that long duration did not hinder the same productive, nurturing water being turned, by the word of the Lord, into an agency of destruction.

"By which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." Every word in the Apostles sentence is meant to tell. God employed as means of overthrow the very powers which at first He ordained for blessing. His word makes things what they are. The reign of law endures until He, who is before all law and the source of all law, gives another direction to those forces which his law has always been controlling. In this way the World that then was, the world which had endured and been steadfast from the Creation to the Flood, perished. The world was full of order, full of glory. The name (κοσμος) expresses all this. Yet, for the sin of man, it repented God that He had made this glorious order; and this it was which perished. The earth was not destroyed; it only received again that covering of primeval waters which, at Gods word, had retired and let the dry land appear. At the same word both earth and heaven combined to destroy the goodliness with which creation was adorned. For, on the day of the Deluge, {Gen_7:11} all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and the waters came again to cover the earth. They prevailed exceedingly, and all flesh died that moved upon the earth; even the fowls and the moving creatures, which had been brought forth from the teeming waters, perished, and all things were destroyed from off the earth. Thus does St. Peter lay bare the unwisdom of those who will not listen to, who are willfully forgetful of, the parables of Gods word; who close their eyes to His judgments, sent that by them men may learn righteousness.

"But the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire." The Apostle now turns away from what the Old Testament Scriptures relate as history of the past to what the same records teach us concerning the future; and he deals partly with promise, partly with prophecy. The earth will not be destroyed again by a deluge. God hath made His covenant: "I will establish My covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood, neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth". {Gen_9:11} But there will be a judgment; and then not, as in the days of Noah, will the κοσμος, the beautiful order of nature, alone be destroyed, but heaven and earth alike shall be involved in the common overthrow. Here the Apostle is but the expositor of the words of psalmists and prophets of the older times. He who sang, "Of old Thou hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands," was inspired to add, "They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure; yea, all of-them shall wax old like a garment: as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed." {Psa_102:25-26} Isaiah, the evangelist among the prophets, saw more, and connects this mighty change with the day of the Lords vengeance: "Then shall all the host of heaven be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll"; {Isa_34:4} and in another place he foresees how "the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner…for Mine arms shall judge the people"; {Isa_51:6} and yet again in more solemn wise, "The Lord will come with fire, and with His chariots like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire, for by fire and by His sword will the Lord plead with all flesh". {Isa_66:15} And this He proclaims as the preparation for "the new heavens and the new earth which He will make." Daniel also tells us of Gods "throne of judgment to be set, which is like the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire". {Dan_7:9}

With such light from the lamp of prophecy, the Apostle in his exegesis proclaims the nature of the final judgment. Like other New Testament writers, he has attained, since the day of Pentecost, a deeper insight and a firmer grasp of the purport of what Moses in the Law and the prophets did write. We can see how on that very day thoughts like these which he expresses in his letter were borne in upon his mind. For not only does he apply the prophecy of Joel to the events which then struck the multitude with wonder, but he carries on the lesson further to the coming of the great and notable day of the Lord, and reminds his hearers that "then God will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke, when the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood". {Act_2:19-20} And the like illumination had been bestowed on St. Paul. For he too tells {1Co_3:13} of a day when each mans work shall be proved by fire; and more definitely he assures the Thessalonians, to whom he wrote much concerning the day of the Lord, that there will come a "revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ". {2Th_1:8}

In such wise did the Apostles read the utterances of prophecy; and thus did they apply them as lessons for their own and all future times. They felt that not unto themselves, but unto us, did the prophets minister. And St. Peter does but put their message into his own words when in his bold figure he says that the heavens that now are and the earth are stored up for fire.

The Revised Version on its margin renders the last words "stored with fire." And when we reflect on the storing of the waters at the Creation, afterwards to be let forth to destroy the world which hitherto they had made fruitful and lovely, the parallelism is very suggestive. God has stored the earth within with fire, which from time to time makes its mighty presence and power for destruction known. The visitations of earthquakes may therefore well remind us that He who used the treasures of waters in the Deluge for His ministers may in like manner hereafter employ this treasury of fire.

"Being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." When God no longer waits for sinners to repent, then will come the judgment and destruction of the ungodly. At that day the heavens that now are and the earth shall be exchanged or transformed. God will prepare a new heaven and a new earth wherein the righteous may find a congenial home with their Lord. Here they can never be other than pilgrims and sojourners, seeking to be clothed upon with their house which is from heaven. What the destruction of the ungodly shall be we can only judge and speak of in the terms of Scripture. The language of St. Paul to the Thessalonians seems to teach us that the very advent of the Judge shall bring their penalty: "They shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction" (the word is not the same which St. Peter uses) "from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His might," {2Th_1:9} in the presence of which nothing that is defiled can dwell. So God, of His mercy, still reserves the heavens and the earth, and thus to every new generation offers His mercy, saying continually through their silent witness, in the spirit in which he spake to Israel at the close of the volume of prophecy, "I am Jehovah"-that is, the merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin-"I change not; therefore ye sinners are not destroyed."

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

3:5 Creation is the first evidence that the false teachers were wrong: Change does happen. If God made the world, he certainly can destroy it. • brought the earth out from the water: See Gen 1:2, 6-10.

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

2Pe 3:5. Λανθάνει γὰρ, for it escapes their notice) This is the reason why they thus speak. Antithetical to, let it not escape your notice, 2Pe 3:8.—τοῦτο, this) The nominative case.—θέλοντας) willing it to be so. Their ignorance is voluntary. They obstinately neglect to consider the deluge.—οὐρανοὶ—γῆ, the heavens—the earth) The heavens and the earth before the deluge were very different in quality, though not in substance, from their present state.—ἦσαν ἔκπαλαι) had been, of old, just as they are now. The deluge, and the destruction of the world by fire, Peter says, might have appeared equally incredible: and yet the former event has taken place, and the latter will take place. Just as the mockers were arguing against the destruction of the world by fire, so before the deluge men might have argued against the deluge. But as the argument of these last was proved to be groundless by the testimony of the event, so also is the argument of the former. The urgency of the reasoning derived from the deluge destroys the force of the thus, as they were (οὕτω), of the mockers, 2Pe 3:4. The pluperfect has a backward reference from the time of the deluge to the time of the creation: and the word then, 2Pe 3:6, has also a reference to that.—ἐξ ὓδατος καὶ διʼ ὓδατος, out of the water and by the water) A gradual process. The water had covered the earth: the earth emerged out of the waters; and the water was serviceable for the stability of the earth, as the Creator formed and placed it. Water is in other cases lighter than earth, and earth seeks the lower parts, to such a degree, that all water in a straight line from the surface to the centre of this globe, or round system, always has earth beneath it: but on the surface itself, the earth everywhere rises above the water in a greater or less degree; and even this place the water yielded and left to the earth, as it were unwillingly, and when compelled by the most powerful command of God, Exo 20:4; Psa 24:2; Psa 104:5-8; Psa 136:6; Job 38:10-11; 2Es 16:59.—συνεστῶσα, standing together) that is, was. The joining together and lasting duration of the earth is pointed out: and thus standing firmly, answers to the word of old. Thomas Burnet, in his Theory of the Earth, 2Pe 2:5, applies the participle (which in the English Version is ambiguous, standing), not only to the earth, but also to the heavens. By paying attention to this error, you will avoid many things which Burnet has raised upon it.—τῷ τοῦ Θεοῦ λόγῳ, by the word of God) Gen 1:6-9. This is constructed with were (ἦσαν), expressed, and was (ἦν), understood. The duration of all things is determined by the Word of God, so that it can be neither longer nor shorter.

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

2Pe_3:5. Refutation of the assertion: πάντα οὕτω διαμένει, by the adducing the fact of the flood.[89] λανθάνει γὰρ … θέλοντας] γάρ is not equivalent to δέ, but designates the thought which follows as the reason for their scoffing: Thus they speak because; cf. Winer, p. 423 [E. T. 568].

τοῦτο belongs either to λανθάνει or to θέλοντας; in the first case it refers to what follows: ὅτι κ.τ.λ.; in which case θέλοντας will mean: willingly, on purpose (Brückner, Wiesinger, Fronmüller, Hofmann; cf. Winer, p. 436 [E. T. 586]; Buttmann, p. 322. Luther: but they wilfully will not know); in the second case τοῦτο refers to the contents of the preceding statement, and θέλειν means to assert; for, whilst they assert this, it is hidden from them that (Dietlein, Schott). The position both of τοῦτο separated from ὅτι by θέλοντας, and of θέλοντας separated by τοῦτο from λανθάνει, favours the second construction; that θέλειν can be used in the sense of to assert, is clear from Herodian, v. 3. 11: εἰκόνα τε ἡλίου ἀνέργαστον εἶναι θέλουσι; the word marks the assertion as one based on self-willed arbitrariness, and as without any certain foundation.

ὅτι οὐρανοὶ ἦσαν ἔκπαλαι] οἱ οὐρανοί, the plural according to the common usage.

ἔκπαλαι; cf. chap. 2Pe_2:3, not: of old, formerly, but: from of old, i.e. jam inde a primo rerum omnium initio (Gerhard).

ἦσαν belongs in the first instance to οὐρανοί; yet the subsequent γῆ is to be taken as applying to it also.

καὶ γῆ ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ διʼ ὕδατος συνεστῶσα] συνεστῶσα expresses the idea of originating out of a combination; συνίστημι is often employed thus by the Greeks in the intransitive tenses, though the reference contained in συν sometimes disappears almost entirely. The prepositions ἐξ and διά must not be regarded as synonymous; ἐξ refers to the substance, διά to the means. A twofold significance is thus attributed to the water in the formation of the earth, which is also in harmony with the Mosaic account of the creation, where the original substance is distinctly spoken of as ὕδωρ, and in the formation of the earth water is mentioned as the instrumental element (Brückner). There is, accordingly, no foundation for the assertion of de Wette, that the author conceived the origin of the world, according to Indo-Egyptian cosmogony, as a species of chemical product of water. Many interpreters, as Bengel, Wiesinger, Schott, Fronmüller, Hofmann, as also Winer, p. 390 [E. T. 441], explain ἐξ ὕδατος by saying that the earth arose out of the water in which it lay buried. But this interpretation is refuted by the meaning of the verbal idea συνεστῶσα, which belongs to ἐξ ὕδατος; thus, too, an element would be introduced which would be of only secondary importance.[90] Although ΣΥΝΕΣΤῶΣΑ belongs grammatically only to Γῆ, yet in thought it has been applied to ΟὐΡΑΝΟΊ also; thus Brückner, Wiesinger, Schott, and in this commentary. This reference may be justified thus far, that ΟὐΡΑΝΟΊ is understood of the second days work of creation, the visible heavens; but it is necessary only if ΚΌΣΜΟς, 2Pe_3:6, is to be taken as meaning the heavens and the earth. De Wette arbitrarily refers the preposition ἘΞ only to the earth, and ΔΙΆ to the heavens; the latter in the sense of: through the water, between the water. Τῷ ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ ΛΌΓῼ] draws emphatic attention to the fact that the active cause of the creation of the world was the Word of God; to this Τῷ ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ ΛΌΓῼ, the Τῷ ΑὐΤΟῦ ΛΌΓῼ, 2Pe_3:7, corresponds.

[89] Schott disputes this, and maintains that the scoffers appealed to the fact of the flood in support of their opinion, in as far as it did not form a definite close of the earthly development of the world, by an annihilation of the world, and that now what the writer wished to bring forward against it was why that judgment of destruction was executed simply by means of a flood, and consequently was not an absolute annihilation, but only a change of form; but how much here must be read between the lines, and to which no allusion is made.

[90] The interpretation of Hornejus shows to what eccentricities commentators sometimes have recourse: dicitur autem terra consistere ἐξ ὕδατος, i.e. ἐκτὸς ὕδατο; seu πρὸς ὕδατι, extra aquam s. ad aquas; διʼ ὕδατος, i.e. μετὰ S. ἐν μέσῳ ὕδατος cum aqua s. in media aqua.The opinion of Steinfass, too, that συνεστῶσα is to be limited to the creation and existence of human beings, animals, and vegetables, finds no justification in the words of the epistle.

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 3:5-7 . The first part of the argument against the scoffers . “It is not true that the course of the world is unchanging. They have wilfully forgotten that the heavens existed originally, and the earth was formed out of water, and by means of water, by the Word of God. By this very water and Word the world, as it then was, was overwhelmed and perished. The present heavens and earth, by the same Word, are treasured up for fire, being reserved for the day when impious men shall meet their doom and destruction.”

2Pe 3:5 . λανθάνει γὰρ αὐτοὺς τοῦτο . “This escapes their notice.” τοῦτο is nominative. θέλοντας “wilfully” “of their own purpose”. ἔκπαλαι ( cf. note, 2Pe 2:3 ): “originally,” i.e. before the creation of the world. The Rabbinical school of Shammai held that Gen 1:1 , ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν meant that the heaven was in existence before the six days’ work, i.e. ἔκπαλαι . Perhaps this notion is present here. ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ διʼ ὕδατος . Two kinds of water are meant. The first may refer to the primeval watery chaos ” the face of the waters” (Gen 1:2 ). The second is perhaps connected with the formation of the dry land by “the gathering together of the waters into one place” (Gen 1:9 ). But the meaning is obscure ( cf. Mayor, ed. lxxxiii.; Chase, op. cit. 797). συνεστῶσα = “was formed”. Cf. Philo, i. p. 330. ἐκ γῆς καὶ ὕδατος καὶ ἀέρος καὶ πυρὸς συνέστη ὅδε ὁ κόσμος .

The above interpretation is in substantial agreement with Alford’s, who distinguishes “the waters above the firmament,” and “the fountains of the great deep”. The Hebrew had no notion of evaporation. The rivers run into the sea, and the water returns subterraneously to their sources again (Ecc 1:7 ).

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

NOTE ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD BY FIRE

The passage 2Pe 3:5-13 is the only one in the New Testament which speaks of the destruction of the world by fire. The coming of Christ, the Resurrection, and the Final Judgment are dwelt upon by other writers, but of a general conflagration nothing is said by them. This is a noteworthy fact; so widely spread is the notion of a final fire, that it comes as a surprise to most people when they realize how very slender is the Biblical foundation for that belief.

Whence did our author derive it? We know that the Stoics held that there would be an ἐκπύρωσις of the world: but their view was that it was an event which would recur at the end of vast periods of time, and that each burning would be succeeded by a παλιγγενεσία, a re-constitution of the world. This differs from the Christian idea, which was that there would be one final burning, and that human history would not repeat itself.

Among the Jews the belief was entertained by some: but it has not left any considerable trace in the apocalyptic literature. Philo argues strongly against the Stoic belief in his tract on the Incorruptibility of the World.

In certain early Christian books pretending to high antiquity the final fire is dwelt upon. The fourth book of the Sibylline oracles, which is assigned to the reign of Titus or Domitian (and is appealed to upon this point by Justin Martyr in his Apology) says (172–177):

εἰ δʼ οὔ μοι πείθοισθε κακόφρονες …

πῦρ ἔσται κατὰ κόσμον ὅλον …

φλέξει δὲ χθόνα πᾶσαν, ἅπαν δʼ ὀλέσει γένος ἀνδρῶν

καὶ πάσας πόλεας ποταμούς θʼ ἅμα ἠδὲ θάλασσαν,

ἐκκαύσει δέ τε πάντα, κόνις δʼ ἔσετʼ αἰθαλόεσσα.

There is a longer description in the later second book of the oracles (196–213). It is pretty clear that this book derives its matter very largely from the Apocalypse of Peter, in which we now know that the burning of the world was described at some length. See the Additional Note, p. lvii.

Justin Martyr also appeals to a book called Hystaspes as agreeing with the Sibyl. This we no longer possess, but we can tell from scattered quotations that it was a prophecy revealed to an ancient king of the Medes; it seems to have been Christian, and quite early in date.

Another early book which speaks of this, in words which recall 2 Peter, is the so-called Second Epistle of Clement (really a sermon of the second century): cap. xvi. γινώσκετε δὲ ὅτι ἔρχεται ἤδη ἡ ἡμέρα τῆς κρίσεως ὡς κλίβανος καιόμενος (Mal 4:1 ἰδοὺ ἡμέρα ἔρχεται καιομένη ὡς κλίβανος) καὶ τακήσονταί τινες (corrupt: perhaps αἱ δυνάμεις) τῶν οὐρανῶν (Isa 34:4 and Apocalypse of Peter, quoted above), καὶ πᾶσα ἡ γῆ ὡς μόλιβος ἐπὶ πυρὶ τηκόμενος, καὶ τότε φανήσεται τὰ κρύφια καὶ φανερὰ ἔργα τῶν ἀνθρώπων. Can this last clause (καὶ τότε φανήσεται κ.τ.λ.) be taken as showing that the writer actually had 2 Peter before him, and that his copy of it read εὑρεθήσεται? One is tempted to guess that this was the case, and that he interpreted τὰ ἐν αὐτοῖς ἔργα εὑρεθήσεται as meaning “the works that are therein shall be manifested.”

It is not practicable to trace the gradual growth of the belief: but it did grow, and in later times at least, when the Sibylline oracles and other such books were forgotten, the passage in 2 Peter became the authoritative one on the subject.

5. ὅτι οὐρανοὶ ἧσαν κ.τ.λ. There were of old heavens and an earth, (the latter) having its being out of water (it rose out of the water over which the Spirit brooded) and διʼ ὕδατος. This difficult expression I am inclined to interpret as “between the waters,” supported on water, according to Jewish belief, and with an over-arching firmament above which were waters. Compare the use of διά to express intervals: διὰ χρόνου, διὰ πέντε σταδίων etc.

ἔκπαλαι, above, 2Pe 2:3.

τῷ τοῦ θεοῦ λόγῳ = ῥήματι θεοῦ Heb 11:3.

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.

Which appeared when the waters were gathered together into one place.

He setteth against them the creation of heaven and earth by the word of God, which these men are willingly ignorant of.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Refutation of their scoffing from Scripture history.

willingly--wilfully; they do not wish to know. Their ignorance is voluntary.

they . . . are ignorant of--in contrast to Pe2 3:8, "Be not ignorant of this." Literally, in both verses, "This escapes THEIR notice (sagacious philosophers though they think themselves)"; "let this not escape YOUR notice." They obstinately shut their eyes to the Scripture record of the creation and the deluge; the latter is the very parallel to the coming judgment by fire, which Jesus mentions, as Peter doubtless remembered.

by the word of God--not by a fortuitous concurrence of atoms [ALFORD].

of old--Greek, "from of old"; from the first beginning of all things. A confutation of their objection, "all things continue as they were FROM THE BEGINNING OF CREATION." Before the flood, the same objection to the possibility of the flood might have been urged with the same plausibility: The heavens (sky) and earth have been FROM OF OLD, how unlikely then that they should not continue so! But, replies Peter, the flood came in spite of their reasonings; so will the conflagration of the earth come in spite of the "scoffers" of the last days, changing the whole order of things (the present "world," or as Greek means, "order"), and introducing the new heavens and earth (Pe2 3:13).

earth standing out of--Greek, "consisting of," that is, "formed out of the water." The waters under the firmament were at creation gathered together into one place, and the dry land emerged out of and above, them.

in, &c.--rather, "by means of the water," as a great instrument (along with fire) in the changes wrought on the earth's surface to prepare it for man. Held together BY the water. The earth arose out of the water by the efficacy of the water itself [TITTMANN].

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 5. For this they willingly are ignorant of] They shut their eyes against the light, and refuse all evidence; what does not answer their purpose they will not know. And the apostle refers to a fact that militates against their hypothesis, with which they refused to acquaint themselves; and their ignorance he attributes to their unwillingness to learn the true state of the case.

By the word of God the heavens were of old] I shall set down the Greek text of this extremely difficult clause: ουπανοιησαν Ουρανοι ησαν εκπαλαι, και γη εξ ὑδατος και δι' ὑδατος συνεστωσα, τῳ του Θεου λογῳ· translated thus by Mr. Wakefield: "A heaven and an earth formed out of water, and by means of water, by the appointment of God, had continued from old time." By Dr. Macknight thus; "The heavens were anciently, and the earth of water: and through water the earth consists by the word of God." By Kypke thus: "The heavens were of old, and the earth, which is framed, by the word of God, from the waters, and between the waters." However we take the words, they seem to refer to the origin of the earth. It was the opinion of the remotest antiquity that the earth was formed out of water, or a primitive moisture which they termed υλη, hule, a first matter or nutriment for all things; but Thales pointedly taught αρχην δε των παντως ὑδωρ ειναι, that all things derive their existence from water, and this very nearly expresses the sentiment of Peter, and nearly in his own terms too. But is this doctrine true? It must be owned that it appears to be the doctrine of Moses: In the beginning, says he, God made the heavens and the earth; and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Now, these heavens and earth which God made in the beginning, and which he says were at first formless and empty, and which he calls the deep, are in the very next verse called waters; from which it is evident that Moses teaches that the earth was made out of some fluid substance, to which the name of water is properly given. And that the earth was at first in a fluid mass is most evident from its form; it is not round, as has been demonstrated by measuring some degrees near the north pole, and under the equator; the result of which proved that the figure of the earth was that of an oblate spheroid, a figure nearly resembling that of an orange. And this is the form that any soft or elastic body would assume if whirled rapidly round a centre, as the earth is around its axis. The measurement to which I have referred shows the earth to be flatted at the poles, and raised at the equator. And by this measurement it was demonstrated that the diameter of the earth at the equator was greater by about twenty-five miles than at the poles.

Now, considering the earth to be thus formed εξυδατος, of water, we have next to consider what the apostle means by δι υδατος, variously translated by out of, by means of, and between, the water.

Standing out of the water gives no sense, and should be abandoned. If we translate between the waters, it will bear some resemblance to Ge 1:6-7: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of, bethoch, between, the waters; and let it divide the waters from the waters: and God divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; then it may refer to the whole of the atmosphere, with which the earth is everywhere surrounded, and which contains all the vapours which belong to our globe, and without which we could neither have animal nor vegetative life. Thus then the earth, or terraqueous globe, which was originally formed out of water, subsists by water; and by means of that very water, the water compacted with the earth-the fountains of the great deep, and the waters in the atmosphere-the windows of heaven, Ge 7:11, the antediluvian earth was destroyed, as St. Peter states in the next verse: the terraqueous globe, which was formed originally of water or a fluid substance, the chaos or first matter, and which was suspended in the heavens-the atmosphere, enveloped with water, by means of which water it was preserved; yet, because of the wickedness of its inhabitants, was destroyed by those very same waters out of which it was originally made, and by which it subsisted.

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

5. For this they willingly are ignorant of. By one argument only he confutes the scoff of the ungodly, even by this, that the world once perished by a deluge of waters, when yet it consisted of waters. (Genesis 1:2.) And as the history of this was well known, he says that they willingly, or of their own accord, erred. For they who infer the perpetuity of the world from its present state, designedly close their eyes, so as not to see so clear a judgment of God. The world no doubt had its origin from waters, for Moses calls the chaos from which the earth emerged, waters; and further, it was sustained by waters; it yet pleased the Lord to use waters for the purpose of destroying it. It hence appears that the power of nature is not sufficient to sustain and preserve the world, but that on the contrary it contains the very element of its own ruin, whenever it may please God to destroy it.

For it ought always to be borne in mind, that the world stands through no other power than that of God's word, and that therefore inferior or secondary causes derive from him their power, and produce different effects as they are directed. Thus through water the world stood, but water could have done nothing of itself, but on the contrary obeyed God's word as an inferior agent or element. As soon then as it pleased God to destroy the earth, the same water obeyed in becoming a ruinous inundation. We now see how egregiously they err, who stop at naked elements, as though there was perpetuity in them, and their nature were not changeable according to the bidding of God.

By these few words the petulance of those is abundantly refuted, who arm themselves with physical reasons to fight against God. For the history of the deluge is an abundantly sufficient witness that the whole order of nature is governed by the sole power of God. (Genesis 7:17.)

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.

5. For this they willingly are ignorant of] More accurately, For this is hid from them by their own will. The English phrase “they ignore” exactly expresses the state of mind of which the Apostle speaks. The ignorance of the scoffers was self-chosen. They closed their eyes to the truth that the law of continuity on which they laid stress was not without exception. There had been a great catastrophe in the past. There might yet be a great catastrophe in the future.

that by the word of God the heavens were of old] The history of the creative work in Genesis 1 furnishes the first example that the order of the universe was not one of unbroken continuity of evolution. In “the word of God” we may see a reference either (1) to the continually recurring formula “God said” in Gen_1:3; Gen_1:6; Gen_1:9, or (2) to the thought that it was by the Eternal Word that the work of Creation was accomplished, as in Joh_1:3; Heb_1:2; and we have no sufficient data for deciding between the two. Heb_11:3 (“the worlds were framed by the word of God”) is exactly parallel to St Peter’s language, and is open to the same diversity of interpretation. In any case the words are a protest against the old Epicurean view of a concourse of atoms, and its modern counterpart, the theory of a perpetual evolution.

and the earth standing out of the water and in the water] More accurately, and the earth formed out of water and by means of water. The words carry us back, as before, to the cosmogony of Genesis 1. The earth was brought out of chaos into its present kosmos, by the water being gathered into one place and the dry land appearing (Gen_1:9). It was kept together by the separation of the waters above the firmament from those that were below the firmament (Gen_1:6). The Apostle speaks naturally from the standpoint of the physical science of his time and country, and we need not care to reconcile either his words or those of Genesis 1 with the conclusions of modern meteorological science. The equivalent fact in the language of that science would be that the permanence of the existing order of the world is secured by the circulation of water, rising in evaporation, and falling in the form of rain, between the higher and lower regions of the atmosphere, and that there must have been a time when this circulation began to supervene on a previous state of things that depended on different conditions.

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.

For this they willingly are ignorant of,.... Namely, what follows; for as these men were such as had professed Christianity, and had the advantage of revelation, and had the opportunity of reading the Scriptures, they might have known that the heavens and the earth were from the beginning; and that they were made by the word of God; and that the earth was originally in such a position and situation as to be overflowed with a flood, and that it did perish by a general inundation; and that the present heavens and earth are kept and reserved for a general burning; and it might be discerned in nature, that there are preparations making for an universal conflagration; but all this they chose not to know, and affected ignorance of: particularly

that by the word of God the heavens were of old: not only in the times of Noah, but "from the beginning"; as the Ethiopic version reads, and which agrees with the account in Gen 1:1; by "the heavens" may be meant both the third heaven, and the starry heavens, and the airy heavens, with all their created inhabitants; and especially the latter, since these were concerned in, and affected with the general deluge; and these were in the beginning of time, out of nothing brought into being, and so were not eternal, and might be destroyed again, or at least undergo a change, even though they were of old, and of long duration: for it was "by the word of God" that they at first existed, and were so long preserved in being; either by the commanding word of God, by his powerful voice, his almighty fiat, who said, Let it be done, and it was done, and who commanded beings to rise up out of nothing, and they did, and stood fast; and so the Arabic version renders it, "by the command of God"; or by his eternal Logos, the essential Word of God, the second Person in the Trinity, who is often in Scripture called the Word, and the Word of God, and, as some think, by the Apostle Peter, Pe1 1:23, and certain it is that the creation of all things is frequently ascribed to him; see Joh 1:16; wherefore by the same Word they might be dissolved, and made to pass away, as they will:

and the earth standing out of the water and in the water; that is, "by the Word of God"; for this phrase, in the original text, is placed after this clause, and last of all; and refers not only to the being of the heavens of old, but to the rise, standing, and subsistence of the earth, which is here particularly described for the sake of the deluge, the apostle afterwards mentions: and it is said to be "standing out of the water", or "consisting out of it"; it consists of it as a part; the globe of the earth is terraqueous, partly land and partly water; and even the dry land itself has its rise and spring out of water; the first matter that was created is called the deep, and waters in which darkness was, and upon which the Spirit of God moved, Gen 1:2; agreeably to which Thales the Milesian asserted (t), that water was the principle of all things; and the Ethiopic version here renders the words thus, "and the Word of God created also the earth out of water, and confirmed it": the account the Jews give of the first formation of the world is this (u);

"at first the world was , "water in water"; what is the sense (of that passage Gen 1:2;) "and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters?" he returned, and made it snow; he casteth forth his ice like morsels, Psa 147:17; he returned and made it earth; "for to the snow he saith, Be thou earth", Job 37:6, and the earth stood upon the waters; "to him that stretched out the earth above the waters", Psa 136:6;''

however, certain it is, that the earth was first covered with water, when at the word, and by the command of God, the waters fled and hasted away, and were gathered into one place, and the dry land rose up and appeared; and then it was that it "stood out of the water"; see Gen 1:9; moreover, the earth consists, or is kept and held together by water; there is a general humidity or moisture that runs through it, by which it is compacted together, or otherwise it would resolve into dust, and by which it is fit for the production, increase, and preservation of vegetables and other things, which it otherwise would not be: and it is also said to stand "in the water", or by the water; upon it, according to Psa 24:2; or rather in the midst of it, there being waters above the firmament or expanse; in the airy heavens, in the clouds all around the earth, called the windows of heaven; and water below the firmament or expanse, in the earth itself; besides the great sea, a large body of waters is in the midst of the earth, in the very bowels of it, which feed rivers, and form springs, fountains and wells, called "the fountains of the great deep", Gen 7:11; and in this position and situation was the earth of old, and so was prepared in nature for a general deluge, and yet was preserved firm and stable by the word of God, for a long series of time; so the Arabic version renders it, "and the earth out of the water, and in the water, stood stable, by the command of God"; but when it was his pleasure, he brought the flood on the world of the ungodly, of which an account follows.

(t) Vid. Laert. l. i. in Vit. Thaletis. (u) T. Hieros. Chagiga, fol. 77. 1.

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

5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

Ver. 5. Willingly ignorant of] A carnal heart is not willing to know what it should do, lest it should do what it would not, Act 28:27. Ut liberius peccent, libenter ignorant, saith Bernard of such: That they may sin the more freely, they are willingly ignorant. They wink wilfully that they may not see, when some unsavoury potion is ministered to them, as Justin Martyr expresseth it.

That by the word of God] And that by the same word again they may as soon be dissolved, yea, reduced to their first original, nothing. A learned man propoundeth this question, How did the Lord employ himself before the world? And his answer is this: A thousand years to him are but as one day, and one day as a thousand years. Again, Who knoweth (saith he) what the Lord hath done? Indeed, he made but one world to our knowledge; but who knoweth what he did before, and what he will do after? Thus he. (Dr Preston of God’s Attrib.)

And the earth standing, &c.] God hath founded the earth upon the seas, and established it upon the floods, Psa 24:2. This Aristotle reckons among the wonders in nature, and well he may. (Lib. de Mirab.) God hath set the solid earth upon the liquid waters for our convenience, Psa 104:6-7. This, if wicked atheists would well weigh, it would make them tremble, Jer 5:22. But they have either so much to do, or so little to do, that they think not at all on these standing miracles. Or, if they do, yet for want of grace all their thoughts of this nature soon vanish; they are but like prints made on the water; as soon as the finger is off, all is out.

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.

For this they willingly are ignorant of - Λαιθάνει γὰρ αὐτοὺς τοῦτο θέλοντας Laithanei gar autous touto thelontas. There is some considerable variety in the translation of this passage. In our common version the Greek word (θέλοντας thelontas) is rendered as if it were an adverb, or as if it referred to their “ignorance” in regard to the event; meaning, that while they might have known this fact, they took no pains to do it, or that they preferred to have its recollection far from their minds. So Beza and Luther render it. Others, however, take it as referring to what follows, meaning, “being so minded; being of that opinion; or affirming.” So Bloomfield, Robinson (Lexicon), Mede, Rosenmuller, etc. According to this interpretation the sense is, “They who thus will or think; that is, they who hold the opinion that all things will continue to remain as they were, are ignorant of this fact that things have not always thus remained; that there has been a destruction of the world once by water.”

The Greek seems rather to demand this interpretation; and then the sense of the passage will be, “It is concealed or hidden from those who hold this opinion, that the earth has been once destroyed.” It is implied, whichever interpretation is adopted, that the will was concerned in it; that they were influenced by that rather than by sober judgment and by reason; and whether the word refers to their “ignorance,” or to their “holding that opinion,” there was obstinacy and perverseness about it. The “will” has usually more to do in the denial and rejection of the doctrines of the Bible than the “understanding” has. The argument which the apostle appeals to in reply to this objection is a simple one. The adversaries of the doctrine affirmed that the laws of nature had always remained the same, and they affirmed that they always would. The apostle denies the fact which they assumed, in the sense in which they affirmed it, and maintains that those laws have not been so stable and uniform that the world has never been destroyed by an overwhelming visitation from God. It has been destroyed by a flood; it may be again by fire. There was the same improbability that the event would occur, so far as the argument from the stability of the laws of nature is concerned, in the one case that there is in the other, and consequently the objection is of no force.

That by the word of God - By the command of God. “He spoke, and it was done.” Compare Gen 1:6, Gen 1:9; Psa 33:9. The idea here is, that everything depends on his word or will. As the heavens and the earth were originally made by his command, so by the same command they can be destroyed.

The heavens were of old - The heavens were formerly made, Gen 1:1. The word “heaven” in the Scriptures sometimes refers to the atmosphere, sometimes to the starry worlds as they appear above us, and sometimes to the exalted place where God dwells. Here it is used, doubtless, in the popular signification, as denoting the heavens as they “appear,” embracing the sun, moon, and stars.

And the earth standing out of the water and in the water - Margin, “consisting.” Greek, συνεστῶσα sunestōsa. The Greek word, when used in an intransitive sense, means “to stand with,” or “together;” then tropically, “to place together,” to constitute, place, bring into existence - Robinson. The idea which our translators seem to have had is, that, in the formation of the earth, a part was out of the water, and a part under the water; and that the former, or the inhabited portion, became entirely submerged, and that thus the inhabitants perished. This was not, however, probably the idea of Peter. He doubtless has reference to the account given in Gen. 1: of the creation of the earth, in which water performed so important a part. The thought in his mind seems to have been, that “water” entered materially into the formation of the earth, and that in its very origin there existed the means by which it was destroyed afterward.

The word which is rendered “standing” should rather be rendered “consisting of,” or “constituted of;” and the meaning is, that the creation of the earth was the result of the divine agency acting on the mass of elements which in Genesis is called “waters,” Gen 1:2, Gen 1:6-7, Gen 1:9. There was at first a vast fluid, an immense unformed collection of materials, called “waters,” and from that the earth arose. The point of time, therefore, in which Peter looks at the earth here, is not when the mountains, and continents, and islands, seem to be standing partly out of the water and partly in the water, but when there was a vast mass of materials called “waters” from which the earth was formed. The phrase “out of the water” (ἐξ ὕδατος ex hudatos) refers to the origin of the earth. It was formed “from,” or out of, that mass. The phrase “in the water” (δἰ ὕδατος di' hudatos) more properly means “through” or “by.” It does not mean that the earth stood in the water in the sense that it was partly submerged; but it means not only that the earth arose “from” that mass that is called “water” in Gen. 1, but that that mass called “water” was in fact the grand material out of which the earth was formed. It was “through” or “by means of” that vast mass of mingled elements that the earth was made as it was. Everything arose out of that chaotic mass; through that, or by means of that, all things were formed, and from the fact that the earth was thus formed out of the water, or that water entered so essentially into its formation, there existed causes which ultimately resulted in the deluge.

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

For this they are wilfully ignorant of. The ignorance of these unbelievers is wilful and inexcusable, when they question the existence of a Supreme Being, of a future state, wherein God will reward the good and punish the wicked; when they laugh at all the miracles, and all the extraordinary effects of God’s power and justice, such as was the general flood or deluge, by which God destroyed the wicked by an inundation of waters. And as our blessed Saviour said of those, who would not believe in the days of Noe [Noah], "They were eating and drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage,...and they knew not till the flood came, and took them all away: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." (Mattew xxiv. 38. 39.) (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

For this they willingly are ignorant of; they will not know what they ought to know, and, if they would search the Scripture, might know.

That by the word of God; the command of God, or word of his power, as it is called, Heb 1:3; see Gen 1:6,9; Psa 33:6; 148:5.

The heavens were; were created, or had a being given them, Gen 1:6.

Of old; from the beginning of the world.

And the earth; the globe of the earth, which comprehends likewise the seas and rivers, as parts of the whole.

Standing out of the water and in the water: according to our translation, the sense of these words may be plainly this, that the earth, standing partly out of the water, (as all the dry land doth, whose surface is higher than the water), and partly in the water, (as those parts do which are under it), or in the midst of the water, as being covered and encompassed by seas and rivers. But most expositors follow the marginal reading, and render the Greek word by consisting; and then the meaning may be, either:

1. That the earth consisting of water, as the matter out of which it was formed, (Moses calling the chaos which was that matter, waters, Gen 1:2), and by water, from which it hath its compactness and solidity, and without which it would be wholly dry, mere useless dust, unfit for the generation and production of natural things. If we understand the words thus, the argument lies against the scoffers; for the earth thus consists of and by water, yet God made use of the water for the destroying of the world; and so natural causes are not sufficient for its preservation without the power of God sustaining it in its being; and whenever he withdraws that power, in spite of all inferior causes, it must perish. Or:

2. The words may thus be read, the heavens were of old, and the earth (supply from the former clause) was out of the water, and consisting by, or in, the water; and the meaning is, that the earth did emerge, or appear out of, or above, the water, viz. when God gathered the waters together, and made the dry land appear; and doth consist by, or among, or in, the midst of the waters, as was before explained.

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

5. It is to the Flood that our apostle appeals as an instance of a great interposition. A suitable instance; for its mundane reality is attested by a world-wide spread of traditions among mankind. Whether the deluge was literally world-wide or not, it was a true instance of a mundane catastrophe, justifying the possibility of a still greater catastrophe from the hand of Him to whom this globe is a speck.

Willingly… ignorant—Men do not know the truth because they wish not to know it.

Heavens… earth—The same antithesis as in Gen_1:1, where the heavens precede the earth.

Were of old—The celestial long preceded the terrestrial.

Out of… in—Rather, through.

The water—The isles and continents project up out of the water, and stretch their long extensions through the water. The one phrase describes the upward rise of the lands from water, the other, the horizontal projection of lands through it.

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

For this they willingly are ignorant of; literally, for this escapes them of their own will. All things have not always been as they are; there have been great changes; there was once a great catastrophe; but this they willfully forget, Huther translates differently, "For, whilst they assert this, it is hidden from them that," etc. But this rendering seems forced and unsatisfactory, and gives a meaning to qelw which it has nowhere in the New Testament. That by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water. The Revised Version translates, That there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the Word of God. The mockers say that all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. That creation itself was a great, a stupendous change, a mighty effort of the power of God.

St. Peter refers to it in words evidently derived from the Book of Genesis, not from any other sources, whether Greek, Egyptian, or Indian. There were heavens from of old. (the word ekpalai occurs elsewhere only in 2Pe_2:3) There was an earth formed or standing out of the water. The Greek participle here used is sunestwsa, literally, "standing together or consisting"; (comp. Col_1:17) it may be taken closely with both prepositional Clauses, "earth consisting of water and by means of water." Thales had taught that water was the beginning of things, the original element (panta ejx udatov sunestanai); the narrative in Genesis represents water as originally overspreading all things: "The earth was without form ajoratov, Septuagint, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." We may therefore understand St. Peter as meaning that the earth was formed or compacted out of water, or out of those substances which the water at first held in solution; and that it is kept together in coherence and solidity by means of water. If, on the other hand, we regard the participle as closely connected with the second preposition only, the meaning will be that the earth, held together and compacted by means of water, rose up out of the water, and appeared above it, when God said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear." It is possible, again, to understand the preposition dia locally, and to translate "amidst water." Comp. Psa_136:6, "He stretched out the earth above the waters;" andgw)," Psa_24:2, "He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods." Of course, neither St. Peter nor Moses is speaking in the language of science; their object was, not to teach scientific truth, but to present the great fact of creation in an aspect suitable to our poor capacities. For the clause, "by the Word of God (tw tou Qeou lo) comp.mati Heb_11:3, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God (rJh) Qeou)." St. Peter may be referring to the formula, "And God said," so constantly repeated in the account of the creation, or (what is really the same truth) to the fact that "all things were made by him by God the Word, and without him was not anything made that was made." For this they willingly are ignorant of; literally, for this escapes them of their own will. All things have not always been as they are; there have been great changes; there was once a great catastrophe; but this they willfully forget, Huther translates differently, "For, whilst they assert this, it is hidden from them that," etc. But this rendering seems forced and unsatisfactory, and gives a meaning to qelw which it has nowhere in the New Testament. That by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water. The Revised Version translates, That there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the Word of God. The mockers say that all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. That creation itself was a great, a stupendous change, a mighty effort of the power of God.

St. Peter refers to it in words evidently derived from the Book of Genesis, not from any other sources, whether Greek, Egyptian, or Indian. There were heavens from of old. (the word ekpalai occurs elsewhere only in 2Pe_2:3) There was an earth formed or standing out of the water. The Greek participle here used is sunestwsa, literally, "standing together or consisting"; (comp. Col_1:17) it may be taken closely with both prepositional Clauses, "earth consisting of water and by means of water." Thales had taught that water was the beginning of things, the original element (panta ejx udatov sunestanai); the narrative in Genesis represents water as originally overspreading all things: "The earth was without form ajoratov, Septuagint, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." We may therefore understand St. Peter as meaning that the earth was formed or compacted out of water, or out of those substances which the water at first held in solution; and that it is kept together in coherence and solidity by means of water. If, on the other hand, we regard the participle as closely connected with the second preposition only, the meaning will be that the earth, held together and compacted by means of water, rose up out of the water, and appeared above it, when God said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear." It is possible, again, to understand the preposition dia locally, and to translate "amidst water." Comp. Psa_136:6, "He stretched out the earth above the waters;" andgw)," Psa_24:2, "He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods." Of course, neither St. Peter nor Moses is speaking in the language of science; their object was, not to teach scientific truth, but to present the great fact of creation in an aspect suitable to our poor capacities. For the clause, "by the Word of God (tw tou Qeou lo) comp.mati Heb_11:3, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God (rJh) Qeou)." St. Peter may be referring to the formula, "And God said," so constantly repeated in the account of the creation, or (what is really the same truth) to the fact that "all things were made by him by God the Word, and without him was not anything made that was made."

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

For this they are willingly ignorant of - They do not care to know or consider. That by the almighty word of God - Which bounds the duration of all things, so that it cannot be either longer or shorter. Of old - Before the flood. The aerial heavens were, and the earth - Not as it is now, but standing out of the water and in the water - Perhaps the interior globe of earth was fixed in the midst of the great deep, the abyss of water; the shell or exterior globe standing out of the water, covering the great deep. This, or some other great and manifest difference between the original and present constitution of the terraqueous globe, seems then to have been so generally known, that St. Peter charges their ignorance of it totally upon their wilfulness.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The answer of St. Peter, showing the certainty of the Lord’s return:

v. 5. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water;

v. 6. whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.

v. 7. But the heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the Day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

v. 8. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.

v. 9. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

v. 10. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

St. Peter’s rejoinder charges the scoffers with malicious ignorance: For this escapes their notice of their own purpose, that the heavens were originally and the earth out of water and through water was formed by the word of the Lord. Peter maintains that there are certain facts connected with the creation of the world which are evident even to the casual observer, the denial of which, therefore, reveals the tendency which governs the mind of the scoffers. It escapes them, it is hidden from them, because they willfully shut their eyes to the evidence presented. From the beginning the heavens were there; they were made by the Lord at the very beginning of His creative labors, Gen 1:1. And the earth, the dry land, was set up, being formed by the separation of the earth and the water, just as it is to this day kept fruitful through water, Gen 2:6. Thus the earth did not come into existence by itself, it was not developed in the course of eons, or millions of years, out of some original atoms, but it was created by the word of God, called into being by the word of His almighty power.

Upon this world descended the destroying wrath of God: Through which the world then existing, being submerged by water, was destroyed. By the word of the Lord the world was created, through the agency of water it maintained its existence. But again by the word of God and through water as a destroying agency, the world, as then existing, perished. The waters that had receded at the almighty word of God arose again at His command, and the dry land was submerged, and all creatures that had the breath of life in them perished with—the exception of the few that were placed into the ark at God’s command. Here is an answer to the scoffers that things did not always remain as they were in the beginning.

The apostle now, in contrast to this vain jangling, sets forth the truth: But the present heavens and earth are treasured up by the same word, set apart for fire for the Day of Judgment and destruction of the godless men. The sky, or heaven, as it now appears over our heads, and this earth, as its various forms blossomed forth to new life after the Deluge, are now being kept like a treasure, held together, not through eternal and blind forces of nature, but through the word of the Lord. But the purpose of this careful watch of the Lord is not to have the world last forever. It is being kept, rather, for destruction by fire. The world, as the men from Adam to Noah knew it, was destroyed by water; the world, as it was peopled by the descendants of Noah, is being saved for the fire which will attend the last Judgment. The scoffers may now jeer and ridicule, but the day will come when the patience of God will have an end. Then He will hold judgment; then every sinful thought, word, and deed will have to be accounted for; then the godless, the scoffers, the unbelievers, will be condemned to everlasting destruction.

To his first argument concerning the coming of the Day of Judgment the apostle now adds another to explain the apparent delay: But this one thing should not be hidden from you, beloved, that one day before the Lord is as thousand years and thousand years as one day. There is always danger that the ridicule of the unbelievers may leave just a little doubt in the heart of the Christians, especially since so many of the signs which were to precede the Lord’s coming have been fulfilled. But Christians should not permit themselves to be led astray. They should not forget, should not lose sight of the fact, that their Lord is the eternal God, before whom a thousand years of human reckoning are as a day and a single day like a thousand years. Time does not exist for the eternal God, Psa 90:4. What seems long to us is to the Lord only as the day that has just passed. If to our finite minds the return of the Lord seems to be unduly delayed, we still know that His Word and promise stand safe and sure.

Moreover, it is not a mere caprice on the Lord’s part to delay His coming: The Lord does not delay with the promise, as some consider it a delay, but He is long-suffering on your account, not desiring that any should perish, but that all should turn to repentance. To speak of the Lord’s delaying, of His being slack in the fulfillment of His promise, is not right, does not square with the facts. He is the true and faithful God, who keeps His promises and fulfills them at the time when He believes the fulfillment should come. The reason why He has not yet permitted the Day of Judgment to dawn is rather one which again opens to our view the wonderful love toward sinners which fills His heart. He is patient, He is long-suffering; He is still sending out His servants into every part of the world because He does not desire the death of a single sinner. He wants all men to turn to Him in true repentance and faith; He wants them all to accept His grace and mercy in Jesus Christ the Savior. His loving-kindness and tender mercy is adding one year after another to the time of grace, as it were, in order that as many men as possible will hear the message of salvation and come to the Lord.

All these considerations, however, do not change one fact: But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a crackling noise, and the elements, being burned, will be dissolved, and the earth and the works in it will be burned. Every word of this verse emphasizes the inevitable certainty of the Lord’s coming. The day of the Lord, the Day of Judgment, is corning beyond the shadow of a doubt. Moreover, the believers should keep in mind that this day is coming like a thief, Mat 24:43; 1Th 5:2; Rev 3:3; Rev 16:15, that is, its coming will be sudden unexpected, its actual coming a surprise to all. The coming of the Lord on that day will inaugurate the end of the world. The firmament of the heavens will quake and break and vanish, with a crackling noise and roar as of a devouring flame. The elements of which the earth is composed will be dissolved in their present form by burning, and the earth itself and all the works in the world, all the mighty and magnificent structures of man’s hands, the immense cities with their proud sky-scrapers, the great ships and all conveyances which the ingenuity of man has devised for use in the sea, on land, in the air, all the wonderful works of art which are exhibited with such self-satisfaction: they all will perish by fire in the destruction of the last day. Of this fact the Christians must never lose sight; it must, in a way, be a norm controlling all their actions in this world.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

These scoffers had declared in the former verse, that the world was the same it was from the beginning; that nature always had, and therefore ever would keep its course. But, says the apostle here, these scoffers know better; if they be ignorant, they are willingly ignorant what a change God made in the world since the first creation of it, and that he can as easily destroy it, as he did at first create it.

To evidence this, the apostle shews how God by water drowned the old world, and therefore all things had not continued as they were from the beginning of the creation; and that this present world shall, when God’s time is come, be ruined by fire, as the old world was by water. The same omnipotent power of God which created the world, upholds it and preserves it, and will at last destroy it, namely, at the final judgment, when all wicked persons, especially profane scoffers at, and deriders of Christ’s coming, shall be condemned and perish.

Hence learn, That those great and awful works of God, the creation, preservation, and final destruction of the world, first by water, and next by fire, none ought to be ignorant of, but all ought to meditate frequently upon, and be continually prepared for.

Note, 2. That the day of judgment will be a day of perdition to ungodly men, they shall then be utterly and eternally destroyed. The wicked are called in scripture sons of perdition; they are so actively, they make it their work to destroy others; and they are so passively, they shall be destroyed at that day, when they and their works shall be burnt up.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5–7. For this they willingly are ignorant of. Their ignorance which causes them to speak thus is wilful. They obstinately forget all the lessons taught by the deluge. There the fixed order was interrupted. That there were heavens. This alludes to the beginning of creation. See Gen. 1:1, 2. By the word of God. See Gen. 1:6, 9. And the earth. The Revision translated, “compacted out of water.” That is, water is a principal element in its formation, a fact seen in three-fourths of its surface being sea, and water being found in the depths of the earth everywhere, and being found largely in earthly combinations.

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.

the heavens and the earth came to exist ... long ago, by God's command

This can be stated in active form. AT: "God established the heavens and the earth ... long ago by his word" (See: Active or Passive)

came to exist out of water and through water

This means that God caused the land to come up out of the water, gathering the bodies of water together to make the land appear.

through these things

Here "these things" refers to God's word and water.

the world of that time was destroyed, being flooded with water

This can be stated in active form. AT: "God flooded the world that existed at that time with water and destroyed it" (See: Active or Passive)

the heavens and the earth are reserved for fire by that same command

This can be stated in active form. AT: "God, by that same word, has reserved the heavens and the earth for fire" (See: Active or Passive)

that same command

Here "command" stands for God, who will give the command: AT "God, who will give a similar command"

They are reserved for the day of judgment

This can be stated in active form and can begin a new sentence. AT: "He is reserving them for the day of judgment" (See: Active or Passive)

for the day of judgment and the destruction of the ungodly people

This can be stated with verbal phrases. AT: "for the day when he judges and destroys ungodly people" (See: Abstract Nouns)

translationWords

heaven

earth

water

command

world

flood

fire

judgment day

godly

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

5-10.] Refutations of this their scoffing inference.

5-7.] First refutation: from the biblical history of the creation.

5.] For (i. e. they speak thus, because) this (viz. this fact which follows) escapes them (passes unnoticed by them) of their own will (i. e. they shut their eyes to this fact. So we have θέλων in Od. γ. 272, of Paris and Helen, τὴν δʼ ἐθέλων ἐθέλουσαν ἀπήγαγεν ὅνδε δόμονδε; l1. δ. 300, al. Some, among whom are Rosenmüller, Pott, Bretschneider, Huther, take τοῦτο to refer to the saying of ver. 4, and render θέλοντας ‘meaning,’ ‘supposing,’ as in Herodian, v. 3. 11, εἰκόνα τε ἡλίου ἀνέργαστον εἶναι θέλουσι. But besides that this would introduce an unusual meaning for θέλω, and that meaning not in its usual application to an hypothesis or assumption, but to an asserted fact,—a stronger objection is, that thus the sentence becomes a very flat one, and quite out of place among the sharp and nervous denunciations of the passage. The other is the rendering of almost all Commentators and versions. The vulg. is ambiguous, “latet enim eos hoc volentes”), that the heavens (οὐρανοί = οἱ οὐρανοί, see Winer, § 19. 1) were from of old (ref.: “jam inde a primo rerum omnium initio,” Gerh.) and the earth (ἦσαν, above, serves for γῆ also) formed (συνεστῶσα, ‘consistent,’ see reff.) out of water and by means of water (ἐξ ὕδατος, because the waters that were under the firmament were gathered together into one place and the dry land appeared: and thus water was the material, out of which the earth was made: διʼ ὕδατος, because the waters above the firmament, being divided from the waters below the firmament, by furnishing moisture, and rain, and keeping moist the earth, are the means by which the earth συνίσταται. This is the simplest rendering, and very nearly that given by Huther. De Wette goes ‘in omnia alia’ after traces of far-fetched cosmogonical references, Indo-Ægyptian and Greek: but the whole interpretation of our passage lies in the book of Genesis. Œc., without mentioning the reference to the waters above and beneath the firmament, gives a similar explanation of the ἐκ and διά‚ ἐξ ὕδατος μέν‚ ὡς ἐξ ὑλικοῦ αἰτίου· διʼ ὕδατος δέ‚ ὡς διατελικοῦ) by the word of God (not of its own will, nor by a fortuitous concurrence of atoms),

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

This they willingly are ignorant of [λανθανει αυτους τουτο θελοντας] . Lit., this escapes them of their own will. Rev., this they wilfully forget.

The heavens were. But the Greek has not article. Render, there were heavens. So, too, not the earth, but an earth, as Rev.

Standing [συνεστωσα] . Incorrect; for the word is, literally, standing together; i e., compacted or formed. Compare Col 1:17, consist. Rev., compacted.

Out of the water. Again no article. Render out of water; denoting not the position of the earth, but the material or mediating element in the creation; the waters being gathered together in one place, and the dry land appearing. Or, possibly, with reference to the original liquid condition of the earth - without form and void.

In the water [δι υδατος] . Omit the article. Dia has its usual sense here, not as Rev., amidst, but by means of. Bengel : "The water served that the earth should consist." Expositors are much divided as to the meaning. This is the view of Huther, Salmond, and, substantially, Alford.

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