Jude 1:13

Jud_1:13

Raging waves of the sea.

The character and doom of the wicked

The scope of the apostle in all these similitudes is to show that these seducers were nothing less than what they pretended to be: clouds, but dry, barren clouds; trees, but such as bore either none or rotten fruit; waves, that seemed to mount up unto heaven, and to promise great matters, as if they would swallow up the whole earth, but being dashed against a rock, all this raging and swelling turneth into a little foam and froth.

1. From the scope observe that spiritual boasters will certainly come short of their great promises. All is but noise, such as is made by empty vessels.

2. But let us a little examine the force of the words. The whole similitude alludeth to what is said of wicked men in general (Isa_57:20). Observe that they are waves, which noteth their inconstancy (Gen_49:4). Water, you know, is movable, soon furled, and driven to and fro by the winds; so were these (Eph_4:14). Note thence that seducers are unsettled and uncertain in their opinions (2Pe_3:16). Why? Because they are not rooted and grounded in their profession, but led by sudden affection and interests rather than judgment; they are unstable because unlearned; such as do not proceed upon clear and certain grounds. Well, then, discover them by their levity; you will never have comfort and certainty in following them who, like weathercocks, turn with every wind. Waves of the sea. There you have their restless activity, they are always tossed to and fro (Jer_49:23). They are acted by Satan, who is a restless spirit. Raging waves of the sea. There you have their turbulency; they fill all places with troubles and strifes. Why? Because they are urged by their own pride and vanity, and have lost all restraints of modesty, and are usually, as to their constitution, of violent and eager spirits. Well, then, be not borne down with impudence and rage; there may be daring attempts and much resolution in an ill cause. The next expression is foaming out their own shame, as a raging sea casteth up mire and dirt; or it alluded to that scum and froth which the waves leave upon the rocks, and so it noteth the abominableness of their opinions and practices. So errors come in like a raging wave, as if they would bear all before them, but they go out like foam and froth, in scorn and infamy. Well, then, observe the fruitless-ness of all Satans attempts. We come now to the next similitude, wandering stars. It may be taken two ways--properly or improperly.

(1) Properly, for the stars which we call planets, or wandering, though indeed no stars wander less than they do; they have their name from the opinion and common judgment of sense, because they are not carried about the whole circuit of the heavens, but in a shorter orb and course.

(2) Improperly; there are a second sort of wandering stars, which Aristotle calleth running and gliding stars; not stars indeed, but only dry exhalations inflamed, which glare much and deceive the eye with an appearance of light, but soon vanish and are quenched. Now these glancing, shooting stars do excellently express the quality of these seducers, who pretended great knowledge, being therefore called Gnostics, and gave out themselves for illuminate and profound doctors, but were various and uncertain in their motions, and soon extinguished and obscured. The guides of the Lords people should be stars, but not wandering, gliding stars. These seducers pretended to be stars, and great lights of the Church, but were indeed wandering stars, and such as did seduce and cause to err.

1. Stars they should be--

(1) In regard of the light of doctrine (Mat_5:14).

(2) In regard of the lustre of their conversations.

It is said of all Christians (Php_2:15) that they should shine as lights in this world; they are the bright part of the world, as the stars are the shining part of heaven; as the star directed the wise men to Christ, so they must shine to light others by their example to Him. Alas! we are but dim lights; we have our spots and eclipses, but this sets the world a-talking.

2. They must not be gliding, falling stars; that is charged upon these seducers. A false teacher and a falling star symboliseth in three respects--

(1) It is but a counterfeit star; so is he an angel of light only in appearance (2Co_11:14). A true Christian should covet more to be than to seem to be; to be light in the Lord before he is a light in the world.

(2) In respect of the uncertainty of its motion. Falling stars are not moved with the heavens, but with the motion of the air, hither and thither, and so are no sure direction. So are they inconstant in the doctrines which they teach, running from opinion to opinion; vagabond lights, that seduce, not direct, as meteors mislead travellers out of the way.

(3) In regard of the fatal issue. A wandering star falleth to the ground, and becometh a dark slime and jelly; so their pretences vanish at length, and they are found to be those that were never enlightened and fixed in the firmament of God; counterfeits cannot last long; we see stars shoot in the turn of an eye, and Satans instruments fall from heaven like lightning. Well, then, for a guide to heaven, choose a star, but not a wandering star. New light is admired, but it should be suspected rather. True stars have influences; they do not only enlighten and fill you with notions, but enflame and stir you to practice. The last clause of the text is, to whom is reserved blackness of darkness for ever.

In this threatening three things are notable--

(1) The dreadfulness of the punishment;

(2) the sureness;

(3) the suitableness of it.

1. The dreadfulness, in two circumstances--

(1) The nature of it;

(2) the duration of it.

(a) The nature of it, the blackness of darkness. It is a Hebraism for exceeding great darkness, called in the gospel outer darkness, as being furthest from God, the fountain of life and glory, and so expressing that extreme misery, horror, and torment which is in hell. Well, then, let us not begin our hell ourselves, by shunning Gods presence, by preferring carnal pleasures before the light of His countenance, by remaining in the night or darkness of ignorance or error, by darkening the glory of our holy profession through scandalous living, by sinning against conscience, and so providing food for the gnawing worm, or matter of despair to ourselves to all eternity.

(b) The next thing is the duration, the blackness of darkness for ever. The torment prepared for the wicked is everlasting (Mar_9:44). This is the hell of hell, that, as the torments there are without measure, so without end. Here they might have life and would not, and now would have death, and cannot (Rev_20:10).

2. So much for the terribleness of the judgment; now, secondly, let us consider the sureness of it: it is reserved. Hell torment is sure, prepared, kept for the wicked (Mat_25:1-46). Carnal men may lord it abroad for a while, and ruffle and shine in worldly pomp, but the blackness of darkness is kept for them.

3. Observe the suitableness of the judgment to the sin; he saith darkness, not fire. Clouds that darken the truth are justly punished with the mists of darkness for ever (2Pe_2:17). They that would quench the true light are cast into eternal darkness. (T. Manton.)

Wandering stars.

Wandering stars

Dean Alford, with many other commentators, says, These words, wandering stars, mean comets, which astonish the world for a while and then pass away into darkness. The Bible takes up this thought about comets, or wandering stars, and applies it to certain kinds of people. Let us trace some of the features of similarity.

I. In the first place, some folk are very much like comets in that there is not much substance in them.

II. Notice, that some people are like comets in that they are easily swayed out of their orbits. The metaphor applies to unstable men, driven hither and thither by temptations, whose life presents the strongest kind of contrast to the safe, well-ordered life of Christians, more fixed, like the orbit of a planet.

(a) Young friends, keep to your orbit of purpose. Have an aim and stick to it. Many a life goes to waste and ruin simply because, like an abandoned and drifting vessel, or a wandering star, no guiding purpose directs its course.

(b) More important, young friends, keep to your orbit of right. Let no Jupiter attraction sway you out of it.

III. Notice, again, that comets grow brighter as they get near the sun and darker as they go away from it. So do we all grow more bright and beautiful as we get near to Christ, and darker as we go from Him.

IV. Notice, lastly, that some comets are truly wandering stars. As unstable, disrupted ruins, they are hastening forward to a final darkness. Surely this is very suggestive of the sad ending of sin. To die in ones sins is the darkest of deaths. (G. B. F. Hallock.)

The blackness of darkness for ever.--

Outer darkness

You have been out in a very dark night, when you could not see an inch before you, and the whole world seemed blotted out of existence. I dare say you thought that there could be no darkness deeper than that. And yet the darkest night that any one has ever seen is not the blackness of darkness to which the apostle alludes; for there is some light mixed with it--light which other creatures can see, such as cats and owls, though you cannot. The stars are shining all the time, and their rays are piercing through the universal gloom and lighting it up, so that it is not so dense as it would otherwise be. We know nothing of the blackness of darkness--darkness without light; darkness in blank, empty space. There is one spot in the visible universe that can in some measure enable us to realise the awful conception of Jude. When Sir William Herschel examined the southern part of the starry heavens on one occasion with his huge telescope, he noticed in the constellation of the Scorpion--the eighth sign of the Zodiac, into which the sun enters about the 23rd of October--a particular dark spot; and he was very much startled and said, There is certainly a hole in the heavens there. There was in that spot a total absence of any star, or gleam of light such as elsewhere, in countless myriads, overspread the entire firmament. His son Sir John was some time afterwards at the Cape of Good Hope as Astronomer Royal, and with the same telescope, in the clear atmosphere of South Africa, he looked up at the same spot in the starry sky, and saw that his father was correct. He was, indeed, looking at a hole in the heavens, where no mortal eye with any instrument that the highest skill could devise could detect one solitary glimmer of far-off light. It is into outer darkness like that that lost souls are cast which have separated themselves from God and refused to obey His law of love and light. Human beings cannot bear darkness. There are some creatures that love it--that hide themselves under stones and in dark corners of the earth. But man was made for the light, and therefore dreads darkness more than anything else. God has given to us this instinctive fear of darkness because it is injurious to us, except during the short time that it is necessary to aid and deepen our sleep at night, which may be said to be a kind of death. He meant us to dread it and avoid it, and to live in the light. I said that in this world it is impossible to get out of the reach of light. In the natural world God has placed the orbit of our earth amid regions that are continually lit up with the light of suns and stars everywhere. And so too in the spiritual world God has placed your sphere and orbit in a region of light. The Sun of Righteousness shines upon you always. You cannot get beyond the reach of Gods light. Behind the gloom in which you bury yourself by conscious and wilful sin, He works to bring you out of the darkness into His own marvellous light. God wishes you in His own light to see light upon all the great things that concern your immortal welfare. He wishes you to walk in the light, for He knows that darkness is your greatest enemy; for darkness means the loss of power to use the organs of life, the loss of enjoyment in the bright and beautiful world which He has made for your happiness, and, if carried to an extreme, the loss of life itself. Have you ever seen a root, say a potato, or a dahlia root, sprouting in a dark cellar? What a brittle, feeble, monstrous growth does it produce; the semblance of a plant, without sap, or strength, or beauty--a white, death-like ghost! But even that feeble abortive effort to grow is caused by the small quantity of light that finds its way into the darkest cellar, and cannot be shut out. But supposing that you could exclude the light altogether, and make the place absolutely dark, then not only would the root of the plant make no effort to grow, but it would wither and die away altogether; it would lose the life that it had. Complete darkness is fatal to all life. And so, hiding yourself from the light of God that shines all around you, loving darkness rather than light, because your deeds are evil, you become like blind fishes--you lose some faculty or power of your soul. You make yourself blind to the things that belong to your peace. You deprive yourself of much that is fitted to bless and ennoble your life. But separating yourself from God altogether, you would lose the life itself of your soul. Your living soul would become a dead, inanimate thing, without a pulse of love or a glow of hope. It would be all darkness--not the darkness cast by the shadow of Gods presence, but the utter, deathly darkness of the absence of God. You would wander out of the region of Gods light, out of the Milky Way of Gods gracious influences, into outer darkness, where Dantes terrible words would be realised to the full, All hope abandon, ye who enter here. Does not the thought of that awful blackness of darkness for ever urge you to cry for the light, to come to the light, to ask God to lighten your eyes lest you sleep the sleep of death--to walk in the light while you have the light? (H. Macmillan, D. D.)

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

Jdg 1:13. Raging waves of the sea — Unstable in their doctrine, and turbulent and furious in their tempers and manners, having no command of their irascible passions. Foaming out their own shame — By their wicked and outrageous behaviour, even among their disciples, showing their own filthiness to their great disgrace. The apostle seems here to have alluded to Isa 57:20, The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. Wandering stars — Πλανηται, literally, planets, which shine for a time, but have no light in themselves. The Jews called their teachers stars, and Christian teachers are represented under the emblem of stars, Rev 1:20; Rev 2:1. And as the planets seem to have a very irregular motion, being sometimes stationary and sometimes retrograde, they are very proper emblems of persons unsettled in their principles, and irregular in their behaviour, such as these men were. To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness, &c. Who will soon be driven to an eternal distance from the great original of light and happiness, to which they shall never return. Thus the apostle illustrates their desperate wickedness, by comparisons drawn from the air, earth, sea and heavens.

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

1:13 The planets were considered to be wandering stars because they moved across the sky in seemingly irregular patterns. The false teachers wandered, and God condemned their sin.

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

Jud 1:13. Ἐπαφρίζοντα, foaming out) swollen through plenty: Isa 57:20.—ἀστέρες πλανῆται, wandering stars) It has been ascertained in a more recent age, that planets are of themselves dark (opaque) bodies, shining with borrowed light. St Jude, even at that time, from his divine light, conveyed this meaning. For it is plain, from the subsequent mention of darkness, that the allusion is not merely to the etymological derivation of wandering stars [πλανῆται, Th. πλανάομαι, I wander] (although this is also suitable). Comp. 2Pe 2:17. And the same reason shows that it is not to be understood of the ignis fatuus. Aristotle plainly distinguishes between οἱ δοκοῦντες ἀστέρες διάττειν, the stars which appear to dart through the heavens, shooting stars, and οἱ πλανῆται ἀστέρες, the planets. Book i. Meteor, ch. 4 and 6.—οἷς, to whom) As before, in the case of the clouds, trees, and waves, so now to the wandering stars, an appropriate description is added, with reference to the Apodosis.

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

Jud_1:13. Continuation of the figurative description of those false teachers. The two images here employed characterize them in their erring and disordered nature.

κύματα ἄγρια θαλάσσης κ.τ.λ.] Already Carpzov has correctly referred for the explanation of these words to Isa_57:20; the first words correspond to the Hebrew כַּיָּם נִגְרָשׁ; the following words: ἐπαφρίζοντα τὰς ἑαυτῶν αἰσχύνας, to the Hebrew יִגְרְשׁוּ מֵימָיו רֶפֶשׁ וָטִיט, only Jude uses the literal word where Isaiah has the figurative expression.

ἐπαφρίζειν] properly: to foam oJude Jud_1:1 :Luther well translates it: which foam out their own shame.

αἰσχύνας, not properly vices (de Wette); the plural does not necessitate this explanation, but their disgraceful nature, namely, the shameful ἐπιθυμίαι which they manifest in their wild lawless life; not their self-devised wisdom (Schott).

From the fact that the Hebrews sometimes compared their teachers to the sea (see Moses, theol. Samar., ed. Gesenius, p. 26), it is not to be inferred, with Schneckenburger and Jachmann, that there is here a reference to the office of teachers; this is the more unsuitable as the opponents of Jude hardly possessed that office.

ἀστέρες πλανῆται] These two words are to be taken together, wandering stars; that is, stars which have no fixed position, but roam about. The analogy with the preceding metaphors requires us to think on actual stars, with which Jude compares his opponents; thus on comets (Bretschneider, Arnaud, Stier, de Wette, Hofmann) or on planets (so most of the early commentators, also Wiesinger). The latter opinion is less probable, because the πλανᾶσθαι of the planets is less striking to the eye than that of the comets. It is incorrect in the explanation entirely to disregard the fact whether there are such ἀστέρες πλανῆται in heaven or not (so earlier in this commentary, after the example of Schott), and to assume that Jude, on account of their ostentation (Wiesinger, Schott), designates these men as stars, and by πλανῆται indicates their unsteady nature. De Wette incorrectly assumes this in essentials as equivalent with πλανῶντες καὶ πλανώμενοι, 2Ti_3:13. Bengel thinks that we are in this figure chiefly to think on the opaqueness of the planets; but such an astronomical reference is far-fetched. Jachmann arbitrarily explains ἀστέρες = φωστῆρες, Php_2:15, as a designation of Christians. Several expositors also refer this figure to the teaching of those men, appealing to Php_2:15 and Dan_12:3; so already Oecumenius: δοκοῦντες εἰς ἄγγελον φωτὸς μετασχηματίζεσθαι … ἀπεναντίας μόνον τοῦ κυρίου φέρονται δογμάτων (Hornejus, and others); but the context gives no warrant for this.

οἷς ὁ ζόφος τοῦ σκότους εἰς αἰῶνα τετήρηται] This addition may grammatically be referred either to what immediately precedes, thus to the ἀστέρες πλανῆται, or to the men who have been described by the figures used by Jude. It is in favour of the first reference (Hofmann: Jude names them stars passing into eternal darkness, comets destined only to vanish) that a more precise statement is also added to the preceding figure; thus the addition ὑπὸ ἀνέμων παραφερόμεναι to νεφέλαι ἄνυδροι κ.τ.λ. But it is against it that the expression chosen by Jude is evidently too strong to designate only the disappearance of comets, therefore the second reference is to be preferred (Wiesinger; comp. Jud_1:6), which also the parallel passage in 2Pe_2:17 favours. The addition of the genitive τοῦ σκότους to ὁ ζόφος serves to strengthen this idea.

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.

Jud 1:13 . κύματα ἄγρια θαλάσσης ἐπαφρίζοντα τὰς ἑαυτῶν αἰσχύνας . Cf. Cic. Ad Hercnn. iv. 55, spumans ex ore scelus . The two former illustrations, the reefs and the clouds, refer to the specious professions of the libertines and the mischief they caused; the third, the dead trees, brings out also their own miserable condition; the fourth and fifth give a very fine description of their lawlessness and shamelessness, and their eventual fate. The phrase ἄγρια κύματα is found in Wis 14:1 . The rare word ἐπαφρίζω is used of the sea in Moschus Jud 1:5 . It refers to the seaweed and other refuse borne on the crest of the waves and thrown up on the beach, to which are compared the overflowings of ungodliness (Psa 17:4 ), the ῥυπαρία καὶ περισσεία κακίας condemned by Jas 1:21 , where see my note. The libertines foam out their own shames by their swelling words (Jud 1:16 ), while they turn the grace of God into a cloak for their licentiousness (Jud 1:4 ). We may compare Phi 3:19 , ἡ δόξα ἐν τῇ αἰσχύνῃ αὐτῶν .

ἀστέρες πλανῆται . This is borrowed from Enoch (chapters xliii., xliv.) where it is said that some of the stars become lightnings and cannot part with their new form, ib. lxxx, “In the days of the sinners, many chiefs of the stars will err, and will alter their orbits and tasks, ib. lxxxvi, where the fall of the angels is described as the falling of stars, ib. lxxxviii, “he seized the first star which had fallen from heaven and bound it in an abyss; now that abyss was narrow and deep and horrible and dark … and they took all the great stars and bound them hand and foot, and laid them in an abyss,” ib. xc. 24, “and judgment was held first upon the stars, and they were judged and found guilty and were cast into an abyss of fire”; also xviii. 14 f.

It would seem from these passages, which Jude certainly had before him, that πλανῆται cannot here have its usual application, the propriety of which was repudiated by all the ancient astronomers from Plato downwards. Cf. Cic. N. D. ii. 51, “maxime sunt admirabiles motus earum quinque stellarum quae falso vo cantur errantes. Nihil enim errat quod in omni aeternitate conservat motus constantes et ratos,” with the passages quoted in my notes on that book.

Some commentators take it as applying to comets; perhaps the quotations from Enoch xliv and lxxx fit better with shooting-stars, ἀστέρες διᾴττοντες (Arist. Meteor. i. 4, 7) which seem to rush from their sphere into darkness; compare Hermes Trismegistus ap. Stob. Ecl. 1. 478, κάτωθεν τῆς σελήνης εἰσὶν ἕτεροι ἀστέρες φθαρτοὶ ἀργοὶ … οὓς καὶ ἡμεῖς ὁρῶμεν διαλυομένους , τὴν φύσιν ὁμοίαν ἔχοντες τοῖς ἀχρήστοις τῶν ἐπὶ γῆς ζῴων , ἐπὶ ἕτερον δὲ οὐδὲν γίγνεται ἢ ἵνα μόνον φθαρῇ . For the close relationship supposed by the Jews to exist between the stars and the angels, see my note on Jas 1:17 , φώτων . In this passage, however, the subject of the comparison is men, who profess to give light and guidance, as the pole-star does to mariners ( ὡς φωστῆρες ἐν κόσμῳ , Phi 2:15 ), but who are only blind leaders of the blind, centres and propagators of πλάνη (Jud 1:11 ), destined to be swallowed up in everlasting darkness. Cf. Rev 6:13 ; Rev 8:10 ; Rev 8:12 ; Rev 9:1 ; Rev 12:4 .

οἷς ὁ ζόφος τοῦ σκότους εἰς αἰῶνα τετήρηται . See the parallel in 2Pe 2:17 , and above Jud 1:6 .

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

Most gross darkness.

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

Raging--wild. Jude has in mind Isa 57:20.

shame--plural in Greek, "shames" (compare Phi 3:19).

wandering stars--instead of moving on in a regular orbit, as lights to the world, bursting forth on the world like erratic comets, or rather, meteors of fire, with a strange glare, and then doomed to fall back again into the blackness of gloom.

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 13. Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame] The same metaphor as in Isa 57:20: The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. These are like the sea in a storm, where the swells are like mountains; the breakers lash the shore, and sound like thunder; and the great deep, stirred up from its very bottom, rolls its muddy, putrid sediment, and deposits it upon the beach. Such were those proud and arrogant boasters, those headstrong, unruly, and ferocious men, who swept into their own vortex the souls of the simple, and left nothing behind them that was not indicative of their folly, their turbulence, and their impurity.

Wandering stars] αστερες πλανηται. Not what we call planets; for although these differ from what are called the fixed stars, which never change their place, while the planets have their revolution round the sun; yet, properly speaking, there is no irregularity in their motions: for their appearance of advancing, stationary, and retrograde, are only in reference to an observer on the earth, viewing them in different parts of their orbits; for as to themselves, they ever continue a steady course through all their revolutions. But these are uncertain, anomalous meteors, ignes fatui, wills-o'-the-wisp; dancing about in the darkness which themselves have formed, and leading simple souls astray, who have ceased to walk in the light, and have no other guides but those oscillating and devious meteors which, if you run after them, will flee before you, and if you run from them will follow you.

The blackness of darkness] They are such as are going headlong into that outer darkness where there is wailing, and weeping, and gnashing of teeth. The whole of this description appears to have been borrowed from 2Pet. 2, where the reader is requested to see the notes.

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

13. Raging waves of the sea. Why this was added, we may learn more fully from the words of Peter: [2 Peter 2:17,18] it was to shew, that being inflated with pride, they breathed out, or rather cast out the scum of high-flown stuff of words in grandiloquent style. At the same time they brought forth nothing spiritual, their object being on the contrary to make men as stupid as brute animals. Such, as it has been before stated, are the fanatics of our day, who call themselves Libertines. You may justly say that they make only rumbling sounds; for, despising common language, they form for themselves an exotic idiom, I know not what. They seem at one time to carry their disciples above heaven, then they suddenly fall down to beastly errors, for they imagine a state of innocency in which there is no difference between baseness and honesty; they imagine a spiritual life, when fear is extinguished, and when every one heedlessly indulges himself; they imagine that we become gods, because God absorbs the spirits when they quit their bodies. With the more care and reverence ought the simplicity of Scripture to be studied, lest, by reasoning more refinedly than is right, we should not draw men to heaven, but on the contrary be involved in manifold labyrinths. He therefore calls them wandering stars, because they dazzled the eyes by a sort of evanescent light.

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.

13. raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame] Image follows on image to paint the shameless enormities of the false teachers. In this we trace an echo of the thought, though not of the words, of Isa_57:20. The same image meets us, though in a milder form, and to express a different type of spiritual evil, in Jas_1:6. The Greek word for “shame” is in the plural, as indicating the manifold forms of the impurity of the false teachers.

wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever] The latter words are parallel to 2Pe_2:17. The word for “wandering stars” is that which in the terminology of astronomy distinguishes the “planets” from the fixed stars. Here, however, the ordered regularity of planetary motion supplies no fit point of comparison, and we may probably see in the words a reference either to comets or shooting stars, whose irregular appearance, startling and terrifying men, and then vanishing into darkness, would present an analogue to the short-lived fame and baleful influence of the false teachers whom St Jude has in view. They too were drifting away into the eternal darkness.

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.

Raging waves of the sea,.... False teachers are so called, for their, swelling pride and vanity; which, as it is what prevails in human nature, is a governing vice in such persons, for knowledge without grace puffs up; and this shows that they had not received the doctrine of grace in truth, for that humbles; as also for their arrogance, boasting, and ostentation; and for their noisiness, their restless, uneasy, and turbulent spirits, for their furious and wrathful dispositions; as well as for their levity and inconstancy, and for their turpitude and filthiness:

foaming out their own shame: wrathful words, frothy and obscene language, and filthy doctrines; and which expresses the issue of their noisy and blustering ministry, which ends in uncleanness, shame, emptiness, and ruin,

Wandering stars; they are called "stars", because they have the appearance of such, and blaze for a while, in seeming light, zeal, and warmth, and in fame and reputation; and "wandering" ones, not comparable to the planets, which go their regular course, but to fiery exhalations, gliding and running stars; because they wander about from house to house, as well as from one nation to another, and being never settled in their principles, nor at a point in religion; and wander also after their own carnal lusts, and cause others to wander likewise, and at last become falling stars; not from real grace and sanctified knowledge, which they never had; but from truth to error, and from a seemingly holy life and conversation, to a vicious one; and from a profession of religion, to open profaneness; and whose fall is irrecoverable, as that of stars:

to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever; or the blackest darkness, even utter darkness; which phrase not only expresses the dreadful nature of their punishment, their most miserable and uncomfortable condition; but also the certainty of it, it is "reserved" for them among the treasures of divine wrath and vengeance, by the righteous appointment of God, according to the just demerit of their sins; and likewise the duration of it, it will be for ever; there will never be any light or comfort, but a continual everlasting black despair, a worm that dieth not, a fire that will not be quenched, the smoke and blackness of which will ascend for ever and ever; hell is meant by it, which the Jews represent as a place of darkness: the Egyptian darkness, they say, came from the darkness of hell, and in hell the wicked will be covered with darkness; the darkness which was upon the face of the deep, at the creation, they interpret of hell (e),

(e) Shemot Rabba, sect. 14. fol. 99. 3.

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

Raging waves of the sea - Compare 2Pe 2:18. They are like the wild and restless waves of the ocean. The image here seems to be, that they were noisy and bold in their professions, and were as wild and ungovernable in their passions as the billows of the sea.

Foaming out their own shame - The waves are lashed into foam, and break and dash on the shore. They seem to produce nothing but foam, and to proclaim their own shame, that after all their wild roaring and agitation they should effect no more. So with these noisy and vaunting teachers. What they impart is as unsubstantial and valueless as the foam of the ocean waves, and the result is in fact a proclamation of their own shame. Men with so loud professions should produce much more.

Wandering stars - The word rendered “wandering” (πλανῆται planētai) is that from which we have derived the word “planet.” It properly means one who wanders about; a wanderer; and was given by the ancients to planets because they seemed to wander about the heavens, now forward and now backward among the ether stars, without any fixed law. - Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 6. Cicero, however, who saw that they were governed by certain established laws, says that the name seemed to be given to them without reason. - De Nat. Deo. ii. 20. So far as the “words” used are concerned, the reference may be either to the planets, properly so called, or to comets, or to “ignes fatui,” or meteors. The proper idea is that of stars that have no regular motions, or that do not move in fixed and regular orbits. The laws of the planetary motions were not then understood, and their movements seemed to be irregular and capricious; and hence, if the reference is to them, they might be regarded as not an unapt illustration of these teachers. The sense seems to be, that the aid which we derive from the stars, as in navigation, is in the fact that they are regular in their places and movements, and thus the mariner can determine his position. If they had no regular places and movements, they would be useless to the seaman. So with false religious teachers. No dependence can be placed on them. It is not uncommon to compare a religious teacher to a star, Rev 1:16; Rev 2:1. Compare Rev 22:16.

To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever - Not to the stars, but to the teachers. The language here is the same as in 2Pe 2:17. See the notes at that verse.

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

Raging waves of the sea; not only inconstant as water, but unquiet, turbulent, restless, that cannot cease from sin.

Foaming out their own shame; that wickedness whereof they should be ashamed; like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt, Isa 57:20.

Wandering stars; either planets properly called, or rather meteors called running stars, inconstant in their motion, uncertain in their shining, making a little show, but presently vanishing; such was the doctrine of these, which had a show of light, but a deceitful and inconstant one.

To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever; the thickest darkness, viz. that of hell; they would be counted lights, but are themselves cast into utter darkness, 2Pe 2:17. As blackness of darkness shows the horror of their punishment, so its being reserved for them shows the certainty of it.

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

13. Raging waves—Savage, as if alive, full of furious purpose and power.

Their own shame—The plural shames. The image, like that of Isaiah, “casting up mire and dirt;” the shames being their own brutal dogmas and feelings flung forth in shameless words.

Wandering stars—Unknown to modern astronomy, but too well known in both ancient and modern moral experience. They are neither comets nor shooting stars; but ocularly meteors, conceptually, stars swinging from their positions, drifting from their orbits, and lawlessly wandering in space. These errorists, probably, once had position and orbits, but are veering farther and farther from the light.

Blackness of darkness—An intenser expression in the English than the original. Substitute in place of blackness, murkiness, gloom. But Gardiner remarks, that the former of these two terms “is a Homeric word for the darkness of the infernal regions, and is even put for the world itself of future woe.” As the meteoric star conceptually loses itself in distant and hopeless darkness, so these living wanderers will drift into a returnless destiny of ruin.

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

Wandering stars - Literally, planets, which shine for a time, but have no light in themselves, and will be soon cast into utter darkness. Thus the apostle illustrates their desperate wickedness by comparisons drawn from the air, earth, sea, and heavens.

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

13. “Wild waves of the sea pouring out their own disgrace.” Oh, how beautiful the snowy white waves of the ocean. Yet their beautiful white crest is the dark winding sheet of the sailor. These are the popular preachers magnetizing the carnal people by their eloquent speeches, cultured manners, handsome physique, tidy apparel and inimitable urbanity. At the same time they blind their spiritual eyes and lead them to hell. “Wandering stars for whom has been reserved the blackness of darkness forever.” What an awful metaphor! When a planet deflects from its orbit, it can never get back, but is destined to aberrate further away till it collides with another, and is utterly demolished. You see plainly and unmistakably that the deepest, darkest, blackest and hottest abyss of the pandemonium is reserved for the counterfeit preacher. I have been a preacher forty-three years. I would rather endure any other hell than the preacher’s. Jude is not indulging in chimerical visions, but awful realities, revealed to him by the infallible Holy Spirit. If it was so in Jude’s day, when the Church was but a handful, what is it now, when she belts the globe? Doubtless Judas, who sold Jesus for money, has a tremendous following among the clergy of the present day.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13. Raging waves of the sea. Roaring and foaming like the sea waves. Wandering stars. Stars not fixed in their places, but shooting like meteors, and then going out. “Shooting stars” is not far from the idea. To whom is reserved, etc. As the shooting stars go out in darkness, so these will pass into eternal darkness.

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.

13. κύματα κ.τ.λ. Cf. Isa 57:20. “The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt” (Mayor).

ἐπαφρίζοντα, casting up their own shame, exposing it, as the sea casts up refuse on the beach. Moschus Idyll. Jud 1:5 (ἀ δὲ θάλασσα κυρτὸν ἐπαφρίζῃ) is the only author quoted for the rare verb.

ἀστέρες πλανῆται, on this see Introd. p. xlvii.

οἶς ὁ ζόφος κ.τ.λ. Notice that these words are applied in 2 Peter with far less appropriateness to the waterless springs and driven clouds.

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.

13.] Continuation of the description of these ungodly men. 2Pe 2:13, 2Pe 2:17. These are the rocks (which are) in your love-feasts (σπιλάδες, αἱ ὕφαλοι πέτραι, Etymol. M. Cf. Od. ε. 405, ἀλλʼ ἀκταὶ προβλῆτες ἔσαν, σπιλάδες τε πάγοι τε. See Wetst.’s note. They are the rocks on which the ἀγάπαι stand in danger of being wrecked. Cf. Œc., as quoted under ἀφόβως below. It is unnecessary and unjustifiable to attempt to give σπιλάδες any other meaning, as some have done on account of the σπίλοι in 2Pe 2:13. But each passage must stand on its own ground. See Palm and Rost’s Lex., who however give at the end, = ὁ σπῖλος, citing for it this passage and Orph. lith. 614. Arnaud endeavours to unite both meanings, resting on the etymology as given by Eustathius (see Wetst.), αἱ παράλιαι πέτραι, παρὰ τὸ σπιλοῦσθαι τῇ ἄχνῃ: “les rochers continuellement battus par les flots de la mer et souillés par son écume:” but this is too far-fetched. See by all means the illustrations in Wetstein. As regards the construction, we might, as Stier, take οἱ with σπιλάδες: but the above may, supplying ὄντες, seem better, as ἀγγέλους τοὺς μὴ τηρήσαντας κ.τ.λ. ver. 6. ἀγάπαις has generally been taken to refer to the love-feasts: the ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις γινόμεναι τράπεζαι, ὡς καὶ Παῦλός φησιν ἐν τῇ πρὸς Κορινθίους, ἃς καὶ ἀγάπας ἐκάλουν: see Winer, Realw. Erasmus would keep the ordinary meaning, “in dilectionibus vestris,” or “inter charitates vestras.” But the συνευωχούμενοι seems to fix the other. St. Peter has for ἀγάπαις, ἀπάταις, as at present read: see note there), feasting with you (συνευωχούμενοι may mean, feasting together: but the ὑμῶν preceding makes the other more probable) fearlessly (ἀφόβως is joined with ἐαυτ ποιμ. by Erasm., Beza (and consequently E. V.), Tricæus, and Stier: but thus συνευωχ. would be left standing very badly alone. “Cum timore colenda sunt convivia sacra. Convivari per se nihil vitii habet. Ideo ‘sine timore’ huic verbo annecti debet,” Bengel. Œc. mentions both arrangements: ἀφόβως συνευωχούμενοι, τουτέστιν, μηδένα φόβον τοῖς συνευωχουμένοις προσδοκῶσιν, ἐξαίφνης ὥσπερ σπιλάδες ἐπάγοντες αὐτοῖς τὸν ὄλεθρον τῶν ψυχῶν. ἤ, πρὸς τὸ ποιμαίνοντες, τό, ἀφόβως ἑαυτοὺς συντάττοντες), pasturing their own selves (using the ἀγάπαι not for their legitimate purpose, the realization of the unity of Christians by social union, but for their own purposes, the enjoyment of their lusts, and the furtherance of their schemes. See Eze 34:1 ff.; the parallelism of which has however been too far pressed here by Grot. (“se dum saginent, gregem negligunt”), Bengel (“non gregem”); which thought does not seem to be in the context, but merely that they feed and pasture themselves in the ἀγάπαι, having no regard to the Shepherd (or shepherds) set over them. Erasmus widens the sense too far—“suo ductu et arbitrio viventes”): clouds without water (see on πηγαὶ ἄνυδροι in 2Pe 2:17. Water is expected from clouds), carried out of course by winds (here our text is the more concise: St. Peter having, as above, the πηγαὶ ἄνυδροι separate from the ὀμίχλαι ὑπὸ λαίλαπος ἐλαυνόμεναι. Cf. Pro 25:14, Heb. or E. V. παραφερόμεναι, borne by, or as above, borne out of their course, hither and thither), autumn trees (i. e. as trees are in the late autumn (ἄκαρπα explaining it, see below): as Bengel, “arbor tali specie qualis est autumno extremo, sine (foliis et?) pomis:” not “frugiperdæ,” as Grot.: and so Erasm., Beza (and consequently E. V.), al., and Stier, for which meaning there is no authority in usage: as neither for Schöttgen’s, “quæ non nisi auctumno senescenti fructus ferunt immaturos et nulli usui futures”), without fruit (as trees at the time above mentioned; but there is nothing in this word to indicate whether fruit has been on them or not), twice dead (it is not easy to explain these words in reference to trees. For that we must do so, and not, as Beza, Est., Bengel, Schneckenb., al., desert the similitude, and understand it of spiritual death twice inflicted, or of death here and in eternity (so Grot.: “neque hic bonum habebunt exitum, neque in sæculo altero”), must be evident by ἐκριζωθέντα following. Œc. says, τὰ φθινοπωρινὰ δένδρα δὶς ἀποθνήσκοντα, ἐν τε τῇ τοῦ καρποῦ αὐτῶν ἀποβολῇ, καὶ ἐν τῇ τῶν φύλλων ἀποῤῥοῇ: and then he explains the first particular as above: Beza, Rosenm. explain δίς by “plane,” “prorsus,” which meaning, though denied by Bretschneider, De Wette illustrates by “bis dat qui cito dat:” and Horace’s “pro quo bis patior mori.” But the most likely reference of the word is to the double death in a tree, which is not only as it seems to the eye in common with other trees, in the apparent death of winter, but really dead, dead to appearance, and dead in reality. Huther comes near this, but does not quite reach it, when he says, “not only without fruit, but dead and dried up:” but this would not be two deaths; whereas the other is), rooted out (the various descriptive clauses form a climax: not only without leaves and fruit, but dead: not only dead, but plucked up and thrown aside. “Tous ces mots sont des métaphores énergiques pour montrer le néant de ces impures, la légèreté de leur conduite, la stérilité de leur foi et l’absence de leurs bonnes mœurs.” Arnaud):

13.] wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shames (cf. Isa 57:20, in Heb. and E. V.: “The wicked are like the troubled sea, whose waters cast up mire and dirt,” which beyond doubt has been in the Writer’s mind. αἰσχύνας, plur., either, each his own αἰσχύνη, or all their own αἰσχύνας, disgraces, instances of disgraceful conduct), wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness is reserved for ever (cf. 2Pe 2:17, where nearly the same words occur. ἀστέρες πλανῆται would seem most probably to indicate comets, which (as in Oct. 1858) astonish the world for a time, and then pass away into darkness. The similitude would not find any propriety as applied to the planets, properly so called: for there can be no allusion to the astronomical fact of their being naturally opaque bodies, as Bengel imagines. Many Commentators have supposed that the similitude is to be understood of teachers, who would enlighten others, and yet are doomed to darkness themselves: so Œc., comparing the transformation into an angel of light, 2Co 11:14. But the context does not justify this. Rather should we say, these professing Christians, by their profession lights in the world, instead of letting that light shine on more and more into the perfect day, are drifting about in strange errors of doctrine and practice till it will be utterly extinguished in eternal darkness).

14,

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

13. κύματα … αἰσχύνας “Wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shames.” The language is tinctured by reminiscences of Greek poetry; cf. Moschus, Idyll. v. 5, ἁ δὲ θάλασσα κυρτὸν ἐπαφρίζῃ: Euripides, Herc. Fur. 851, θάλασσαν ἀγρίαν, but the image is probably suggested by Isa 57:20.

ἀστέρες πλανῆται. See note on ver. 6. We find an allusion to the sin of the planets also in Isa 14:12, where the king of Babylon is compared to the Day-star, son of the morning, who fell through pride. St. Jude here gives a more correct turn to the imagery than St. Peter, who speaks of springs and mists as punished by darkness, though at the same time he has departed somewhat from Enoch, who saw the stars of heaven imprisoned in a place of fire.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Raging [αγρια] . Rev., wild, which is better, as implying quality rather than act. Waves, by nature untamed. The act or expression of the nature is given by the next word.

Foaming out [επαφριζοντα] . Only here in New Testament. Compare Isa 57:20.

Shame [αισχυνας] . Lit., shames or disgraces.

Wandering stars. Compare 2Pe 2:17. Possibly referring to comets, which shine a while and then pass into darkness. "They belong, not to the system : they stray at random and without law, and must at last be severed from the lights which rule while they are ruled" (Lumby).

Blackness [ζοφος] . See on 2Pe 2:4.

Of darkness [του σκοτους] . Lit., "the darkness," the article pointing back to the darkness already mentioned, ver. 6.

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