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Selected Verse: 2 Peter 2:17 - King James
Verse |
Translation |
Text |
2Pe 2:17 |
King James |
These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
(Jde 1:12-13.)
wells--"clouds" in Jude; both promising (compare Pe2 2:19) water, but yielding none; so their "great swelling words" are found on trial to be but "vanity" (Pe2 2:18).
clouds--The oldest manuscripts and versions read, "mists," dark, and not transparent and bright as "clouds" often are, whence the latter term is applied sometimes to the saints; fit emblem of the children of darkness. "Clouds" is a transcriber's correction from Jde 1:12, where it is appropriate, "clouds . . . without water" (promising what they do not perform); but not here, "mists driven along by a tempest."
mist--blackness; "the chilling horror accompanying darkness" [BENGEL]. |
Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
These are wells without water - Jde 1:12-13 employs several other epithets to describe the same class of persons. The language employed both by Peter and Jude is singularly terse, pointed, and emphatic. Nothing to an oriental mind would be more expressive than to say of professed religious teachers, that they were "wells without water." It was always a sad disappointment to a traveler in the hot sands of the desert to come to a well where it was expected that water might be found, and to find it dry. It only aggravated the trials of the thirsty and weary traveler. Such were these religious teachers. In a world, not unaptly compared, in regard to its real comforts, to the wastes and sands of the desert, they would only grievously disappoint the expectations of all those who were seeking for the refreshing influences of the truths of the gospel. There are many such teachers in the world.
Clouds that are carried with a tempest - Clouds that are driven about by the wind, and that send down no rain upon the earth. They promise rain, only to be followed by disappointment. Substantially the same idea is conveyed by this as by the previous phrase. "The Arabs compare persons who put on the appearance of virtue, when yet they are destitute of all goodness, to a light cloud which makes a show of rain, and afterward vanishes" - Benson. The sense is this: The cloud, as it rises, promises rain. The expectation of the farmer is excited that the thirsty earth is to be refreshed with needful showers. Instead of this, however, the wind "gets into" the cloud; it is driven about, and no rain falls, or it ends in a destructive tornado which sweeps everything before it. So of these religious teachers. Instruction in regard to the way of salvation was expected from them; but, instead of that, they disappointed the expectations of those who were desirous of knowing the way of life, and their doctrines only tended to destroy.
To whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever - The word rendered "mist" here, (ζόφος zophos,) means properly muskiness, thick gloom, darkness, (see Pe2 2:4); and the phrase "mist of darkness" is designed to denote "intense" darkness, or the thickest darkness. It refers undoubtedly to the place of future punishment, which is often represented as a place of intense darkness. See the notes at Mat 8:12. When it is said that this is "reserved" for them, it means that it is prepared for them, or is kept in a state of readiness to receive them. It is like a jail or penitentiary which is built in anticipation that there will be criminals, and with the expectation that there will be a need for it. So God has constructed the great prison-house of the universe, the world where the wicked are to dwell, with the knowledge that there would be occasion for it; and so he keeps it from age to age that it may be ready to receive the wicked when the sentence of condemnation shall be passed upon them. Compare Mat 25:41. The word "forever" is a word which denotes properly eternity, (εἰς αἰώνα eis aiōna,) and is such a word as could not have been used if it had been meant that they would not suffer forever. Compare the notes at Mat 25:46. |
Vincent's Word Studies, by Marvin R. Vincent [1886] |
Wells (πηγαὶ)
Better, as Rev., springs; yet the Rev. has retained well at Joh 4:14, where the change would have given more vividness to Christ's metaphor, which is that of an ever upleaping, living fountain.
Without water
As so often in the East, where the verdure excites the traveller's hope of water. Compare Jer 2:13, and the contrast presented in Isa 58:11; Pro 10:11; Pro 13:14.
Clouds
The A. V. has followed the Tex. Rec., νεφέλαι, as in Jde 1:12. The correct reading is ὁμίχλαι, mists, found only here in New Testament. So Rev.
With a tempest (ὑπὸ λαίλαπος)
Rev., by a storm. The word occurs only twice elsewhere - Mar 4:37; Luk 7:23 - in the parallel accounts of the storm on the lake, which Jesus calmed by his word. There on the lake Peter was at home, as well as with the Lord on that occasion; and the peculiar word describing a whirlwind - one of those sudden storms so frequent on that lake (see note on the word, Mar 4:37) - would be the first to occur to him. Compare Paul's similar figure, Eph 4:14.
Blackness (ζόφος)
See on Pe2 2:4, and compare Jde 1:13.
Of darkness (τοῦ σκότους)
Lit., the darkness, denoting a well-understood doom.
Is reserved (τετήρηται)
Lit., hath been reserved, as Rev. See on Pe1 1:4; and Pe2 2:4.
Forever
The best texts omit. |
Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
Fountains and clouds promise water: so do these promise, but do not perform. |
Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
These are wells without water - Persons who, by their profession, should furnish the water of life to souls athirst for salvation; but they have not this water; they are teachers without ability to instruct; they are sowers, and have no seed in their basket. Nothing is more cheering in the deserts of the east than to meet with a well of water; and nothing more distressing, when parched with thirst, than to meet with a well that contains no water.
Clouds that are carried with a tempest - In a time of great drought, to see clouds beginning to cover the face of the heavens raises the expectation of rain; but to see these carried off by a sudden tempest is a dreary disappointment. These false teachers were equally as unprofitable as the empty well, or the light, dissipated cloud.
To whom the mist of darkness is reserved - That is, an eternal separation from the presence of God, and the glory of his power. They shall be thrust into outer darkness, Mat 8:12; into the utmost degrees of misery and despair. False and corrupt teachers will be sent into the lowest hell; and be "the most downcast, underfoot vassals of perdition."
It is scarcely necessary to notice a various reading here, which, though very different in sound, is nearly the same in sense. Instead of νεφελαι, clouds, which is the common reading, και ὁμιχλαι, and mists, or perhaps more properly thick darkness, from ὁμου, together, and αχλυς, darkness, is the reading in ABC, sixteen others, Erpen's Arabic, later Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Vulgate, and several of the fathers. This reading Griesbach has admitted into the text. |
12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
18 For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
4 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,
13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.
23 And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.
37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.
12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
14 The law of the wise is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.
11 The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked.
11 And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.