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Selected Verse: Jude 1:13 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Jude 1:13 |
King James |
Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness 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] |
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. |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
Raging waves of the sea - Compare Pe2 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 Pe2 2:17. See the notes at that verse. |
| Vincent's Word Studies, by Marvin R. Vincent [1886] |
Raging (ἄγρια)
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 (ἐπαφρίζοντα)
Only here in New Testament. Compare Isa 57:20.
Shame (αἰσχύνας)
Lit., shames or disgraces.
Wandering stars
Compare Pe2 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 (ζόφος)
See on Pe2 2:4.
Of darkness (τοῦ σκότους)
Lit., "the darkness," the article pointing back to the darkness already mentioned, Jde 1:6. |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| 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. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
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 2 Peter 2, where the reader is requested to see the notes. |
19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
20 But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
17 These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.
16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
1 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;
16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
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.
6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
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;
17 These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.
20 But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
20 But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.