Writer and Readers
1 By custom, Hellenistic letters began with a threefold formula: (a) the name of the sender; (b) the name of the recipient; and (c) an opening salutation. Greek writers followed the pattern “(a) to (b): greetings.” A NT example is the letter of Claudius Lysias to Felix (Acts 23:26). Jewish letters were introduced slightly differently. The opening sentence gave the names of writer and recipient. A second sentence invoked a blessing upon the reader.
The three elements of (a) author, (b) addressee, (c) greeting are clearly seen at the beginning of most of the NT letters—as here: (a) Jude; (b) to those who have been called; (c) mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance (Jude 1–2).
The writer introduces himself by name (Jude), by status (a servant of Jesus Christ), and by relationship (a brother of James).
Jude is evidently not an apostle, for unlike Paul and Peter in their letters, he makes no claim to have apostolic authority to lend weight to his words. Indeed he distinguishes himself from the apostles by writing “Remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold” (Jude 17).
No doubt it was out of humble reverence that neither Jude nor James in writing their letters makes any reference to being a blood relation of the Lord. Each calls himself simply a servant (lit. bondslave) of Jesus Christ. Even leading apostles like Paul (Rom. 1:1) and Peter (2 Pet. 1:1) were content to own the same title, a remarkable state of affairs in view of the way slaves were so often maltreated in NT times. But the early Christians discovered that to be the slave of Christ is to be the Lord’s freedman (1 Cor. 7:22). Complete and loyal submission to the service of Jesus Christ is, paradoxically, the pathway to perfect liberty. Jude has come to realize that the greatest distinction that anyone can achieve in life comes about through always being at the complete disposal of the Lord Jesus Christ.
For Jude to call himself “a brother of James” was not the customary practice. Normally a person was identified by the name of the father. Jude’s describing himself as “a brother of James” suggests that this James was well known. The readers would be in no doubt as to the man meant. Jude seems content to be distinguished simply as a sibling of the more celebrated figure, just as Andrew seemed happy to be in the shadow of his prominent brother Peter. Both Jude and Andrew had the priceless and rare enough gift of being prepared to play second fiddle.
The outstanding James in the early church was the brother of Jesus who was converted after the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:7) and became the leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 12:17; 15:13).
So the sense of the opening words of this letter is: “Jude, the bondslave, I dare not say brother, of Jesus Christ, but certainly James’s brother.”
Jude addresses his readers as called … loved … kept. The writer’s fondness for triple expressions constantly surfaces throughout his brief letter (see Introduction, p. 19). “Called” is one of the great biblical terms to describe believers. The verb “to call” (kalein) is regularly used in four main senses.
1. It means to call a person or a place by name, as in Luke 10:39 (“a sister called Mary”) or Luke 7:11 (“a town called Nain”).
2. It means to call someone to take up a task or responsibility. Paul is “called to be an apostle” (Rom. 1:1). Certain servants are “called” to take charge in their master’s absence (Luke 19:13).
3. It is used to summon someone to a law court to give an account of his actions (Acts 4:18; 24:2).
4. It is the regular word for calling friends to a meal, inviting them to a pleasant social occasion, as in the parable about the wedding guests (Matt. 22:3). It is the word used for those who are “called” to the wedding supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9). In short, it is the term for a hospitable invitation. “The called” (ho klētos), the corresponding noun from the verb kalein, was in fact a technical term for “guest.”
So, in describing his readers as “called,” Jude is in effect reminding them of their high privileges. As believers, they have been called out of darkness into God’s wonderful light (1 Pet. 2:9). They have responded to the divine call to faith in Jesus Christ. They are called by the name of Christ, that is, “Christians.” One day they will be summoned to the judgment seat of Christ to report on their Christian life and witness (2 Cor. 5:10). Meanwhile they can rejoice in the satisfying service to which they have been invited, as to a festive occasion, one constantly shared with their ever-present divine Host.
Who are loved by God the Father. The Greek is, literally, “in” (en) God the Father. Paul often refers to believers as being “in Christ” or “in the Lord,” but nowhere else in the NT are Christians said to be loved “in” (en) God the Father. It is possible that originally Jude left a gap after the “in” for a place-name to be inserted, when his messenger took the letter to various towns where the incipient heresy he writes about had begun to spread. (Something like this may have happened with the “in Ephesus” of Eph. 1:1.) So we could translate: “to those resident in [—], who are loved by God the Father.”
Kept by Jesus Christ is, rather, kept for (dative of advantage) Jesus Christ (as RSV); that is, kept safely, by the one born of the Father, from the evil one (1 John 5:18), for Christ’s second coming (John 6:39, 44, 54; 1 Cor. 1:8; 1 Thess. 5:23), and for the kingdom he will establish. God does not intend to lose any of those whom he has called to be his own. Jude appropriately stresses this theme as he begins a letter warning his readers of their need to be kept safe from the influence of false teachers.
Both ēgapēmenais (loved) and tetērēmenois (kept) are perfect participles. The Greek perfect tense speaks of a past complete act having continuing effects. The divine love and keeping power are constantly holding believers with safe arms (Deut. 33:27). As Christians, Jude’s readers not only were the objects of God’s personal care and love in the past, but they still are and always will be.
Additional Notes
1 Jude or Judas (the same word in Gk.), was a common name in biblical times. It was borne by: (1) the son of Jacob who became head of the tribe of Judah (Matt. 1:2–3); (2) one of the brothers of Jesus (Mark 6:3); (3) one of the Twelve (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13), and also known as Thaddaeus (compare Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; John 14:22); (4) a Christian prophet, one of the leading men appointed by the Jerusalem church, Judas Barsabbas (Acts 15:22); (5) a freedom fighter, Judas the Galilean (Acts 5:37); (6) a citizen of Damascus, in whose house on Straight Street Paul stayed after his conversion (Acts 9:11); and, of course, (7) the traitor, Judas Iscariot (Matt. 10:4).
Loved: A number of later MSS modify ēgapēmenois, “loved,” to read hēgiasmenois, “sanctified” (KJV), on the model of 1 Cor. 1:2. NEB’s “who live in the love of God the Father” is an unlikely paraphrase. Westcott and Hort suggested that the “in” is misplaced and should be before “Jesus Christ.” We could then translate: “beloved by God the Father and kept safe in Jesus Christ.” J. B. Mayor’s proposal to read “beloved [by us] in the Father” is ruled out because all three participles, called … loved … kept, have the same divine agent as subject.
Some confirmation that James here is the brother of Jesus comes from a report by a second-century Jewish-Christian historian. Hegesippus describes how grandsons of Jude (“who is said to have been the brother, according to the flesh, of the Savior”) were summoned before the Roman emperor Domitian. This would be about A.D. 96. But, when the emperor observed their labor-hardened hands and realized how poor they were, he contemptuously dismissed them as being no danger to his empire (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 3.19.1; 3.20.6; Josephus, Ant. 20.200).
Kept: Christians belong to Jesus Christ and are kept safe for him until he comes to claim his property (cf. 1 Pet. 1:4, where the inheritance of Christians is declared to be kept safe in heaven until they are able to claim it, at the Parousia). Kept is a key-word of the letter; it occurs five times, in verses 1, 6 (twice), 13, and 21.
Greeting
2 Jude’s opening greeting is another example of his fondness for a trio of expressions. He prays that his readers may know mercy, peace and love. These are virtues which cannot be acquired by self-effort. Neither can they be expected as just deserts. They are gifts of divine grace, and Jude prays that his readers may receive them in abundance (plēthyntheiē, filled to capacity). The faith of Jude’s readers is threatened by dangerous infiltrators, and so Jude prays that they may receive divine mercy, the pity that comes to aid, in total sufficiency. The readers’ fellowship with God through Jesus Christ is being disturbed; consequently they must have their divine peace reinforced, the peace that follows from an unsullied relationship with God. Supremely, the readers need God’s all-comprehending love (agapē) in overflowing measure. This will bind them to God and to one another in their Christian community.
Jude’s prayer is of permanent value, for “the called,” that is, believers in every generation, constantly need divine mercy, peace, and love. That prayer can be prayed in all confidence, since God delights to show mercy (Mic. 7:18). Christ himself is our peace (Eph. 2:14), and the Holy Spirit is the agent of love (Rom. 5:5).
Additional Notes
2 A prayer for mercy is unusual in an opening NT greeting, although examples do occur (1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2; 2 John 3). Paul’s prayer is more likely to be for “grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ,” as in 1 Cor. 1:3.
The same Greek term plēthyntheiē, be multiplied (RSV), occurs in the opening greeting of Peter’s two letters. See Additional Note on 1 Pet. 1:2.
Jude’s three terms, mercy, peace, love, occur together in the letter to the church at Smyrna on the martyrdom of Polycarp (A.D. 155).
Peace (eirēnē, the verbal form of eirein, to join): Peace is the result of joining together that which has been separated.
The Writer’s Purpose Changed
3 Dear friends is a free translation of agapētoi, lit. “beloved ones,” that is, “beloved by God, and beloved by me, because we share in divine love.” Although agapētoi was an expression in general use, Christians gave the Greek term a new depth of meaning, for it described the quality of the Father’s feeling for Jesus: “This is my beloved (agapētos) Son” (Matt. 3:17; KJV, RSV).
Jude did not set out to compose this particular letter. He had wanted to write (graphein: present infinitive, which could suggest “in a leisurely manner”) on the general subject of the salvation we share. That “common salvation” (KJV, RSV) was one that belonged to all believers equally. It included sharing the same Christ (Acts 4:12), the same grace (Eph. 2:8), the same justification with God (Rom. 3:22), and the same entrance by faith (2 Pet. 1:1). But Jude’s intention to enlarge on such themes to edify his readers was overtaken by events. News suddenly reached him that his Christian friends were threatened by a dangerous heresy. The report made him snatch up his pen there and then to write (grapsai, aorist infinitive) a very different letter from the one he had originally proposed.
I had to write (anankēn eschon grapsai): The compulsion (anankēn) to write at once was as clear as if he had been given a verbal order to do so. In obedience to that inner constraint, and out of love for his Christian friends, he writes without delay to urge them to contend for the faith. The Greek word for urge is parakalōn, from parakalein, to call (kalein) alongside (para). Jude would prefer to be alongside his friends in their peril, but since he is unable to be with them in person, he does the next best thing by sending a letter.
He bids them contend—an athletics metaphor. Believers are expected to be spiritually fit, prepared at any time to meet spiritual challenges, which may arise suddenly and from an unexpected quarter.
Jude’s readers are exhorted to engage in a determined and costly struggle to maintain the faith (pistis). Here pistis is a reference not to the personal faith of the individual, its usual sense in the NT, but to the body of Christian truth. This body of belief, Jude says, was once for all entrusted (paradidōmai, to commit, hand over) to the saints, to the people of God as a whole, not just to apostles or to later leaders. The faith is not something we discover for ourselves, still less is it something constructed from our own ideas. It is the truth about God in Christ that has been handed down from believer to believer in an unbroken chain, stretching back to the teaching of Jesus himself as recorded in the NT. Each individual Christian has the dual responsibility of maintaining that truth unadulterated and of carefully handing it on to others.
4 The reason Jude’s readers must contend for the pure faith of true Christianity is that certain men, itinerant false teachers, have infiltrated the church. Their subsequent condemnation (krima, judgment), Jude declares, was written about long ago. He may be referring to a prediction of Enoch (who is mentioned in v. 14). But Jude is more likely alluding to some tradition, then current, that described such a judgment in more detail.
In the present case, as Jude explains, the peril has arisen more subtly, for certain men … have secretly slipped in (pareisedysan) among you. The Greek word, which occurs in the NT only here, is most expressive: pareisdyein is used of the clever pleading of a lawyer, gradually insinuating his version of the evidence into the minds of judge and jury. It describes the action of a spy stealthily getting into the country, or of someone sneaking in by a side door.
False teachers have managed to get into the church. Jude describes the troublemakers in three ways, each term leading on to the next. The men are godless (asebeis, with no reverence for God): they leave God out of account (Ps. 14:1). And because of that, they are antinomians, they despise God’s laws (cf. 1 Cor. 6:12; 10:23). They substitute blatant immorality (aselgeia, lasciviousness, wantonness) for the grace of our God. And because of that, they are self-assertive: they deny (arnesthai, to disown) that Jesus Christ is their only Sovereign and Lord. The Greek is literally: “They deny both (kai) the only Sovereign (despotēs) and also (kai) our Lord (kyrios) Jesus Christ.” The word despotēs (absolute owner, one who has complete power over another), when used in the NT of God, always refers to the Father (apart from 2 Pet. 2:1). So Jude appears to have in mind both God the Father and the Son of God: the intruders disown both.
Additional Notes
3 The affectionate agapētoi, “beloved ones,” which appears again in vv. 17 and 20, derives from the verb agapan (“to love with God’s love”), used in v. 1. The Greek for I had to (anankēn eschon) with an infinitive refers to orders received, as in Luke 14:18; 23:17; 1 Cor. 7:37; 9:16; 2 Cor. 9:7; Heb. 7:27; see Horsley, New Documents, vol. 1, p. 45.
The Greek verb for urge gives us the noun paraklētos, Paraclete, Counselor, “one called alongside to help,” a title for the Holy Spirit in John 14:16, 26.
Contend: The Greek verb epagōnizomai occurs in the NT only here. But Paul uses a similar athletics metaphor in Phil. 1:27, “contending as one man (synathleō), as athletes with true team spirit, for the faith of the gospel”; and in Phil. 4:3, “women who have contended at my side (synathleō), women who were spiritual athletes, in the cause of the gospel.”
Faith has the same meaning of “the body of Christian truth” in v. 20. (See also 1 Pet. 3:15.) This usage is found as early as Gal. 1:23.
The Greek verb here translated entrusted gives rise to the noun paradosis, that which is handed down, tradition. On the Christian paradosis, as distinct from human traditions, see O. Cullmann, “The Tradition,” in The Early Church (London: SCM Press, 1956), pp. 59–99. See also 1 Cor. 15:1–3; 2 Thess. 3:6.
4 The expression certain men (tines) is often used in the NT to denote a particular group of people: “You know who I mean!”
Long ago (palai) can equally well refer to the recent past, as in Mark 15:44 and 2 Pet. 1:9. Itinerant preachers and teachers frequently caused trouble in the early church (Matt. 7:15; 2 Cor. 10–11; 1 John 4:1; 2 John 10; Didache 11–12; Ignatius, To the Ephesians 9:1). A similar passage found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QS 4.9–14) rebukes the “spirits of iniquity” in terms reminiscent of Jude’s accusations, so the problem was not new; various religious leaders spoke and wrote about it. If both Jude and 2 Pet. 2:1–3 have independently drawn upon such a tradition, this would readily explain the differences and the similarities between the two writings. But in any case, the peril to the early church of such false teachers was clearly predicted (1 Tim. 4:1–2).
Jude’s verb pareidyein, to slip in secretly, is similar to the pareisagein, to smuggle in, of 2 Pet. 2:1.
Who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality agrees with 2 Pet. 2:18–19 in pointing to a group who, under the pretense of magnifying the grace of God (Rom. 6:1) and of asserting their Christian liberty, were leading base and licentious lives. The practice was not uncommon, for it was condemned alike by Paul (1 Cor. 6:9–18), Peter (1 Pet. 2:16; 2 Pet. 2:19), and John (1 John 3:7–10; Rev. 2:24).
And deny Jesus Christ: A similar thought is in 1 Enoch 48:10: “they have denied the Lord of Spirits and his Anointed.”
The term godless (asebeis) “may be almost said to give the keynote to the Epistle (cf. vv. 15, 18) as it does to the Book of Enoch” (Mayor). “Because, for the Jew, God’s commandments regulate the whole of man’s conduct, the irreverent attitude to God is manifested in unrighteous conduct” (Bauckham, p. 38).
Sovereign (despotēs): The modern meaning of “despot” is entirely negative and implies oppression and even slavery. But the Greek despotes is morally neutral: one in absolute control can be good or bad.
Three Warning Reminders
5 Sooner or later divine justice will catch up with those ungodly men, just as it did in OT times. To illustrate his point, Jude quotes three examples of divine judgment that his readers will recall (you already know all this). Although the men who were corrupting the church are described by Jude as “godless” (v. 4), they would not have regarded themselves in that light. Neither would they have viewed themselves as the enemies of the Christian church. Rather, they were proud of being free thinkers, a spiritual elite, unencumbered by owning lordship to anyone.
The first two examples Jude chooses make it clear that even if someone has received the greatest of spiritual privileges from God, that person must constantly watch and pray to avoid falling into disastrous error.
At one point in their history, the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt and bondage in spectacular and miraculous fashion (Exod. 14:26–31). Yet even that extraordinary blessing did not mean that subsequently those who did not believe escaped the dire consequences of turning their backs on God, but they were destroyed. When they were on the verge of entering the promised land, the people of Israel took fright at the majority report of the spies Moses had sent ahead to reconnoiter, and they refused point-blank to go on. They did not believe that God would enable them to conquer the land in front of them (Num. 13:26–33). As a consequence, apart from faithful Joshua and Caleb, that entire generation was condemned to spend the rest of their lives in a physical and spiritual desert. Thus they never enjoyed the land of milk and honey God had promised to give them (Num. 14:34–38). The continuous blessing of God depends on continuous reliance on God. The fate of those disbelieving Israelites haunted the minds of the NT writers (1 Cor. 10:5–11; Heb. 3:1–4:2).
6 The second warning example from the OT concerns the sin and fate of fallen angels. They became disgruntled with their positions of authority. Their lofty station, Jude says, the angels did not keep (tērein, to watch over). They failed to do their duty in guarding something of great value. They were not single-minded in maintaining the exclusive position for which God had purposely created them. They chose to look elsewhere and abandoned their own home. They deserted in order to further their own ends.
According to Isaiah 14:12; 24:21–22, pride drives some to rebel (Isa. 14:13). Certain angels were expelled from heaven and sentenced to eternal doom (Isa. 24:21–22; see also Matt. 25:41; Luke 10:18).
The book of Enoch has much to relate about the angels that “have deserted the lofty sky and their holy everlasting station (1 Enoch 12:4). Those rebels are to be chained until judgment day (1 Enoch 10:15–16). Their ringleader Azazel is sentenced: “Cover him with darkness, and let him dwell there forever” (1 Enoch 10:5). So pride was one cause of the angels’ fall. But there was another cause. This comes out in the story of the angels who left heaven and seduced mortal women (Gen. 6:1–4), and so fell through lust.
Jude combines the two ideas. First, the angels deserted their appointed place of authority to go after a position not intended for them. Second, they abandoned their proper domain to cohabit with beautiful women on earth. Such notions may sound bizarre to modern ears, but their implication is plain. Pride and lust ruined the angels that fell. The evil interlopers Jude warns his readers against are equally guilty of pride and lust. Their judgment is as certain as that which befell those angels, despite their exalted status.
The angels who defected have been sentenced to be kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains. We are not intended to imagine a literal dungeon in which fallen angels are fettered. Rather, Jude is vividly depicting the misery of their conditions. Free spirits and celestial powers, as once they were, are now shackled and impotent. Shining ones, once enjoying the marvelous light of God’s glorious presence, are now plunged in profound darkness. There is grim irony in Jude’s repetition of the same verb. The wicked angels proved too proud to keep (tērein) their exalted positions, so God has kept (tērein) them in deepest detention—a hint that the punishment fits the crime (1 Cor. 3:17; Rev. 16:6). A note in 2 Peter 2:4 adds that they have been sent to Tartarus (NIV, “hell”), regarded in the ancient Greek world as the abyss of punishment. There these angels are secured until the judgment on the great Day when the final settlement takes place.
7 Jude’s third warning example is the fate that befell Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns (Gen. 19:1–25). The surrounding towns included Admah and Zeboiim, according to Deut. 29:23 and Hos. 11:8. A fifth town, Zoar, was spared after Lot’s intercession (Gen. 19:20–22). The spectacular and utter destruction of these places, and of Sodom in particular, made such an indelible impression that among later generations the event became a warning byword for divine judgment.
These places were condemned because their inhabitants engaged in flagrant immorality. They gave themselves up to … perversion is lit. “going off after different (heteros, different in kind) flesh” (“strange flesh,” KJV; “unnatural lust,” RSV). Both the fallen angels and the men of Sodom had aggravated their sexual sins by lusting after “different” flesh. The angels of Genesis 6, although spiritual beings, had desired mortal women. The converse also was virtually true, for Jude ignores the fact that the Sodomites were unaware that Lot’s two visitors were angelic beings, not men (Gen. 19:1, 5). In Jude’s view the Sodomites’ intended homosexual practice was likewise a perversion, that is, unnatural sexual conduct, and not of God’s appointment.
George Adam Smith vividly describes what probably happened in the valley near the southern end of the Dead Sea when “burning sulphur rained down” (Gen. 19:24): “In this bituminous soil took place one of those terrible explosions which have broken out in the similar geology of the oil districts of North America. In such soil reservoirs of oil and gas are formed, and suddenly discharged by their own pressure or through an earthquake. The gas explodes, carrying high into the air masses of oil, which fall back in fiery rain, and are so inextinguishable that they float afire on water.” (G. A. Smith, Historical Geography, p. 508). In such a manner Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns … serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. What happened to Sodom and Gomorrah may have taken place a long time ago as far as Jude’s readers were concerned. But the event remains as a permanent warning for all generations.
The godless intruders among Jude’s Christian friends betray a decadence that pervades their whole lives, which these OT examples illustrate. Physically, these men have become immoral. Intellectually, they have grown arrogant. Spiritually, they defy God by their disobedience. Sooner or later, they will bring God’s judgment down upon themselves. The sins may differ, whether a matter of unbelief (v. 5), rebellious discontent (v. 6), or gross fornication (v. 7). The sinners may differ, whether Israelites, privileged to have the divine promises (v. 5), or angels, appointed to a splendid domain in heavenly glory (v. 6), or Gentiles (v. 7) dwelling in pleasant places, “well watered, like the garden of the Lord” (Gen. 13:10).
The punishment of eternal fire implies a destruction as final and total as is portrayed by the utter desolation of the area where the towns once stood. Nothing lives there. The towns themselves are believed to lie buried beneath what are now the southern waters of the Dead Sea. Sir George Adam Smith comments: “In this awful hollow, this bit of the infernal regions come up to the surface, this hell with the sun shining into it, primitive man laid the scene of God’s most terrible judgment on human sin.” (Historical Geography, p. 504)
Additional Notes
5 I want to remind you: a frequent admonition in the NT (1 Cor. 4:17; 15:1; 2 Tim. 1:6; 2:14; Titus 3:1; 2 Pet. 1:12–13; 3:1; Jude 17), although of value only if readers have at some time known the story. Present-day preachers can take much less for granted.
Those who did not believe (Num. 14:1–35): Other NT writers make use of the incident of the unbelieving Israelites in the wilderness (Acts 7:39; 1 Cor. 10:1–11; Heb. 3:12–19). While Jude and 2 Peter often cover much the same ground, and both refer to this event, only Jude mentions the deliverance from Egypt, and only Peter speaks of Lot and his rescue. This suggests that it is unlikely that one writer copied from the other.
6 The wicked angels did not keep (tērēsantas: aorist, denoting a past action over and done with), so God for his part has kept (tetērēken: perfect, denoting a past action with continuing consequences).
Positions of authority (tēn heautōn archēn; the Greek word archē means beginning, and then sovereignty, rule): “Their original dignity and high position.” Wycliffe translates as “princehood.” Archē is used in 1 Enoch 12:4 of the Watchers (angels) who “abandoned the high heaven and the holy eternal place and defiled themselves with women” (Gen. 6:1–4, where “sons of God” was universally understood not as men but as angels, or “Watchers,” in Judaism until the middle of the second century, and in Christianity until the fifth century (Bauckham, p. 51). The earliest extant account of the fall of the Watchers (1 Enoch 6–19, early 2nd cent. B.C.) tells how in the days of Jared (Gen. 5:18) two hundred angels descended on Mount Hermon, lusting for human wives. Their giant offspring were taught forbidden knowledge by the angels. That led to the total corruption of the world, which God then had to destroy by the Flood. The Watchers were sentenced to be left bound under the earth until the Day of Judgment, when they will be cast into Gehenna (Bauckham, p. 51).
Abandoned (apolipontas): The aorist tense indicates a once-for-all action. The angels deserted their post. They left forever their own home (to idion oikētērion), their own dwelling place, that is, heaven, their own special abode. See “Heaven” in IBD, vol. 2, p. 466; NIDNTT, vol. 2, pp. 184–96; ZPEB, vol. 3, pp. 60–64; ISBE, vol. 2, pp. 654–55. “Heaven was made for angels, not for man. It is the temporary abode of the departed saints until the new heavens and the new earth are brought into being, but men’s eternal dwelling place will be on the perfect earth.” (Wuest, In These Last Days, p. 240).
The fallen angels once enjoyed God’s marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9); now they are plunged in darkness (hypo zophon, lit. under darkness). The phrase is commonly used in Greek poetry for the intense blackness of the underworld (Homer, Iliad 21.56; Odyssey 11.57; Hesiod, Theogony 729; Aeschylus, Sibyline Oracles 4.43).
The Greek translated chains by NIV is desmoi, bonds, that is, anything used for tying. In the healing of the deaf man with an impediment in his speech, it is said that “the string (desmos) of his tongue was loosed” (Mark 7:35 KJV). The angels’ chains are described as everlasting (aidios). The Greek word excludes any notion of interruption, but rather lays stress on permanence and unchangeableness. Elsewhere in the NT, aidios occurs only in Rom. 1:20, where it is used of God’s eternal power.
The expression judgment on the great Day is unique in the NT, although similar phrases occur in the book of Enoch: “the Great Day of Judgment” (1 Enoch 10:9); “the Day of the Great Judgment” (93:8; 97:15; 104:3); “the Great Day” (16:2); “the Great Judgment” (22:5).
7 How deep an impression the utter destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah made is reflected in the frequency of references to that event: Deut. 29:23; Isa. 1:9; 13:19; Jer. 23:14; 49:18; 50:40; Lam. 4:6; Ezek. 16:48–50; Hos. 11:8; Zeph. 2:9; Wis. 10:7; Sir. 16:8; 3 Macc. 2:5; Jub. 16:6, 9; 20:5; 22:22; 36:10; T. Naph. 3:4; 4:1; T. Ash. 7:1; Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis 4:51; On Abraham 140; Josephus, War 4.483–485; 5.566. In the NT: Matt. 10:15; 11:24; Luke 10:12; 17:29. See J. P. Harland, “Sodom and Gomorrah,” in Biblical Archaeologist 5 (2, 1942), pp. 17–32; 6 (3, 1943), pp. 41–52.
They serve (prokeintai): are set forth, exposed to public gaze. The Greek verb is used of food laid out on the table ready for guests, or (by contrast) of a corpse laid out before mourners, prior to burial. Example is deigma, sample, pattern, though in this context, something certainly not to be copied.
Eternal fire: Matt. 5:22; 13:42, 50; 18:8; 25:41; Rev. 20:14–15. “And Michael and Gabriel and Raphael and Phanuel [four of the seven archangels, according to 1 Enoch 20:1–7; Tobit 12:15] shall take hold of them on the great day and cast them into the burning furnace” (1 Enoch 54:6).
The paradoxical combination of darkness and fire occurs also in 1QS 2.8, “the gloom of eternal fire.” The language conveys the impression of a state of intense heat and intense darkness, and so of intense isolation.
Brazen Ignorance
8 The NIV translation In the very same way (homoiōs mentoi) disregards the Greek mentoi (“but yet”). The sense is: “Though these men have such dreadful examples set clearly before them, yet they persist in their sin.”
Jude describes such men as dreamers (enypniazomenoi), and says that they pollute their own bodies. The expression could be taken to mean that the godless intruders beguile themselves with erotic fantasies (KJV, “filthy dreamers”). But dreamers applies to all three following clauses. The Greek word occurs elsewhere in the NT only in Acts 2:17, and there refers to prophetic dreams. The Septuagint employs the same verb to describe false prophets (Deut. 13:2, 5, 6; Isa. 56:10; Jer. 23:25; 34:9; 36:8). Jude is therefore referring to men who falsely claim to have visionary revelations to justify their teaching and actions. In verse 11 Jude implies that they even expect a fee for divulging their esoteric knowledge. Jude’s recognition that such men would be troubling the people of God is not a novelty. Another writer speaks of the sinners in the last days who “will sink into impiety because of the folly of their hearts, and their eyes will be blinded through the fear of their hearts and through the visions of their dreams” (1 Enoch 99:8).
By pollute their own bodies, Jude means by sexual excesses, comparable to the practices of Sodom and Gomorrah (cf. 2 Pet. 2:2, 10, 18). Presumably these men justified their actions by claiming enlightenment through their alleged revelatory dreams. According to one early Christian writer, some later Gnostics, such as the followers of Simon Magus, could refer to promiscuous intercourse as “perfect love” (Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 6.14). Sexual license was a problem in the church from its earliest days, as St. Paul knew only too well (1 Cor. 5:1; 6:9; 2 Cor. 12:21).
Such men also reject authority (kyriotēta, lordship; abstract noun from kyrios, lord). There are three possible interpretations. The Greek kyriotēs could refer to (1) ecclesiastical or civil authority. Calvin and Luther took it in this way, understandably in view of the turbulent days of the Reformation in which they lived. But nothing else in Jude’s letter is concerned with that topic. Or (2) a class of angels known as kyriotētes (“authorities” in Col. 1:16). But Jude’s use of the singular seems to rule this out. Or (3) the lordship of God (as in Didache 4:1), or the lordship of Christ (as in Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes 5.6.1). The last is the most probable explanation and corresponds to the earlier “deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (v. 4).
Again, these men slander celestial beings. It is not clear in what way the false teachers were disparaging angels. Usually the NT writers are warning believers against giving undue deference to angels (1 Cor. 6:3; Col. 2:18; Heb. 1:4–5). Perhaps the men deemed themselves to be superior to mere angels, or they may have scorned the very idea of their existence, claiming to be free from such superstitious nonsense. But as the regular Greek word for “angel” (angelos) can simply mean “messenger,” Jude may be intimating that the false teachers consider themselves to be far above mere messenger boys. The implication of the passage for the readers is plain enough. Jude is warning that what the false teachers may have regarded as advanced morality and advanced thought on their part can easily lead to advancing deafness to God’s voice.
9 The opening words, But even (de) the archangel Michael, imply a close link with what has gone before. All three accusations in verse 8 concern the rejection of the moral order, so the “slander” probably relates to the angels’ function as mediators of the law of Moses (Acts 7:38, 53; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2; Jubilees 1:27–29; Josephus, Ant. 15.136) and as guardians of creation (1 Cor. 11:10; Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes 8.3.3), a responsibility which some angels had abdicated (Jude 6).
The OT makes no reference to Michael disputing with the devil and simply states that God buried his servant Moses “in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is” (Deut. 34:6), a secret no doubt designed to prevent the Israelites from turning the spot into an idolatrous sanctuary.
The dispute referred to by Jude was recorded in the now lost ending of an apocryphal Jewish work called the Assumption of Moses. But the tradition can be reconstructed from references to that account in a number of early Christian writings (see Bauckham, pp. 65–76). Satan laid claim to the corpse of Moses for his kingdom of darkness because Moses had killed an Egyptian (Exod. 2:12). He was therefore a murderer, however virtuous his subsequent achievements, and so was unworthy of honorable burial. Satan, in his ancient role of accuser of God’s people (Rev. 12:10), was seeking to prove Moses’ guilt.
In response to the charge, Michael did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against Satan. Barclay (DSB, p. 188) expresses the opinion of most commentators that Jude means: “If the greatest of the good angels refused to speak evil of the greatest of the evil angels, even in circumstances like that, surely no human being may speak evil of any angel.” This interpretation takes accusation (blasphēmias) as a genitive of quality (Moule, Idiom-Book, p. 175), and as such it suits the context both in Jude and in the parallel passage in 2 Peter 2:11 (blasphēmon krisin, “slanderous accusations”). The terms used in this passage are forensic, the language of the courtroom. Bauckham (p. 43) considers that Jude’s meaning must be determined by his source, the Assumption of Moses, and according to that it was Satan who had “slandered” (eblasphēmsei kata) Moses by accusing him of murder. Michael, in his capacity as a legal advocate, refuted the slander (blasphēmia) and appealed to God for judgment against Satan: “The Lord rebuke thee!” Michael refused to take it upon himself to pronounce judgment, for that was God’s prerogative.
10 These men, the false teachers, betray by their attitude that they do not understand spiritual matters in general, or the role of angels in the divine scheme of things in particular (cf. 2 Pet. 2:12). All that they do understand is the result of natural instincts, on a par with unreasoning animals, brute beasts. In other words, they are simply giving rein to their sensual nature. They are devoid of spiritual discernment and are therefore living on no higher plane than the animal creation, despite any ecstatic claims they may make for themselves. But such a sensual motive in life will ultimately destroy them; it will lead to their eternal ruin. This is not a prophecy about the medical peril of AIDS but a reference to the inevitable judgment of God, as evidenced by Israel in the wilderness (v. 5) and by the cities of the plain (v. 7).
Additional Notes
8 Slander celestial beings (doxas, lit. “glories”): a term used for angels in the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QH 10.8) and in other early literature (2 Enoch 22:7, 10; Ascension of Isaiah 9:32; probably also Exod. 15:11 LXX, “Who among the gods (doxais) is like you, O Lord?” The term “glories” is used of angels because they share or reflect the glory of God.
9 “The Lord rebuke you!” According to the account in the Assumption of Moses, the devil was silenced and fled. Michael was left in peace to bury Moses’ body. A forensic plea similar to Michael’s appears in v. 2 of Zech. 3, a chapter quoted again later by Jude (vv. 22–23). The Greek verb for rebuke (epitimēsai) is in the optative mood, used to express a desire.
The term archangel (archangelos) occurs in the NT only here and in 1 Thess. 4:16. Elsewhere archangelos is used of the most senior angels, numbering four (1 Enoch 40:9) or seven (1 Enoch 20:7; cf. Rev. 8:2) and also called “the angel of the [divine] Presence.” Michael is their leader, “the chief of the holy angels” (Asc. Isa. 3:16), and especially acts as the guardian angel of the Jews against their godless enemies in Greece and Persia (Dan. 10:13, 21; 12:1; 1 Enoch 20:5; 89:76; 1QM 17). Michael is therefore the main adversary of Satan.
10 Speak abusively against (blasphēmousin): The Greek word echoes “slander (blasphēmousin) celestial beings” (v. 8), and “a slanderous (blasphēmias) accusation” (v. 9).
They do not understand: cf. 1 Cor. 2:7–16. T. Asher 7.1 refers to “Sodom, which did not recognize the angels of the Lord, and perished forever.”
Unreasoning animals is not a disparaging description but translates the regular Greek formula aloga zōa for the animal creation, brute beasts (Wisd. of Sol. 11:15; 4 Macc. 14:14, 18; Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.224; 2.213; Ant. 10.262; War 4.170; Philo, On the Virtues 117; On the Contemplative Life 8; see TDNT, vol. 4, p. 141).
Three Examples of Wickedness
11 Woe (ouai) to them! is a phrase typical of OT prophets, but it is not necessarily threatening language. The onomatapoeic ouai can indicate either a denunciation or a lament (the latter most clearly in Matt. 24:19). So Jude may be as much expressing Christian grief at the spiritual blindness of the false teachers as invoking their condemnation, for they themselves are heading for destruction.
In verses 5–7 Jude quoted three OT passages to portray the infiltrators as sinners in quite general terms. Now he uses three more OT illustrations to take his charge a step further. Cain, Balaam, and Korah were three notorious individuals who led others astray by their example. In other words they, like the infiltrators now, were by their actions false teachers.
The infiltrators have taken the way of Cain, that is, their attitude and conduct are like his. Cain murdered his own brother (Gen. 4:1–15), so Jude may be implying that the false teachers in his sights are Cain’s spiritual descendants and nothing better than the destroyers of souls. Jewish tradition enlarged upon the biblical account and considered Cain to be the type of selfish, cynical, and materialistic individual who neither takes God into account nor in practice believes in a moral order. The Jerusalem Targum on Genesis 4:8 portrays Cain as saying: “There is no judgment, no judge, no world to come; no reward will be given to the righteous, and no destruction meted out to the wicked.” So one who takes the attitude of a Cain feels free to do as he or she likes, and Cain’s example misleads others: Cain is the archetypal false teacher.
According to the OT account, Balaam first refused fees or bribes to curse Israel (Num. 22:7–18), but eventually the monetary lure proved too strong to be resisted (Deut. 23:4), and he fell into error (planē, a wandering off from the right way). As a consequence, he led others astray. In the OT account, Balaam’s advice to Balak is never spelled out. But comparing Numbers 25:1–2 with Numbers 31:16 suggests that Balaam was guilty of inciting Israel to lie with Moabite women, who in turn seduced Israel into worshiping Baal. That broke the first of the Ten Commandments, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exod. 20:3). By the first century A.D., Balaam was considered a notorious character in Jewish tradition. So Jude’s readers would readily pick up the meaning of the allusion. At the time Jude was writing, the name of Balaam was a byword for antinomianism (Rev. 2:14).
Grammatically, Balaam’s error can be taken in a passive sense (they too are victims of the weakness that seduced Balaam) or an active sense (they seduce others in the way he did). In either case the false prophets are motivated by greed: the prophets are out for profit (also v. 16), a vice not unknown among teachers in NT times (1 Tim. 6:5; Titus 1:11; Didache 11.5–6).
The end of such men is inevitable. They have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion: they are as good as dead. As in the case of Korah and his confederates, the false teachers of Jude’s day may well have been sowing unrest and promoting discontent against the authority of church leaders. Korah, with Reubenites Dothan and his brother Abiram, and On, and two hundred and fifty other agitators, had rebelled against the divinely appointed authority of Moses and Aaron (Num. 16). The mutineers’ punishment was swift and dramatic—the earth gave way beneath their feet and swallowed them alive. Some sort of fearful fate for the false teachers is as certain.
Additional Notes
11 Way (hodos): “road”; metaphorically, “a course of conduct.” Taken translates eporeuthēsan, “travelled”; metaphorically, “followed in the footsteps, copied the example.” Jude again uses the verb poreuesthai in vv. 16 and 18 (“they follow their own evil/ungodly desires”).
Cain is also mentioned in Heb. 11:4, where he is contrasted with his brother Abel who held nothing back from God. In 1 John 3:12, he is mentioned again; this time it concerns the murderous hostility of the wicked against the godly. Irenaeus (Against Heresies 1.31.1) mentions a second-century Gnostic sect who called themselves Cainites (cf. Epiphanius (Panarion 38.1.1–3). They regarded the God of the OT as responsible for the evil in the world, and so hailed those who resisted him as heroes, e.g., Cain, Esau, Korah.
They have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error (misthou exechythēsan): “They went headlong for a reward,” genitive of quality (Moule, Idiom-Book, p. 39). The verb is the passive aorist of ekchein, to pour out: “they were poured out,” i.e., “they plunged.” Bengel suggests “streamed forth like a torrent without a dam” (Gnomen, vol. 5, p. 166).
Balaam’s error: In the NT planē (error) always refers to deceit in morals or religion (Matt. 27:64; Rom. 1:27; Eph. 4:14; 1 Thess. 2:3; James 5:20; 2 Pet. 2:18; 3:17). Cain and Korah are not mentioned in the parallel passage (2 Pet. 2:15).
Destroyed is a Greek aorist (apōlonto) and equivalent to a prophetic perfect: their frightful fate is settled.
Korah’s rebellion: In a similar context regarding false teachers endangering the faith of others, 2 Tim. 2:19 (“The Lord knows those who are his”) is also probably alluding to the Korah tradition; cf. Num. 16:5: “The Lord will show who belongs to him.”
Wicked Infiltrators Exposed
From comparing the libertines with notorious OT sinners, Jude goes on to portray the objects of his invective in a series of colorful and barbed metaphors. His word-pictures correspond to the four regions of the physical world: clouds in the air, trees on the earth, waves of the sea, stars in the heavens.
12 In saying that These men are blemishes (spilades) at your love feasts, Jude uses a word that occurs nowhere else in the NT and has two meanings. Both fit the context. The commentators are equally divided between “rocks washed by the sea, reefs” (ASV, Weymouth, NASB) and “spots, blots, blemishes, stains” (KJV, NEB, Phillips, RSV). Jude is warning, either that the false teachers are like treacherous reefs and can shipwreck one’s faith (1 Tim. 1:19), or that these immoral men pollute the fellowship meals by their very presence.
These men pose a dangerous threat at your love feasts. This is the earliest mention of the love feast (agapē). In the early days the agapē was a meal of fellowship in the house-churches on the Lord’s Day. The meal was shared by all the members, of whatever class of society, with each one bringing a contribution of food, according to ability. In practice, it sometimes fell short of the ideal (cf. what happens at the Lord’s Supper in 1 Cor. 11:17–22). Jude warns that the infiltrators are seeking to take advantage of what was intended to be a fellowship of Christian love, and threatening to wreck it by their perfidious teaching. Yet they are acting quite shamelessly, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves, lit. “shepherding themselves.” Evidently these men were making sure that they looked after their own greedy self-interests at the gatherings (1 Cor. 11:20–22), not unlike the scene painted in Ezek. 34:2, 8, 10. The sort of thing that could go on is indicated by Didache 11.9, which declares that no prophet who (supposedly “in the spirit”) orders a meal is to eat of it, or else he is not a true prophet.
Such men are like clouds without rain, which disappoint the farmer’s hopes. They promise much, but fail to provide. All they do is to obscure the light. Just as clouds are blown along by the wind, so these men are carried along by their own verbosity, and their words supply no life-giving refreshment. These men are spiritually dead, for they exhibit no spiritual fruit in their lives. They are like autumn trees, which, after having had the opportunities of a full season of growth, ought to be laden. But they are without fruit, barren. They have failed to fulfill their purpose. They are twice dead, since as a consequence of their fruitlessness, the farmer destroys them (Matt. 7:19).
13 Jude carries on with his vivid word-pictures. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame. Undisciplined, out of control, all they do by their feverish surging is to stir up rubbish and spew it on to the shore—never a pretty sight. Barclay (p. 195) describes how the waters of the Dead Sea are so pregnated with salt that they strip the bark off driftwood. When such wood is thrown ashore, it gleams bleak and white, more like a pile of dried dead bones than a branch from a living tree.
These men are wandering stars: navigators cannot safely chart a course by them. The Greek term (planētai) suggests that the reference is probably to planets, whose irregular movements were not then understood. Ancient lore associated the planets with disobedient angels (hence Jude’s use of the personal pronoun whom). The false teachers had wandered off course because of their rebellion against God. Their destiny is settled: for whom the blackest darkness has been reserved forever. Their utterly hopeless and fearful doom is underlined by the double expression blackest darkness.
In verses 12–13 Jude has splashed a series of vivid pictures of the false teachers. They are as dangerous as reefs, as selfish as greedy shepherds, as deceptive as rainless clouds, as dead as barren trees, as polluted as the foaming sea. They are doomed as surely as the fallen angels.
Additional Notes
12 These men in the Greek is a single disparaging word, houtoi, these, and is witheringly reiterated six times (vv. 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 19). The same caustic curt reference to enemies of the gospel is frequent in apocalyptic writings (e.g., Rev. 7:14; 11:4; 14:4; 1 Enoch 46:3; 2 Enoch 7:3; 18:3).
Blemishes as a translation of spilades is in fact rare; only one other example is known, and that is from the 4th century A.D. So, despite Jude’s use of the corresponding verb spiloun to mean “to stain” in v. 23, “rock” is the more likely translation here. It certainly makes good sense. These men are like treacherous reefs to others sailing the sea of faith.
Shepherds as a metaphor for “ministers” is frequent in both OT and NT (e.g., Num. 27:16–17; Eccles. 12:11; Ezek. 34:1–10; John 21:15–17; 1 Pet. 2:25).
Uprooted: The uprooting of a useless tree is a biblical metaphor for judgment (Deut. 28:63; Ps. 52:5; Wisd. of Sol. 4:4; Matt. 15:13). Such trees were commonly burned (Matt. 3:10; 7:19; John 15:6).
Twice dead: cf. Heb. 10:29; Rev. 20:14.
13 Wild (agrios, untamed) is used of waves in Wisd. of Sol. 14:1. Wild waves … foaming up reflects the Hebrew of Isa. 57:10, “But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud.”
Foaming up translates the Greek verb epaphrizein, found only here in the NT. The Greek poet Moschus (Idylls 5.5) uses it to describe seaweed and other flotsam being carried along on the crest of a wave before being dumped on the shore.
Shame is plural in the Greek and could refer to these men’s deeds or to their words (or both). In either case, their effect is to spoil, not to edify; to soil, not to beautify the lives they touch.
Wandering stars (planētai): There is a play on words between planētai, wanderers off course, and planē, error (v. 11). Theophilus of Antioch (late second century) uses similar language. The righteous are law-abiding, like fixed stars. But planets “are types of men who separate themselves from God, abandoning his law and its commands” (To Autolycus 2.15.47–49).
Doom Prophesied by Enoch
14–15 Jude supports his words by citing a prophecy. This is taken, not from the canonical OT, as is usual with NT writers, but from a popular writing of the day which his readers would appreciate. Jude quotes, nearly verbatim, from the book of Enoch, which reads: “And behold, he cometh with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all, and to destroy all the ungodly; and to convict all flesh of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him” (1 Enoch 1:9). Jude is not treating a favorite tract of the time as inspired Scripture, but doing what every preacher should do: he is employing contemporary language, readily understood by those he addresses.
Irenaeus (Against Heresies 4.16.2) points out the appropriateness of the reference here to Enoch. Whereas the wicked angels mentioned earlier had forfeited their heavenly home on account of their disobedience, Enoch gained his place in heaven by obeying God. His remarkable spirituality is described as a walk with God (Gen. 5:22, 24).
Jude calls him the seventh from Adam (counting inclusively, as was the custom: there are five names between Adam and Enoch in the lists of Gen. 5:3–24 and 1 Chron. 1:1–3). To the Jew, seven was the “perfect” number, signifying completion (as in “sabbath,” the seventh day, marking the completion of creation; Gen. 2:2). The application of seventh to Enoch would be taken as adding weight to the authority of his words.
Jude interprets “he cometh” in the prophecy he quotes from the book of Enoch as applying to the second coming of Christ. When Jesus returns in glory, it will be with thousands upon thousands (myriasin; RSV, “myriads”) of his holy ones, that is, angels forming a heavenly army beyond reckoning. Jesus is coming in order to judge everyone, by which is meant all the ungodly (v. 4). He has been authorized to pass sentence as judge by God the Father (John 5:27–30). The sonorous repetition ungodly … ungodly … ungodly … ungodly drives home the solemnity and certainty of judgment against these evil men, like so many nails in their coffin, on account of both their acts and their words.
16 These men are grumblers (gongystai) and faultfinders (mempsimoiroi), both Greek terms occurring in the NT only here. The splendidly onomatopoeic gongystai is used in the LXX of the Israelites who grumbled against God in the wilderness (Exod. 15:24; 17:3; Num. 14:29). These men, too, Jude is saying, are complaining against God and his directions for living, preferring their own way—but then blaming God for anything that goes wrong for them. The mempsimoiros was well known in Greek literature as a discontent, always finding something to moan about in his lot. His attitude is exactly the converse of Paul’s “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Tim. 6:6).
They follow (lit. “are journeying down the road of”) their own evil desires, for they reject divine authority. “To them self-discipline and self-control are nothing; to them the moral law is only a burden and a nuisance; honour and duty have no claim upon them; they have no desire to serve and no sense of responsibility. Their one value is pleasure and their one dynamic is desire” (Barclay, p. 198). Furthermore, they boast about themselves, engaging in bombastic speech in an effort to impress. They are quite prepared to flatter others if they think they can wheedle something out of them to their own advantage. The false teachers both bluster and fawn.
Additional Notes
14 Enoch is also mentioned in the NT in Luke 3:37 (as an ancestor of Jesus) and in Heb. 11:5 (as a hero of faith).
The seventh from Adam is the usual description of Enoch in Jewish writings (1 Enoch 60:8; 93:3; Philo, On the Posterity and Exile of Cain 173; Jubilees 7:39; Lev. Rabbah 29.11).
The Lord is coming is lit. “came,” (ēlthen), the Greek aorist used prophetically (as in 1 Kings 22:17, “I saw all Israel scattered”).
With thousands upon thousands of his holy ones: angels, the heavenly army attending the returning Lord of glory (Deut. 33:2; Dan. 7:10; Zech. 14:5; Matt. 16:27; 25:31; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; 2 Thess. 1:7).
15 The evil men’s words are described as harsh (sklēros, hard, rough). In 1 Enoch 27:2, Uriel speaks of the valley in which are confined all those who have spoken hard things against the glory of the Lord.
16 Faultfinders (mempsimoiroi): “You are satisfied by nothing that befalls you; you complain about everything. You don’t want what you have got; you long for what you haven’t got. In winter, you wish it were summer, and in summer that it was winter. You are like some sick people, hard to please and a mempsimoiros!” (Lucian, Cynic 17).
They boast about themselves (to stoma autōn lalei hyperonka): lit. “their mouth talks big.” The Greek expression lalei hyperonka does not appear elsewhere in the NT, but it is used of Antiochus Epiphanes’ blasphemous utterance against God in Theodotian’s version of Dan. 11:36.
