Jude 1:13

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

Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. Raging - wild. Jude has in mind Isaiah 57:20. Shame , [ aischunas (G152)] - plural, 'shames' (cf.

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, . 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, . As blackness of darkness shows the horror of their punishment, so its being reserved for them shows the certainty of it.

(12-19) Three-fold description of the ungodly, corresponding to the three examples just given. The divisions are clearly marked, each section beginning with “These are” (Jude 1:12; Jude 1:16; Jude 1:19). (12-15) Description corresponding to Cain. (12) These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you.—Rather, These are the rocks in your feasts of charity, banqueting with you fearlessly (see next Note); or, These are they who banquet together fearlessly, rocks in your feasts of charity. The former is preferable. But in any case we must probably read rocks—i.e., that on which those who meet them at your love-feasts will be wrecked (see Notes on 1 Corinthians 11:20-22)—not “spots,” which is borrowed from 2 Peter 2:13. But it is just possible that as spiloi, St. Peter’s word, may mean either “spots” or “rocks” (though most commonly the former), so St. Jude’s word (spilades) may mean either “spots” or “rocks” (though almost invariably the latter). In an Orphic poem of the fourth century, spilades means “spots “; but this is rather late authority for its use in the first century. Here “rocks” is the safer translation. St. Peter is dwelling on the sensuality of these sinners, and for him “spots” is the more obvious metaphor. St. Jude, in tracing an analogy between them and Cain, would be more likely to select “rocks.” These libertines, like Cain, turned the ordinances of religion into selfishness and sin: both, like sunken rocks, destroyed those who unsuspectingly approached them. On the difference of reading respecting the word for “feasts of charity,” or “love-feasts,” see Note on 2 Peter 2:13. Possibly the name Agapæ for such feasts comes from this passage. Had it been common when St. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 11, he would probably have made a point of it; love-feasts in which there was no love. (Comp. 1 Peter 5:14.) Feeding themselves without fear. “Without fear” goes better with “feasting with you”; but the Greek admits of either construction. “Feeding themselves” instead of the poorer members of the flock; whereas feeding the poor was one great object of the love-feasts. Others explain, “feeding themselves” (literally, pasturing themselves) instead of waiting to be tended by the shepherds. The former is better, the scandal being similar to that described in 1 Corinthians 11:21. (Comp. Isaiah 56:11, which St. Jude may possibly have had in his mind; and see above, second Note on Jude 1:8.) Clouds without water.—Comp. Proverbs 25:14. The meaning is not that these men bring much food to the love-feasts and give nothing away: there is no longer any allusion to the love-feasts. Rather, these men are ostentatious generally, and yet do no good inflated and empty. (See on 2 Peter 2:17.) Carried about of winds.—More literally, borne past (without giving any rain) by winds; or, perhaps, driven out of their course (and so showing their flimsiness) by winds.Trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit.—There is no such strange contradiction in the Greek, nor in any of the earlier English versions.

Verse 13. Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame] The same metaphor as in Isaiah 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] αστερεςπλανηται. 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.

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 Isaiah 57:20. The same image meets us, though in a milder form, and to express a different type of spiritual evil, in James 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 2 Peter 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.

Raging waves of the sea - Compare 2 Peter 2:18. They are like the wild and restless waves of the ocean.

13. Raging waves—Savage, as if alive, full of furious purpose and power. Their own shame—The plural shames.