Jude 1:18

ἐπʼ ἐσχάτου χρόνου ἔσονται ἐμπαῖκται. The parallel in 2 Peter 3:3 is ἐλεύσονται ἐπʼ ἐσχάτων τῶν ἡμερῶν ἐν ἐμπαιγμονῇ ἐμπαῖκται, where see note on the use of the article with ἔσχατος, etc. For ἐπί, cf. Arist. Pol. iv. 3, ἐπὶ τῶν ἀρχαίων χρόνων.

The prophecy of this mocking, as a mark of the future trials of the Church, has not come down to us. An example of it in the very beginning of the Church is given in Acts 2:13, ἕτεροι χλευάζοντες ἔλεγον ὅτι γλεύκους μεμεστωμένοι εἰσί. In the O.T. we have such examples as 2 Chronicles 36:16 (the summing up of the attitude of the Jews towards the prophets) ἦσαν μυκτηρίζοντες τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐξουθενοῦντες τοὺς λόγους αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐμπαίζοντες ἐν τοῖς προφήταις αὐτοῦ, Jeremiah 20:8, ἐγενήθη λόγος Κυρίου εἰς ὀνειδισμὸν ἐμοὶ καὶ εἰς χλευασμὸν πᾶσαν ἡμέραν. Cf. also the mockery at the crucifixion, and the declaration in Matthew 10:25 f., εἰ τὸν οἰκοδεσπότην Βεεζέβοὺλ ἐπεκάλεσαν, πόσῳ μᾶλλον κ. τ. λ. In 2 Peter the purport of this mockery is explained to be the unfulfilled promise of the Parusia. Here we must gather its meaning from the account already given of the libertines. If they turned the grace of God into licentiousness, they would naturally mock at the narrowness and want of enlightenment of those who took a strict and literal view of the divine commandments: if they made light of authority and treated spiritual things with irreverence, if they foamed out their own shame and uttered proud and impious words, if they denied God and Christ, they would naturally laugh at the idea of a judgment to come. On the form ἐμπαίκτης and its cognates, see note on 2 Peter.

τῶν ἀσεβειῶν. I am rather disposed to take τῶν ἀσεβειῶν here as a subjective genitive, “lusts belonging to, or arising from their impieties,” cf. Romans 1:28, καθὼς οὐκ ἐδοκίμασαν τὸν Θεὸν ἔχειν ἐν ἐπιγνώσει, παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ Θεὸς εἰς ἀδόκιμον νοῦν. The position of the genitive is peculiar, and probably intended to give additional stress. We may compare it with James 2:1, μὴ ἐν προσωπολημψίαις ἔχετε τὴν πίστιν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τῆς δόξης, where some connect τῆς δόξης with κυρίου in a qualitative sense.