Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

2 Peter 2:12

2 Peter 2:12. But these, as irrational animals, by nature born for capture and destruction. The string of epithets here is somewhat difficult to represent adequately. The latter phrase runs literally ‘born natural,' etc., and may convey the idea either that they are not born spiritual creatures, or that in point of natural constitution they are intended only ‘for capture and destruction.' The rendering of the A. V., ‘but these as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed,' expresses the sense sufficiently well, only that it connects the ‘natural' with the ‘beasts,' instead of with the ‘born.' The order given by the best authorities is followed by the R. V., ‘but these, as creatures without reason, born mere animals to be taken and destroyed.' These last words represent substantives in the original. Hence some take the sense to be ‘to take and destroy,' the idea then being that the irrational creatures are made to get their own maintenance by capturing and killing other creatures. The passive sense, however, ‘to be taken and destroyed,' is more in harmony with the context.

speaking evil in things of which they are ignorant. The ‘speaking evil,' or ‘railing,' refers back to the ‘ railing judgment' of the previous verse. The senseless and malignant reviling indulged in by these men in matters which they are incapable of understanding, and in which ignorance should command silence, shows how like they are to the irrational beasts. And as they resemble these in their mode of life, Peter goes on to say, they shall resemble them in their destiny.

shall in their destruction also be destroyed. Many good interpreters give the ethical meaning to the word ‘destruction' here. In this case the sense will be, as the A. V. gives it, ‘shall utterly perish in their own corruption,' or (as it is more fully put, e.g., by Alford), shall go on practising the corrupt life to which they have sold themselves with increasing appetite until they are themselves destroyed by it. The idea, however, is rather this: in the destruction which they bring upon others, they shall yet bring destruction upon themselves. So Humphry (Comm. on Revised Version, p. 451) makes it= while causing destruction to others, shall accomplish their own destruction; with which non-ethical sense of the verb and noun he compares (with Wordsworth) 1 Corinthians 3:17, ‘If any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy.'

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

2 Peter 2:12

Old Testament

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