Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

2 Peter 2:18

2 Peter 2:18. for speaking great swelling things of vanity. The writer proceeds now to justify what he has just said, either as to the doom of the false teachers, or as to their character as pretenders and deceivers. The verb used for ‘speaking' is one which occurs in the New Testament only in Acts 4:18, and in these two verses (Acts 4:16; Acts 4:18) of the present chapter. It usually expresses loud utterance, e.g. the scream of the eagle, the neighing of the horse, the speech of orators, the battle-cry of warriors, the recitative of a chorus. Hence its fitness here in reference to men who indulge in high-sounding, empty, grandiloquent statements. The phrase rendered ‘great swelling things' is found only here and in the parallel passage in Jude. It describes what is over-large or immoderate, and is applied in the late Classics to a ponderous, verbose style. As to the ‘vanity,' see note on 1 Peter 1:18. The noun occurs again only in Romans 8:20; Ephesians 4:17.

they entice in the lusts of the flesh by wantonnesses. The ‘lasts of the flesh' (with which compare especially the Pauline formulae, Galatians 5:16; Ephesians 2:3) are the sphere within which they live and act. The ‘wantonnesses,' or ‘acts of lasciviousness' (on which see 1 Peter 4:3), are the instruments which they use within that sphere. The action ascribed to them is that of enticing as with a bait; such is the force of the verb, the use of which in the New Testament is limited to those two verses in the present chapter (14, 18) and James 1:14.

those who are just escaping from them who live in error. The A. V., following the Received Text, gives ‘those that were clean escaped.' This reading must yield now to another which may be rendered ‘who are just escaping' (so the R. V., etc.), or who ‘are but a little way escaped' (Hofmann). By those ‘who live in error' are to be understood not the false teachers themselves, but non-Christians generally. The phrase, too, best suits heath us. The guilt of those apostate teachers, therefore, is exhibited as aggravated by the fact that the persons whom they plied with the vile bait of sensual indulgence were those least fit to resist it, not men who were established in the new faith, but men who had but recently broken off from the ranks of heathenism, or who had as yet got but a few paces, as it were, in the process of separating themselves from their old pagan life. The verb used here for ‘live' is the one which denotes the manner of life, the conduct, and is connected with the noun for ‘life' or ‘conversation,' which meets us most frequently in Peter (1 Peter 1:15; 1Pe 1:18; 1 Peter 2:12; 1 Peter 3:1-2; 1 Peter 3:16 '; 2 Peter 2:7; 2 Peter 3:11); occasionally in Paul (Galatians 1:13; Ephesians 4:22; 1 Timothy 4:12); and elsewhere only in Hebrews 13:7; James 3:13.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

2 Peter 2:18

Old Testament

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