2 Peter 2:4

2 Peter 2:4. For if God spared not angels when they sinned. This rendering (which is adopted by the R. V.) comes nearer the original than that of the A. V. It is not merely that those of the angels who did sin were not spared, but that even the class of angels as such were not spared when sin entered among them.

but casting them into Tartarus committed them to pits of darkness in reserve unto judgment. There is a little uncertainty here both as to the connection and as to the reading. Some good interpreters arrange the clauses thus: ‘having cast them down into hell (bound) with chains of darkness, committed them as in reserve unto judgment.' The preferable construction, however, is the other. Ancient authorities, again, vary between two slightly different forms of the word which the A. V. renders ‘chains.' One of these means what the A. V. makes it ‘chains,' ropes, or cords (comp. Proverbs 5:22). This reading gives a sense in harmony with the companion statement in Jude (Jude 1:6), as also with another in the Book of Wisdom, ‘they were bound with a chain of darkness' (Wisdom 17:27). The best manuscripts, however, support the other form, which means caves, dungeons, or, as the R. V. puts it, ‘pits.' The term itself, in either form, occurs only this once in the N. T. The word here used for ‘darkness' is found again only in 2 Peter 2:17 and in Jude 1:6; Jude 1:13. The verb rendered ‘cast them down to hell' by the A. V. is also peculiar to the present passage. It is the heathen term for consigning to Tartarus; that is, the dark abyss, as deep beneath Hades as heaven is high above earth, into which Homer tells us (Iliad, viii. 13, etc.) Zeus cast Kronos and the Titans. In later mythology it denoted either the nether world generally, or that region of it to which gross offenders were condemned. Here, as the immediately following words indicate, Peter has in view neither hades, the world of the departed generally, nor Gehenna , hell in the sense of the place of final judgment, but the intermediate scene or state of penalty. As the participle is in the present tense, the appended clause should be translated not ‘ to be reserved,' but ‘ being reserved' or ‘in reserve unto judgment.' The Vulgate and all the old English Versions go astray here. The case of the angels is introduced as the first of three historical events to which Peter appeals in proof of the certain judgment of the false teachers. It has been supposed by many that Peter is pointing here to the sin dimly indicated in Genesis 6:1-7, the ‘sons of God' being taken there to be a synonym for angels. Others regard him as referring to ideas on the subject of the sins and penalties of angels, which were traditional among the Jews and became embodied in such books as that of Enoch (Enoch 7:1, 2). The passage itself, however, deals chiefly with the punishment of the angels, and simply mentions the fact of their sin, without explaining its nature. Jude gives no more definite account of it than that they ‘kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation' (2 Peter 2:6). And over the whole question of angelic sin Scripture offers little or nothing to satisfy curiosity. With Peter's description here compare Milton's: Jude 1:1

‘Here their prison ordained

In utter darkness, and their portion set

As far removed from God and light of heaven.

As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole.'

Paradise Lost, i. 71-74.