Welcome back to my study/review of The Epistle of Jude. If you missed the previous parts of this study, you can find them HERE.
Jude 5-7
5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
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Jude 5 is a bold statement because the author places Jesus in the Old Testament. There is some who argue that the manuscripts which cite “Jesus” may have originally read “LORD” but that view is the less well supported view. As a result, there is some confusion on this point. We’ll start first by looking at The Pulpit Commentaries note on the verse, and then expand from there.
The first is taken from the history of Israel. It is introduced, not as a contrast with what precedes, but as a natural transition from it. It is given, too, as a matter quite within their knowledge, and of which consequently they need only to be reminded. The Authorized Version is short of the mark in several respects here. What the writer expresses is not the mere fact that he is to do a certain thing, but that he has the wish to do so. Hence the now I desire to put you in remembrance of the Revised Version is preferable to the I will therefore, etc., of the Authorized Version. The next clause is more decidedly astray. For the term rendered” once” means “once for all,” and the knowledge is given as a present possession. Hence the rendering should be though ye know once for all; or better, knowing as ye do once for all—a form of expression which might be paraphrased in our English idiom, as Mr. Humphry rightly observes, “though ye have known all along.” There is, however, very considerable difficulty in the reading here. It varies between “ye know this” which is accepted by the Authorized Version, “ye know all things” which is preferred by the Revised Version, and “ye all know” which, though poorly accredited, is yet supposed by Professor Herr to be not improbably the original. The documentary evidence is, on the whole, on the side of “all things;” and if this is adopted, the universal term will naturally be limited by the context to a knowledge of all that is pertinent to the point in question. This knowledge of the principles at issue in the case of these evil men, and of the retributive deeds of God by which these principles have been signally vindicated, is a reason why Jude needs simply to refresh the memories of his readers, and not to tell them anything new. In the second half of the verse there is a still more serious difficulty in the text. Instead of the term “Lord,” some of the very best authorities read “Jesus.” If this must be accepted, we have an act of the Jehovah of the Old Testament ascribed to the Jesus of the New Testament. But this would be an entirely unexampled usage. For, while the New Testament not unfrequently introduces the name of Christ when it refers to deeds of grace or claims of honour which the Old Testament connects with the name of Jehovah (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:4; 1 Peter 3:15, etc.), it never does this with that name of the Redeemer of the New Testament which specially marks his human nature and origin. Hence Professor Herr speaks of the reading “Jesus” here as a blunder, however supported. The ordinary reading may, therefore, be adhered to, especially as it is by no means ill accredited, having on its side two of the primary uncials and other weighty authorities. These clauses are peculiar in other respects. They speak not of “the people” as the Authorized Version puts it, but rather of “a people.” And this is not without its purpose. For the idea is not simply that the ancient Israel experienced both redemption and judgment at the hands of their Lord, but that Israel’s Lord, by bringing Israel out of Egypt, secured a people for himself, though he had also to destroy unbelievers among them. Again, the phrase rendered “afterward” by the Authorized Version means strictly “the second time,” as is noticed by the margin of the Revised Version. What is intended, therefore, may be that Israel was the subject of two great deeds on Jehovah’s part—in the first instance a redeeming deed, in the second instance a punitive deed. And his purpose in seeking a people for himself was not inconsistent with his doing what he did in this second instance. What, then, is referred to? Those seem to interpret it best who take it to be a general reference to the wilderness-fate of unbelieving Israel, rather than to any single instance of the terrors of the Divine judgment, such as that reported in Numbers 25:1-9. It is far-fetched to suppose that the event in view is one so remote from the deliverance of Israel from Egypt as the Babylonian captivity. We may compare with this verse, therefore, such passages as Psalms 106:12-21; Hebrews 3:16-5.
One thing which Jude may have had in mind, in this verse, is the Second Temple Period notion of “Two Powers in Heaven.” What that refers to is a Second Temple period Jewish belief – not universal – that the Old Testament seems to indicate two persons of God. The scholarly book linked to above is by Alan F. Seagal.
Alan Franklin Segal (August 2, 1945 – February 13, 2011) was a scholar of ancient religions, specializing in Judaism’s relationship to Christianity. Segal was a distinguished scholar, author, and speaker, self-described as a “believing Jew and twentieth-century humanist.” Segal was one of the first modern scholars to write extensively on the influences of Judaism (including Second Temple Rabbinic texts, Merkabah mysticism, and Jewish apocalypticism) on Paul of Damascus.
Segal was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. He attended Amherst College (B.A., 1967), Brandeis University (M.A., 1969), Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (Bachelor of Hebrew Letters, 1971), and Yale University (M.A., 1971; M.Phil., 1973; and Ph.D., 1975). At the time of his retirement, Segal was Professor Emeritus of Religion and Ingeborg Rennert Professor Emeritus of Judaic Studies at Barnard College and held a concurrent appointment as Adjunct Professor of Scripture at Union Theological Seminary. He had also taught at Princeton University and the University of Toronto.
Segal was an expert in the field of history and religious traditions of Judaism and Christianity of the Roman period, and on the Semitic languages in use in Israel in that period. His scholarly reputation commenced with his landmark book, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports About Christianity and Gnosticism (1977), in which he explored early references in rabbinic texts that he proposed were directed against beliefs of Jewish Christians and gnostics. His 1986 book, Rebecca’s Children, was a sensitive study showing that rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity were sibling developments from the parent biblical tradition. His award-winning book, Paul the Convert (1990) was Editor’s Choice and main selection of the History Book Club’s summer 1990 list, and a selection of the Book of the Month Club. The 368 page text is a collection of studies that interprets Paul within the context of Jewish mysticism and history, providing unique depth and insight for Biblical exegetes and Jewish historians. His last book, Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion (2004) was a massive study of beliefs spanning from ancient near-eastern civilizations to the present and across various religious traditions. Life After Death is “considered one of the definitive treatments of that weighty subject — and was weighty in its own right, at 731 pages.” It was a selection of the History Book Club, the Book of the Month Club, and the Behavioral Science Book Club. It also featured on the Leonard Lopate Show, Talk of the Nation, and was the cover story of the Globe and Mail Book Review Supplement (Toronto). In addition, he wrote numbers articles and chapters in scholarly books.
The belief in their being “two persons” of the One God of Israel is based on several places in the Old Testament wherein a person with a physical form seems to be acting as God, alongside Himself. Several passages featuring “The Angel of the Lord” as well as the somewhat odd story from Genesis regarding Melchizedek play a role in this belief.
The fact that this Two Powers teaching existed at the time of Jesus made the ground for His ministry more fertile among Jews who would have understood the argument. He essentially told a crowd – who would know what He meant – that He is God and they would have understood Him to be telling them that He was the second person of God, present in the Old Testament, described in the Two Powers idea. This core belief became an Old Testament foundation for what eventually became the Christian Trinitarian doctrine.
It should be mentioned that not all Second Temple period Jewish religious leaders and teachers were adherents to this teaching. Many were not and Christ’s ministry was viewed as blasphemy by those who did not adhere to the teaching (as well as by others who did, but did not believe Jesus was this other person of God.) It should further be mentioned that the Two Powers teaching was officially deemed blasphemy by Jewish leaders *after* the time of Jesus. Christians likely played a role in that, as they forced a clarification of the official position on the issue. Early Christians would argue, no doubt, that the Two Powers teaching was deemed to be blasphemy because adopting the teaching too greatly benefited the Christian movement.
I recommend reading The Two Powers of Heaven book, linked above, for a more thorough overview of the topic. Dr. Michael S. Heiser’s The Unseen Realm also touches on the Two Powers issue.
Regarding Jesus’s place in the verse, the NetBible Commentary says the following:
The construction our Master and Lord, Jesus Christ in v. 4 follows Granville Sharp’s rule (see note on Lord). The construction strongly implies the deity of Christ. This is followed by a statement that Jesus was involved in the salvation (and later judgment) of the Hebrews. He is thus to be identified with the Lord God, Yahweh. Verse 5, then, simply fleshes out what is implicit in v. 4.
tc The reading ᾿Ιησοῦς (Iēsous, “Jesus”) is deemed too hard by several scholars, since it involves the notion of Jesus acting in the early history of the nation Israel (the NA has “the Lord” instead of “Jesus”). However, not only does this reading enjoy the strongest support from a variety of early witnesses (e.g., A B 33 81 88 322 424 665 915 1241 (1735: “the Lord Jesus”) 1739 1881 2298 2344 vg co eth Or Cyr Hier Bede), but the plethora of variants demonstrate that scribes were uncomfortable with it, for they seemed to exchange κύριος (kurios, “Lord”) or θεός (theos, “God”) for ᾿Ιησοῦς (though P has the intriguing reading θεὸς Χριστός [theos Christos, “God Christ”] for ᾿Ιησοῦς). As difficult as the reading ᾿Ιησοῦς is, in light of v. 4 and in light of the progress of revelation (Jude being one of the last books in the NT to be composed), it is wholly appropriate. The NA text now also reads Ιησοῦς. For defense of this reading, see Philipp Bartholomä, “Did Jesus Save the People out of Egypt: A Re-examination of a Textual Problem in Jude 5, ” NovT 50 (2008): 143-58.
The fact that using Jesus rather than Lord makes the scribes uncomfortable is an argument for Jesus being the original term. Why? It relates to the textual criticism concept, “Lectio difficilior potior.”
Lectio difficilior potior (Latin for “the more difficult reading is the stronger”) is a main principle of textual criticism. Where different manuscripts conflict on a particular reading, the principle suggests that the more unusual one is more likely the original. The presupposition is that scribes would more often replace odd words and hard sayings with more familiar and less controversial ones, than vice versa. Lectio difficilior potior is an internal criterion, which is independent of criteria for evaluating the manuscript in which it is found, and that it is as applicable to manuscripts of a roman courtois or a classical poet as it is to a biblical text. The principle was one among a number that became established in early 18th-century text criticism, as part of attempts by scholars of the Enlightenment to provide a neutral basis for discovering an urtext that was independent of the weight of traditional authority.
For one final piece of information, regarding Jesus’s inclusion in this verse, I’ll direct you to a scholarly article titled “Did Jesus Save the People Out of Egypt? A Re-examination of a Textual Problem in Jude 5” by Philipp Bartholomä. Excerpt below:
Abstract
In Jude 5, the manuscript evidence yields three different subjects [(1) κυριoς, (2) ‘Iησoυς, (3) εoς]. The major textual editions, but also the vast majority of English translations, prefer the κυριoς-reading as original. The ‘Iησoυς-reading, although acknowledged by many as lectio difficilior, has generally been regarded as too hard. Yet, in light of the textual evidence studied from the standpoint of reasoned eclecticism, the traditional preference of the κυριoς-reading appears to be questionable. An examination of both external and internal evidence suggests that ‘Iησoυς should be seriously considered as the original reading in Jude 5. This would argue for the existence of a high Christology (including Christ’s pre-existence) within the Epistle of Jude.
The article requires payment, but if you’re interested in a deeper dive, I recommend it. He concludes that Jesus is the original and best rendering while providing a thorough argument for that position.
The subject matter of verse 5 should not be glossed over, either. Jude makes the point to his audience that Jesus saved the Israelites from Egypt, and He was also willing to destroy some of them.
This reminder makes sense in light of the previous verse.
4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Jude is addressing a heresy that seems to teach the idea that grace permits sexual immorality and allows even a denial of Jesus Christ. In verse 5, he warns his readers that God (Jesus) punishes as well as saves.
Broadly speaking, heresies often tend to take one of two forms: Either they are works-based religiosity, rooted in pride, and lacking grace, or in the alternative, they are grace-based arguments for the permissibility of sin and making oneself his own master. Jude seems to be addressing the latter heresy in this letter.
In the next verse, Jude provides another example of God doling out judgment. This time he comments on God’s judgment of the angels. From The Pulpit Commentaries:
The second instance of Divine judgment is taken from the angelic world. The copula connects it closely with the former, and gives it some emphasis: “angels, too,” i.e., angels not less than the people selected by God to be a people for himself, have been examples of the terrible law of Divine retribution. The particular class of angels are defined as those who kept not their first estate; or better, their own principality. The idea conveyed by the term here is that of lordship rather than beginning. It is the term which is held by most commentators to be used as a title of angels in such passages as Colossians 1:16; Ephesians 1:21; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12, etc., where mention is made of “principalities.” In the present passage Tyndale, Cranmer, the Genevan and our Authorized Version agree in rendering it “first estate.” But the Rhemish gives “principality,” and Wickliffe has “princehood.” Those seem right, therefore, who take the reference to be to the Jewish idea of a peculiar dignity or lordship held by the angels in creation. The sin alleged as the reason for the penalty which the writer recalls to the minds of his readers is that they failed to keep this lordship, and left their proper habitation; by which latter clause a descent to a different sphere of being is intended. The penalty itself is this—that God hath kept them in everlasting chains (or, bonds, with the Revised Version) under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. It is well to retain the rendering “kept” in this clause, instead of the “reserved” of the Authorized Version. For the verb used in describing the sin and that used in describing the penalty are the same. As they “kept not their lordship,” God has “kept them in everlasting bonds.” The word by which the idea of the everlasting is expressed is a peculiarly strong one, occurring only once again in the New Testament, viz. in Romans 1:20, where it is applied to God’s “eternal power.” It designates these bonds as bonds from which there never can be escape. The place of this present penal detention is declared to be “under darkness.” The term selected for the darkness, again, is an unusual one, occurring only here, in Romans 1:13, and in 2 Peter 2:4, 2 Peter 2:17, and possibly Hebrews 12:18. It means the densest, blackest darkness, and is used both in Homer and in the apocryphal literature (Wis. 17:2) of the darkness of the nether world. This darkness, as Dean Alford observes, is “considered as brooding over them, and they under it.” But this present penal detention is itself the prelude to a still more awful doom—”the judgment of the great day” (cf. Acts 2:20; Revelation 6:17). There is a similar, but less definite, statement on the subject of angelic sin and penalty in 2 Peter 2:4. But these representations differ greatly from others (e.g., Ephesians 2:2; Ephesians 6:12), where the air or the heavenly places appear as the scenes occupied by evil spirits, and these spirits possess freedom. In the New Testament, indeed, there are no passages, except those in Peter and Jude, which speak of fallen angels as at present in bonds. Even in Matthew 25:41, the statement is of a fate prepared, and nothing more. The difference in the two representations is due probably to a difference in the subjects. Other passages refer to the devil and his angels. But in the present passage there is nothing to indicate that the fall of Satan is in view. The sin suggested by the context is not the sin of pride, but a sin against nature. The reference, therefore, is taken to be to the Jewish idea that amatory passion is not limited to the creatures of earth, and that some angels, yielding to the spell of the beauty of the daughters of men, forsook their own kingdom, and entered unto unnatural relations with them. The Jewish belief is seen in the story of Asmodeus in the Book of Tobit; it is found by Josephus (who has been followed by not a few modern interpreters) in Genesis 6:1-4; and it is given with special distinctness in the Book of Enoch.
The word translated in the ESV as “position of authority” is a somewhat difficult one to translate from Greek to English. You’ll see is rendered as “position of authority,” “first estate,” “principality,” and “domain.” Utilizing all the possible renderings helps to clarify the meaning, though.
position of authority / first estate / principality / domain = ἀρχή archḗ, ar-khay’; from G756; (properly abstract) a commencement, or (concretely) chief (in various applications of order, time, place, or rank):—beginning, corner, (at the, the) first (estate), magistrate, power, principality, principle, rule.
The reference in verse 6 is not an obvious one for casual readers and studiers of the Bible. To what incident is Jude referring? The commentary note sheds some light.
The sin committed by the angels seems to be referring to the pre-Flood sin from Genesis 6:
6 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
The commentary also notes that this story is provided in more detail in the non-canonical Book of Tobit and 1 Enoch. Jude’s 1st century readers would have been very familiar with this story. The consequence of this incident reverberates throughout the New Testament, with Abraham, Moses, Joshua, and David all dealing with the giants that were the offspring of such angelic / human unions.
This will not be the last time that Jude refers to information derived (at least in part) from books outside of canon. The reference itself does not make these other texts canonical, however, the information – via its inclusion in Jude – is canonical. It’s a difficult thing to think through, but we’ll endeavor to do so later.
Verse 7 includes a third reference to divine punishment – this time Sodom and Gomorrah. This story includes some of the textual argument for the Two Powers doctrine described earlier in this post. From Genesis 18:
18 And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks[a] of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth 3 and said, “O Lord,[b] if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant.
[…]
16 Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way. 17 The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 18 seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have chosen[f] him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.” 20 Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, 21 I will go down to see whether they have done altogether[g] according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”22 So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. 23 Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
Abraham meets with three men. Two of them leave for Sodom, to find Lot. The third remains and Abraham negotiates for lives with the Lord. The implication seems to be that the third man *was* the Lord. The trouble is that other places in the Torah indicate that man cannot look upon God without dying.
Exodus 33:20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”
This problem might be resolved though, if there were multiple persons of One God, one of whom *could* be seen.
The Pulpit Commentaries say the following about verse 7:
The third example is taken from the history of the cities of the Plain. This example is closely connected with the immediately preceding by the even as with which the verse opens; which phrase expresses a likeness between the two cases, to wit, between the reservation of those angels in bonds for the final judgment, and the fate of those cities as subjects of the penal vengeance of God. Two of those cities of evil memory, Sodom and Gomorrah, are mentioned by name. The other two, Admah and Zeboim, are included in the phrase, and the cities about them. Attention is rightly called by some of the commentators to the remarkable frequency with which the case of Sodom and Gomorrah is brought forward, both in the New Testament and in the Old, and to the use which Paul makes of it (as he finds it cited by Isaiah) in the great argument of Romans 9:1-33. The sin charged against these cities is stated in express terms to have been the same in kind with that of the angels—the indulgence of passion contrary to nature. They are described as having in like manner with these (that is, surely, in like manner with these angels just referred to; not, as some strangely imagine, with these men who corrupt the Church) given themselves over to fornication, and gone after strange flesh. The verbs are selected to bring out the intense sinfulness of the sin—the one being a strong compound form expressing unreserved surrender, the other an equally strong compound form denoting a departure from the law of nature in the impurities practiced. The sin has taken its name from the city with which the Book of Genesis so fearfully connects its indulgence. It forms one of the darkest strokes in the terrible picture which Paul has given us of the state of the ancient heathen world (Romans 1:27). With the Dead Sea probably in his view, the writer describes the doom of the cities as an example of or a witness to (the noun used being one that occurs again only in James 5:11, and bearing either sense) the retributive justice of God. They are set forth (literally, they lie before us) for an example, suffering the vengeance (rather, the punishment) of eternal fire. So it is put by the Authorized Version and the Revised Version, as also by Wickliffe, Tyndale, Cranmer, the Genevan, and the Rhemish. There is much to be said, however, in favour of the order adopted by the Revised Version in its margin, viz. “set forth as an example of eternal fire, suffering punishment.” It could not, except in a forced manner, be said that these cities, in being destroyed as they were, suffered the penalty of eternal fire, and continued to serve as an instance of that. But it could be said that, in being destroyed, they suffered punishment, and that the kind of punishment was typical of the eternal retribution of God. “A destruction,” says Professor Lumby, “so utter and so permanent as theirs has been, is the nearest approach that can be found in this world to the destruction which awaits those who are kept under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”
The note comments that as with the angels from the previous verse, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is (among other things) sexual immorality. The point here from Jude, and this is the third example, is that grace from Jesus does not make sexual immorality a thing to be celebrated. The same God who delivers salvation also punishes rebellion.
The next few verses continue with this theme, addressing Jude’s opponents more directly. Jude also refers again to a pseudepigraphal text, calling into question how we should think of another non-canonical book.
