A Different View of 2 Peter 2:4
By Jonathan Mitchell

In the book of Job, we find Eliphaz critiquing Job about a person's purity and blamelessness (4:17), saying about God,

"Since (or: If), following the pattern (or: accordingly), He is not normally trusting (or: having faith in) His immature folks (or: servants), now, in the same vein, He normally sets His mind on a crooked one of His agents (or: on something bent with regard to His folks having a message)" (Job 4:18, LXX, JM).

In this verse, Eliphaz uses the common literary device of parallelism, i.e., saying the same thing twice, using different words or situations. The thing to note is the association between young folks (or: servants) and agents (or: people given a message to deliver). In God's economy, we suggest that these terms are "on the same playing field," and thus can share a sense of existential identity. Eliphaz is using both categories as a polemic against Job. We suggest that Eliphaz was alluding to Adam and Eve, and their posterity - all the way up to Job, at that time.

We offer this as a backdrop for considering 2 Pet. 2:4, which also speaks of "agents," or, "folks who had a message." The following is an excerpt from "Peter's Encore & Later Paul, comments on Second Peter & Ephesians," Harper Brown Publishing 2015 pp 26-29. I have translated the Greek noun 'angelos' giving the English equivalent of what that term meant: "agent, or someone with a message," rather than the common practice of simply transliterating it (letter for letter) into the term "angel." And now, to 2 Peter 2:

4. For since (or: if) God did (or: does) not spare agents (or: folks having a, or, the message) - but who at one point were (or: are) straying from the goal (or: when failing to hit the mark; at missing the target; upon committing error) - but rather gave (or: gives) them over into an act of judging - of being repeatedly pruned (cut back for correction), while being constantly watched over, kept, maintained and protected - giving [them] the experience of Tartarus [Hellenistic mythological term and concept: the subterranean world; cf LXX, Job 40:15 (the marshlands and wild areas around the Jordan River) and 41:23 (the caverns and lower parts of deep waters and the abyss)] in dark, gloomy pits (caves; caverns) [other MSS: in ropes (or: chains; bands; cords); = in bondage].

Judah's parallel passage should now be compared, in Jude 6:

6. Besides that, those agents (or: folks having or bringing a message) not guarding (keeping watch over; maintaining) the beginning of themselves (or: the rule of themselves), but to the contrary, after leaving away from (= abandoning) the personal dwelling place (one's own abode or habitation), He has guarded, kept watch over and maintained under gloom (or: thick darkness) by imperceptible (or: in unobservable, but effecting-all) bonds, with a view to a judging (a sifting and a separation for evaluating; a making of a distinction and a deciding) of a great Day (or: pertaining to or whose source is a great day; or: which is [this] great Day).

The following quotes are from my commentary on this verse in Jude: "Because of 'transliteration' (instead of 'translation') of the Greek angelos and rendering its plural 'angels' instead of 'agents' or 'folks having or bringing a message,' and due to non-canonical fanciful stories of "angels," this verse has been turned into mythology in traditional interpretations because of reading sections of The Assumption of Moses and the Book of Enoch into the text of Judah which we are now investigating.

But another interpretation is viable, which reaches back into the canonical story in the book of Genesis. I suggest that those 'agents' were the ones that were given dominion over the earth (Gen. 1:26) and had a 'personal dwelling place ([their] own abode or habitation)' in Eden. These were Adam and Eve. They did not guard 'the beginning of themselves (or: the rule of themselves),' but 'to the contrary, after leaving away from the personal dwelling place [Eden]' God 'has guarded, kept watch over and maintained [them; = humanity, their corporate body] under gloom (or: thick darkness) by imperceptible bonds.'

"We find Jesus coming 'to publicly proclaim, as a herald, to (for; among) captives a release and liberation' (Lu. 4:18) and to 'constantly shining in the dim and shadowed places, and keeps on progressively giving light within the gloomy darkness where there is no light (or: within the midst the obscurity of The Darkness where there is no light of The Day; or: = in the ignorant condition or system)' (John 1:5a). But like these of whom Judah speaks, 'mankind loves the darkness (or: the people love the dimness of obscurity and gloom; or: the humans loved the realm of the shadow) rather than the Light, for their works (deeds; actions) were continuing to be bad ones (unsound ones; wicked, wrongful ones; laborious ones; toilsome ones that created bad news; wrongful ones)' - John 3:19.

"Notice that God 'maintained' and 'kept watch over' these folks 'with a view to a judging of a Great Day' - which we see at the cross of Jesus, the beginning of the Day of the Lord. He took the judgment of humanity upon Himself and gave us His life. But not everyone has yet been existentially given birth into this new creation, for as Paul said, it is 'every person in his own class and order' (1 Cor. 15:23). Humanity cannot see their bonds, for they are 'imperceptible' (Greek a-idiois: not-seen; un-perceived)" (John, Judah, Paul & ? pp 75-76).

We have already inserted the LXX quotes from the book of Job, into the translation of 2 Pet. 2:4, above. From this we can see that the word Tartarus had been domesticated by the Jews and had come to have a "this world" application, even if its use was figurative in nature. The different MS traditions of the noun (pits versus ropes) in the last phrase have good witnesses for each reading - and it is only a slight difference in spelling that distinguishes these words - and while one describes wild living conditions, as for outcasts, the other implies imprisonment. As to the word pits, Barclay instructs us that the word,

"[S]iros or seiros which originally meant a great earthenware jar for storing of grain. Then it came to mean the great underground pits in which grain was stored and which served as granaries. Siros has come into English via Provencal in the form of silo, which still describes the towers in which grain is stored. Still later the word went on to mean a pit in which a wolf or other wild animal was trapped.... But there is a very similar word seira, which means a chain.... The Greek MSS of Second Peter vary between seiroi, pits, and seirai, chains" (ibid p 321; emphasis original; brackets added).

Christ came to set all free from those conditions, and to make them a part of the Jerusalem which is above (Gal. 4:26). He described His mission as the inauguration of the Day of Jubilee (the time of restoration to one's former place in society and to one's former possessions) in Lu. 4:18b-19 where He read from Isa.,

"to publicly proclaim, as a herald, to (for; among) captives a release and liberation (a letting go away) and to (for; among) blind folks a seeing again (a recovery of sight), to send away with a mission those having been shattered by oppression, in a state of release and liberation, to publicly and loudly proclaim [the] Lord's [= Yahweh's] year which is characterized by being welcomed, favorably received and approved."

Cox informs us that, "Scholars now largely agree that the 'year of the Lord's favor' refers to the Jewish legal provision for a 'Jubilee Year,' which was to be celebrated every fiftieth year" (ibid p 109). We find these provisions in Lev. 25:8-12 and Deut. 15:1-5.

Both Judah and (here, in vs. 4) Peter use the same word that speaks of "being constantly watched over, kept, maintained and protected." This has a very positive connotation, and Peter adds the description of the judging as "being repeatedly pruned (cut back for correction)." This calls to mind Jesus' parable of the young (immature) kids and their pruning in order to produce the fruit of Love and care for their brothers in Mat. 25:46a, "these folks will continue going off (or: coming away) into an eonian pruning (a lopping-off which lasts for an undetermined length of time; an age-lasting correction and rehabilitation; a pruning which brings betterment and which has its source and character in the Age; a cutting off during the ages)."

The judging of humanity began with the story in the Garden of Eden, and the human predicament lasted unto the coming of the Messiah. Even in Jesus' day, we are informed in Jn. 3:36b that,

"the person now continuing being unpersuaded by the Son (or: presently being constantly incompliant, disobedient or disbelieving to the Son; being repeatedly stubborn toward the Son) will not be catching sight of (seeing; observing; perceiving) [this] life. To the contrary, God's personal emotion and inherent fervor (teeming passion and swelling desire; mental bent and natural impulse; propensity and disposition; or: anger, wrath and indignation) is continuously remaining (is now habitually dwelling and abiding) upon him."

Those "who at one point were (or: are) straying from the goal (or: when failing to hit the mark; at missing the target; upon committing error)" were Adam and Eve, and in Rom. 5:12-21 we are instructed that Christ has solved humanity's predicament so that,

"where the Sin (the failure; the divergence and missing of the target) increases (or: abounded to be more than enough; becomes more intense) THE GRACE ("the act producing happiness, which is granted as a favor" - Jim Coram) at once super-exceeds (or: hyper-exceeded) over and above, surrounding to excessive abundance and overflow, to the end that JUST AS the Sin (the failure; the erroneous act; the deviation and digression which issued in missing the goal) at one point reigned (or: ruled as king; exercised sovereign sway) within, and in union with, the Death, THUS SO (or: in THIS way) also the Grace and joyous favor would reign (should rule as king; can exercise sovereign sway) through an eschatological deliverance that created rightwisedness (or: by means of being rightly-turned into an existence with equity in [covenantal] solidarity of right relationships which accord to the Way; through a liberating Justice-[expression]) [which leads] into Life which belongs to, pertains to and has the characteristics of the Age (or: eonian life; Life of the Age [of Messiah]; a life for the ages) - through Jesus Christ, our Owner (Lord; Master)."

Many commentators have assumed that this verse, along with Jude 6, alludes to the story of "the sons (LXX: agents/messengers) of God" in Gen. 6:1-5. Barclay informs us, "[I]n later Jewish and Christian thought two lines of thought developed. First, it was denied that the story involved angels at all. The sons of God were said to be good men who were descendants of Seth, and the daughters of man were said to be... daughters of Cain.... There is no scriptural evidence for this.... Second, the whole story was allegorized.... Philo [said] that it was never meant to be taken literally.... Augustine declared that no man could take the story literally.... Cyril of Alexandria said that it could not be taken literally.... Chrysostom said that, if the story was taken literally, it was nothing short of blasphemy.... Once again, Peter is speaking allusively, in a way that would be clear enough to the people of his day but which is obscure to us" (ibid p 323-4; brackets added).

Here, in 2 Peter 2:4, he may simply be making allusions to old stories, using apocalyptic imagery to make his point about past and present failures in human behavior. If we interpret this verse as speaking about a hierarchy of so-called "angels," we are looking at it through the lens of Jewish Gnosticism, and are incorporating Jewish myth into our worldview. Adam and Eve were God's agents to tend the Garden, and then, in time and through their descendants, to fill the Land of their area (the word "earth" also means "land" or "territory"). Through the deception of Eve, they "strayed from the goal." So, God "gave them over into an act of judging," just as He does with the kids in Mat. 25. Yet, they, and all their descendants have been "constantly watched over, kept, maintained and protected." Humanity existed in the dark (symbolized by the term "Tartarus") until the coming of the Light, with the Incarnation and Anointing of Jesus, "Immanuel" (God with us).

Jonathan

Return To Jonathan Mitchell's Page