The apostle here exhibits a charge against deceivers who were now seducing the disciples of Christ from the profession and practice of his holy religion. He calls them filthy dreamers, forasmuch as delusion is a dream, and the beginning of, and inlet to, all manner of filthiness. Note, Sin is filthiness; it renders men odious and vile in the sight of the most holy God, and makes them (sooner or later, as penitent or as punished to extremity and without resource) vile in their own eyes, and in a while they become vile in the eyes of all about them. These filthy dreamers dream themselves into a fool's paradise on earth, and into a real hell at last: let their character, course, and end, be our seasonable and sufficient warning; like sins will produce like punishments and miseries. Here,

I.The character of these deceivers is described.

1.They defile the flesh. The flesh or body is the immediate seat, and often the irritating occasion, of many horrid pollutions; yet these, though done in and against the body, do greatly defile and grievously maim and wound the soul. Fleshly lusts do war against the soul, Pe1 2:11. and in Co2 7:1 we read of filthiness of flesh and spirit, each of which, though of different kinds, defiles the whole man.

2.They despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities, are of a disturbed mind and a seditious spirit, forgetting that the powers that be are ordained of God, Rom 13:1. God requires us to speak evil of no man (Tit 3:2.); but it is a great aggravation of the sin of evil-speaking when what we say is pointed at magistrates, men whom God has set in authority over us, by blaspheming or speaking evil of whom we blaspheme God himself. Or if we understand it, as some do, with respect to religion, which ought to have the dominion in this lower world, such evil-speakers despise the dominion of conscience, make a jest of it, and would banish it out of the world; and as for the word of God, the rule of conscience, they despise it. The revelations of the divine will go for little with them; they are a rule of faith and manners, but not till they have explained them, and imposed their sense of them upon all about them. Or, as others account for the sense of this passage, the people of God, truly and specially so, are the dignities here spoken of or referred to, according to that of the psalmist, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm, Psa 105:15. They speak evil, etc. Religion and its serious professors have been always and every where evil spoken of. Though there is nothing in religion but what is very good, and deserves our highest regards, both as it is perfective of our natures and as it is subservient to our truest and highest interests; yet this sect, as its enemies are pleased to call it, is every where spoken against, Act 28:22.

On this occasion the apostle brings in Michael the archangel, etc., Jde 1:9. Interpreters are at a loss what is here meant by the body of Moses. Some think that the devil contended that Moses might have a public and honourable funeral, that the place where he was interred might be generally known, hoping thereby to draw the Jews, so naturally prone thereto, to a new and fresh instance of idolatry. Dr. Scott thinks that by the body of Moses we are to understand the Jewish church, whose destruction the devil strove and contended for, as the Christian church is called the body of Christ in the New Testament style. Others bring other interpretations, which I will not here trouble the reader with. Though this contest was mightily eager and earnest, and Michael was victorious in the issue, yet he would not bring a railing accusation against the devil himself; he knew a good cause needed no such weapons to be employed in its defence. It is said, he durst not bring, etc. Why durst he not? Not that he was afraid of the devil, but he believed God would be offended if, in such a dispute, he went that way to work; he thought it below him to engage in a trial of skill with the great enemy of God and man which of them should out-scold or out-rail the other: a memorandum to all disputants, never to bring railing accusations into their disputes. Truth needs no supports from falsehood or scurrility. Some say, Michael would not bring a railing accusation against the devil as knowing beforehand that he would be too hard for him at that weapon. Some think the apostle refers here to the remarkable passage we have, Num 20:7-14. Satan would have represented Moses under disadvantageous colours, which he, good man, had at that time, and upon that occasion, given but too much handle for. Now Michael, according to this account, stands up in defence of Moses, and, in the zeal of an upright and bold spirit, says to Satan, The Lord rebuke thee. He would not stand disputing with the devil, nor enter into a particular debate about the merits of that special cause. He knew Moses was his fellow-servant, a favourite of God, and he would not patiently suffer him to be insulted, no, not by the prince of devils; but in a just indignation cries out, The Lord rebuke thee: like that of our Lord himself (Mat 4:10), Get thee hence, Satan. Moses was a dignity, a magistrate, one beloved and preferred by the great God; and the archangel thought it insufferable that such a one should be so treated by a vile apostate spirit, of how high an order soever. So the lesson hence is that we ought to stand up in defence of those whom God owns, how severe soever Satan and his instruments may be in their censures of them and their conduct. Those who censure (in particular) upright magistrates, upon every slip in their behaviour, may expect to hear, The Lord rebuke thee; and divine rebukes are harder to be borne than careless sinners now think for.

3.They speak evil of the things which they know not, etc., Jde 1:10. Observe, Those who speak evil of religion and godliness speak evil of the things which they know not; for, if they had known them, they would have spoken well of them, for nothing but good and excellent can be truly said of religion, and it is sad that any thing different or opposite should ever be justly said of any of its professors. A religious life is the most safe, happy, comfortable, and honourable life that is. Observe, further, Men are most apt to speak evil of those persons and things that they know least of. How many had never suffered by slanderous tongues if they had been better known! On the other hand, retirement screens some even from just censure. But what they know naturally, etc. It is hard, if not impossible, to find any obstinate enemies to the Christian religion, who do not in their stated course live in open or secret contradiction to the very principles of natural religion: this many think hard and uncharitable; but I am afraid it will appear too true in the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. The apostle likens such to brute beasts, though they often think and boast themselves, if not as the wisest, yet at least as the wittiest part of mankind. In those things they corrupt themselves; that is, in the plainest and most natural and necessary things, things that lie most open and obvious to natural reason and conscience; even in those things they corrupt, debase, and defile themselves: the fault, whatever it is, lies not in their understanding or apprehensions, but in their depraved wills and disordered appetites and affections; they could and might have acted better, but then they must have offered violence to those vile affections which they obstinately chose rather to gratify than to mortify.

4.In Jde 1:11 the apostle represents them as followers of Cain, and in Jde 1:12, Jde 1:13, as atheistical and profane people, who thought little, and perhaps believed not much, of God or a future world - as greedy and covetous, who, so they could but gain present worldly advantages, cared not what came next - rebels against God and man, who, like Core, ran into attempts in which they must assuredly perish, as he did. Of such the apostle further says, (1.) These are spots in your feasts of charity - the agapai or love-feasts, so much spoken of by the ancients. They happened, by whatever means or mischance, to be admitted among them, but were spots in them, defiled and defiling. Observe, It is a great reproach, though unjust and accidental, to religion, when those who profess it, and join in the most solemn institution of it, are in heart and life unsuitable and even contrary to it: These are spots. Yet how common in all Christian societies here on earth, the very best not excepted, are such blemishes! The more is the pity. The Lord remedy it in his due time and way, not in men's blind and rigorous way of plucking up the wheat with the tares. But in the heaven we are waiting, hoping, and preparing for, there is none of this mad work, there are none of these disorderly doings. (2.) When they feast with you, they feed themselves without fear. Arrant gluttons, no doubt, there were; such as minded only the gratifying of their appetites with the daintiness and abundance of their fare; they had no regard to Solomon's caution, Pro 23:2. Note, In common eating and drinking a holy fear is necessary, much more in feasting, though we may sometimes be more easily and insensibly overcome at a common meal than at a feast; for, in the case supposed, we are less upon our guard, and sometimes, at least to some persons, the plenty of a feast is its own antidote, as to others it may prove a dangerous snare. (3.) Clouds they are without water, which promise rain in time of drought, but perform nothing of what they promise. Such is the case of formal professors, who at first setting out promise much, like early-blossoming trees in a forward spring, but in conclusion bring forth little or no fruit. - Carried about of winds, light and empty, easily driven about this way or that, as the wind happens to set; such are empty, ungrounded professors, and easy prey to every seducer. It is amazing to hear many talk so confidently of so many things of which they know little or nothing, and yet have not the wisdom and humility to discern and be sensible how little they know. How happy would our world be if men either knew more or practically knew how little they know. (4.) Trees whose fruit withereth, etc. Trees they are, for they are planted in the Lord's vineyard, yet fruitless ones. Observe, Those whose fruit withereth may be justly said to be without fruit. As good never a whit as never the better. It is a sad thing when men seem to begin in the Spirit and end in the flesh, which is almost as common a case as it is an awful one. The text speaks of such as were twice dead. One would think to be once dead were enough; we none of us, till grace renew us to a higher degree than ordinary, love to think of dying once, though this is appointed for us all. What then is the meaning of this being twice dead? They had been once dead in their natural, fallen, lapsed state; but they seemed to recover, and, as a man in a swoon, to be brought to life again, when they took upon them the profession of the Christian religion. But now they are dead again by the evident proofs they have given of their hypocrisy: whatever they seemed, they had nothing truly vital in them. - Plucked up by the roots, as we commonly serve dead trees, from which we expect no more fruit. They are dead, dead, dead; why cumber they the ground? Away with them to the fire. (5.) Raging waves of the sea, boisterous, noisy, and clamorous; full of talk and turbulency, but with little (if any) sense or meaning: Foaming out their own shame, creating much uneasiness to men of better sense and calmer tempers, which yet will in the end turn to their own greater shame and just reproach. The psalmist's prayer ought always to be that of every honest and good man, "Let integrity and uprightness preserve me (Psa 25:21), and, if it will not, let me be unpreserved." If honesty signify little now, knavery will signify much less, and that in a very little while. Raging waves are a terror to sailing passengers; but, when they have got to port, the waves are forgotten as if no longer in being: their noise and terror are for ever ended. (6.) Wandering stars, planets that are erratic in their motions, keep not that steady regular course which the fixed ones do, but shift their stations, that one has sometimes much ado to know where to find them. This allusion carries in it a very lively emblem of false teachers, who are sometimes here and sometimes there, so that one knows not where nor how to fix them. In the main things, at least, one would think something should be fixed and steady; and this might be without infallibility, or any pretensions to it in us poor mortals. In religion and politics, the great subjects of present debate, surely there are certain stamina in which wise and good, honest and disinterested, men might agree, without throwing the populace into the utmost anguish and distress of mind, or blowing up their passions into rage and fury, without letting them know what they say or whereof they affirm.

II.The doom of this wicked people is declared: To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. False teachers are to expect the worst of punishments in this and a future world: not every one who teaches by mistake any thing that is not exactly true (for who then, in any public assembly, durst open a Bible to teach others, unless he thought himself equal or superior to the angels of God in heaven?) but every one who prevaricates, dissembles, would lead others into by-paths and side-ways, that he may have opportunity to make a gain or prey of them, or (in the apostle's phrase) to make merchandize of them, Pe2 2:3. But enough of this. As for the blackness of darkness for ever, I shall only say that this terrible expression, with all the horror it imports, belongs to false teachers, truly, not slanderously so called, who corrupt the word of God, and betray the souls of men. If this will not make both ministers and people cautious, I know not what will.

Of the prophecy of Enoch, (Jde 1:14, Jde 1:15) we have no mention made in any other part or place of scripture; yet now it is scripture that there was such prophecy. One plain text of scripture is proof enough of any one point that we are required to believe, especially when relating to a matter of fact; but in matters of faith, necessary saving faith, God has not seen fit (blessed be his holy name he has not) to try us so far. There is no fundamental article of the Christian religion, truly so called, which is not inculcated over and over in the New Testament, by which we may know on what the Holy Ghost does, and consequently on what we ought, to lay the greatest stress. Some say that this prophecy of Enoch was preserved by tradition in the Jewish church; others that the apostle Jude was immediately inspired with the notice of it: be this as it may, it is certain that there was such a prophecy of ancient date, of long standing, and universally received in the Old Testament church; and it is a main point of our New Testament creed. Observe, 1. Christ's coming to judgment was prophesied of as early as the middle of the patriarchal age, and was therefore even then a received and acknowledged truth. - The Lord cometh with his holy myriads, including both angels and the spirits of just men made perfect. What a glorious time will that be, when Christ shall come with ten thousand of these! And we are told for what great and awful ends and purposes he will come so accompanied and attended, namely, to execute judgment upon all. 2. It was spoken of then, so long ago, as a thing just at hand: "Behold, the Lord cometh; he is just a coming, he will be upon you before you are aware, and, unless you be very cautious and diligent, before you are provided to meet him comfortably." He cometh, (1.) To execute judgment upon the wicked. (2.) To convince them. Observe, Christ will condemn none without precedent, trial, and conviction, such conviction as shall at least silence themselves. They shall have no excuse or apology to make that they either can or dare then stand by. Then every mouth shall be stopped, the Judge and his sentence shall be (by all the impartial) approved and applauded, and even the guilty condemned criminals shall be speechless, though at present they want not bold and specious pleas, which they vent with all assurance and confidence; and yet it is certain that the mock-trials of prisoners in the jail among themselves and the real trial at the bar before the proper judge soon appear to be very different things.

I cannot pass Jde 1:15 without taking notice how often, and how emphatically, the word ungodly is repeated in it, no fewer than four times: ungodly men, ungodly sinners, ungodly deeds, and, as to the manner, ungodly committed. Godly or ungodly signifies little with men now-a-days, unless it be to scoff at and deride even the very expressions; but it is not so in the language of the Holy Ghost. Note, Omissions, as well as commissions, must be accounted for in the day of judgment. Note, further, Hard speeches of one another, especially if ill-grounded, will most certainly come into account at the judgment of the great day. Let us all take care in time. "If thou," says one of our good old puritans, "smite (a miscalled heretic, or) a schismatic, and God find a real saint bleeding, look thou to it, how thou wilt answer it." It may be too late to say before the angel that it was an error, Ecc 5:6. I only here allude to that expression of the divinely inspired writer.

Enoch also, the seventh from Adam - He was the seventh patriarch, and is distinguished thus from Enoch, son of Cain, who was but the third from Adam; this appears plainly from the genealogy, Ch1 1:1 : Adams Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, Henoch or Enoch, etc. Of the book of Enoch, from which this prophecy is thought to have been taken, much has been said; but as the work is apocryphal, and of no authority, I shall not burden my page with extracts. See the preface.

Perhaps the word προεφητευσε, prophesied, means no more than preached, spoke, made declarations, etc., concerning these things and persons; for doubtless he reproved the ungodliness of his own times. It is certain that a book of Enoch was known in the earliest ages of the primitive Church, and is quoted by Origen and Tertullian; and is mentioned by St. Jerome in the Apostolical Constitutions, by Nicephorus, Athanasius, and probably by St. Augustine. See Suicer's Thesaurus, vol. i., col. 1131. Such a work is still extant among the Abyssinians.

Ten thousand of his saints - This seems to be taken from Dan 7:10.

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam,.... This was Enoch the son of Jared; his name signifies one "instructed", or "trained up"; as he doubtless was by his father, in the true religion, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; and was one that had much communion with God; he walked with him, and was translated by him, body and soul, to heaven, and did not see death; Gen 5:18; he is said to be "the seventh from Adam"; not the seventh man from him that was born into the world, for there were no doubt thousands born before him; but he was, as the Jews express it (f), , "the seventh generation" from him; and they have an observation (g), that all sevenths are always beloved by God; the seventh in lands, and the seventh in generations; Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, as it is written, Gen 5:24; and this is said partly to distinguish him from others of the same name, and particularly from Enoch the son of Cain, the third: from Adam in his line, as this was the seventh from Adam in the line of Seth; and partly to observe the antiquity of the following prophecy of his: for it is said, he

prophesied of these; of these false teachers, and such as they; what would be their sad state and condition at the second coming of Christ to judgment: that he had a spirit of prophecy is evident from the name he gave to his son Methuselah, which signifies, "when he dies is the emission", or the sending out of the waters of the flood, which came to pass the very year he did die. The Arabic writers (h) call him Edris the prophet; and the Jews say (i), that he was in a higher degree than Moses or Elias; they also call (k) him Metatron, the great scribe, a name which they sometimes give to the angel that went before the children of Israel in the wilderness, and which seems to belong to the Messiah: that Enoch wrote a prophecy, and left it behind him in writing, does not appear from hence, or elsewhere; the Jews, in some of their writings, do cite and make mention of the book of Enoch; and there is a fragment now which bears his name, but is a spurious piece, and has nothing like this prophecy in it; wherefore Jude took this not from a book called the "Apocalypse of Enoch", but from tradition; this prophecy being handed down from age to age; and was in full credit with the Jews, and therefore the apostle very appropriately produces it; or rather he had it by divine inspiration, and is as follows:

saying, behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints; by the "Lord" is meant the Lord Jesus Christ, who is ordained the Judge of quick and dead, and for which he is richly qualified, being omniscient and omnipotent, and faithful and righteous, and who will certainly come again to judge the world in righteousness; for not of his first coming, which was not to judge and condemn, but to seek and save, but of his second coming at the last day is this to be understood; and this is expressed in the present tense, "cometh", in the manner of the prophets, who speak of things future as if they already were, as Isaiah does of the incarnation, sufferings, and death of Christ, and to awaken the attention of persons to it, as if it was near at hand, as also to signify the certainty of it: and when he comes, he will be attended "with ten thousand of his saints": meaning either the souls of glorified saints, even all of them, Th1 3:13, which will come with Christ, and meet the living ones, and be reunited to their own bodies, which will then be raised; or else the holy angels, as in Deu 33:2; and so some copies and the Arabic version read; which will be both for the showing forth of his glory and majesty, and for service in gathering his elect together, as well as for terror to the wicked; and a "behold" is prefixed to all this, to denote the certainty of Christ's coming, and the importance and wonderfulness of it: the ends of his coming follow,

(f) Juchasin, fol. 5. 2. Ganz. Tzemach David, par. 1. fol. 5. 1. (g) Vajikra Rabba, sect. 29. fol. 170. 1. (h) Elmacinus, p. 10. apud Hottinger. Smegma Orient. p. 240. (i) Shalshelet Hakabala, fol. 1, 2. (k) Targum Jon. in Gen. v. 24. Tosephot in T. Bab. Yebamot, fol. 16. 2. Juchasin, fol. 5. 2.

See Introduction on the source whence Jude derived this prophecy of Enoch. The Holy Spirit, by Jude, has sealed the truth of this much of the matter contained in the book of Enoch, though probably that book, as well as Jude, derived it from tradition (compare Note, see on Jde 1:9). There are reasons given by some for thinking the book of Enoch copied from Jude rather than vice versa. It is striking how, from the first, prophecy hastened towards its consummation. The earliest prophecies of the Redeemer dwell on His second coming in glory, rather than His first coming in lowliness (compare Gen 3:15 with Rom 16:20). Enoch, in his translation without death, illustrated that truth which he all his life preached to the unbelieving world, the certainty of the Lord's coming, and the resurrection of the dead, as the only effectual antidote to their skepticism and self-wise confidence in nature's permanence.

And Enoch--Greek, "Moreover, also Enoch," &c.

seventh from Adam--Seven is the sacred number. In Enoch, freedom from death and the sacred number are combined: for every seventh object is most highly valued. Jude thus shows the antiquity of the prophecies. Compare Note, see on Jde 1:4, "of old." There were only five fathers between Enoch and Adam. The seventh from Adam prophesied the things which shall close the seventh age of the world [BENGEL].

of these--in relation to these. The reference of his prophecies was not to the antediluvians alone, but to all the ungodly (Jde 1:15). His prophecy applied primarily indeed to the flood, but ultimately to the final judgment.

cometh--literally, "came." Prophecy regards the future as certain as if it were past.

saints--Holy angels (compare Deu 33:2; Dan 7:10; Zac 14:5; Mat 25:31; Heb 12:22).