65:12 I predestine you to die by the sword, 1
all of you will kneel down at the slaughtering block, 2
because I called to you, and you did not respond,
I spoke and you did not listen.
You did evil before me; 3
you chose to do what displeases me.”
1:8 Yet these men, 4 as a result of their dreams, 5 defile the flesh, reject authority, 6 and insult 7 the glorious ones. 8
1:14 Now Enoch, the seventh in descent beginning with Adam, 9 even prophesied of them, 10 saying, “Look! The Lord is coming 11 with thousands and thousands 12 of his holy ones,
1 tn Heb “I assign you to the sword.” Some emend the Qal verb form מָנִיתִי (maniti, “I assign”) to the Piel מִנִּיתִי (minniti, “ I ordain”). The verb sounds like the name of the god Meni (מְנִי, mÿni, “Destiny, Fate”). The sound play draws attention to the irony of the statement. The sinners among God’s people worship the god Meni, apparently in an effort to ensure a bright destiny for themselves. But the Lord is the one who really determines their destiny and he has decreed their demise.
2 tn Or “at the slaughter”; NIV “for the slaughter”; NLT “before the executioner.”
3 tn Heb “that which is evil in my eyes.”
4 tn The reference is now to the false teachers.
5 tn Grk “dreaming.” The participle ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι (enupniazomenoi, “dreaming”) is adverbial to the pronoun οὗτοι (|outoi, “these”), though the particular relationship is not clear. It could mean, “while dreaming,” “by dreaming,” or “because of dreaming.” This translation has adopted the last option as Jude’s meaning, partially for syntactical reasons (the causal participle usually precedes the main verb) and partially for contextual reasons (these false teachers must derive their authority from some source, and the dreams provide the most obvious base). The participle ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι was sometimes used of apocalyptic visions, both of true and false prophets. This seems to be the meaning here.
6 tn Most likely, the authority of the Lord is in view. This verse, then, echoes the indictment of v. 4: “they deny our Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”
7 tn The construction with the three verbs (“defile, “reject,” and “insult”) involves the particles μέν, δέ, δέ (men, de, de). A more literal (and pedantic) translation would be: “on the one hand, they defile the flesh, on the other hand, they reject authority, and on another hand, they insult the glorious ones.”
8 sn The glorious ones refers to angelic beings rather than mere human beings, just as in 2 Pet 2:10 (on which this passage apparently depends). Whether the angelic beings are good or evil, however, is difficult to tell (hence, the translation is left ambiguous). However, both in 2 Pet 2:11 and here, in Jude 9, the wicked angels seem to be in view (for not even Michael insults them).
9 tn Grk “the seventh from Adam.”
10 tn Grk “against them.” The dative τούτοις (toutois) is a dativus incommodi (dative of disadvantage).
11 tn Grk “has come,” a proleptic aorist.
12 tn Grk “ten thousands.” The word μυριάς (muria"), from which the English myriad is derived, means “ten thousand.” In the plural it means “ten thousands.” This would mean, minimally, 20,000 (a multiple of ten thousand). At the same time, the term was often used in apocalyptic literature to represent simply a rather large number, without any attempt to be specific.