1:8 Yet these men, 1 as a result of their dreams, 2 defile the flesh, reject authority, 3 and insult 4 the glorious ones. 5
1:14 Now Enoch, the seventh in descent beginning with Adam, 7 even prophesied of them, 8 saying, “Look! The Lord is coming 9 with thousands and thousands 10 of his holy ones,
54:16 Look, I create the craftsman,
who fans the coals into a fire
and forges a weapon. 11
I create the destroyer so he might devastate.
24:1 The Lord showed me two baskets of figs sitting before his temple. This happened after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon deported Jehoiakim’s son, King Jeconiah of Judah. He deported him and the leaders of Judah, along with the craftsmen and metal workers, and took them to Babylon. 12
1 tn The reference is now to the false teachers.
2 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.
3 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.”
4 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.”
5 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).
6 tn Grk “may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.”
7 tn Grk “the seventh from Adam.”
8 tn Grk “against them.” The dative τούτοις (toutois) is a dativus incommodi (dative of disadvantage).
9 tn Grk “has come,” a proleptic aorist.
10 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.
11 tn Heb “who brings out an implement for his work.”
12 sn See 2 Kgs 24:10-17 (especially vv. 14-16). Nebuchadnezzar left behind the poorest people of the land under the puppet king Zedekiah. Jeconiah has already been referred to earlier in 13:18; 22:25-26. The deportation referred to here occurred in 597