Jude 1:14

1:14 Now Enoch, the seventh in descent beginning with Adam, ¹  even prophesied of them, ²  saying, “Look! The Lord is coming ³  with thousands and thousands ⁴  of his holy ones,

Jude 1:4

1:4 For certain men ⁵  have secretly slipped in among you ⁶  – men who long ago ⁷  were marked out ⁸  for the condemnation I am about to describe ⁹  – ungodly men who have turned the grace of our God into a license for evil ¹⁰  and who deny our only Master ¹¹  and Lord, ¹²  Jesus Christ.

Jude 1:8

1:8 Yet these men, ¹³  as a result of their dreams, ¹⁴  defile the flesh, reject authority, ¹⁵  and insult ¹⁶  the glorious ones. ¹⁷ 

Jude 1:18

1:18 For they said to you, “In the end time there will come ¹⁸  scoffers, propelled by their own ungodly desires.” ¹⁹ 

Jude 1:10-11

1:10 But these men do not understand the things they slander, and they are being destroyed by the very things that, like irrational animals, they instinctively comprehend. ²⁰  1:11 Woe to them! For they have traveled down Cain’s path, ²¹  and because of greed ²²  have abandoned themselves ²³  to ²⁴  Balaam’s error; hence, ²⁵  they will certainly perish ²⁶  in Korah’s rebellion.

[1:14]  ¹ tn Grk “the seventh from Adam.”

[1:14]  ² tn Grk “against them.” The dative τούτοις (toutois) is a dativus incommodi (dative of disadvantage).

[1:14]  ³ tn Grk “has come,” a proleptic aorist.

[1:14]  ⁴ 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.

[1:4]  ⁵ tn Grk “people.” However, if Jude is indeed arguing that Peter’s prophecy about false teachers has come true, these are most likely men in the original historical and cultural setting. See discussion of this point in the note on the phrase “these men” in 2 Pet 2:12.

[1:4]  ⁶ tn “Among you” is not in the Greek text, but is obviously implied.

[1:4]  ⁷ tn Or “in the past.” The adverb πάλαι (palai) can refer to either, though the meaning “long ago” is more common.

[1:4]  ⁸ tn Grk “written about.”

[1:4]  ⁹ tn Grk “for this condemnation.” τοῦτο (touto) is almost surely a kataphoric demonstrative pronoun, pointing to what follows in vv. 5-18. Otherwise, the condemnation is only implied (in v. 3b) or is merely a statement of their sinfulness (“ungodly” in v. 4b), not a judgment of it.

[1:4]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “debauchery.” This is the same word Peter uses to predict what the false teachers will be like (2 Pet 2:2, 7, 18).

[1:4]  ¹¹ tc Most later witnesses (P Ψ Ï sy) have θεόν (qeon, “God”) after δεσπότην (despothn, “master”), which appears to be a motivated reading in that it explicitly links “Master” to “God” in keeping with the normal NT pattern (see Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24; 2 Tim 2:21; Rev 6:10). In patristic Greek, δεσπότης (despoth") was used especially of God (cf. BDAG 220 s.v. 1.b.). The earlier and better witnesses (Ì^72,78 א A B C 0251 33 81 323 1241 1739 al co) lack θεόν; the shorter reading is thus preferred on both internal and external grounds.

[1:4]  ¹² tn The terms “Master and Lord” both refer to the same person. The construction in Greek is known as the Granville Sharp rule, named after the English philanthropist-linguist who first clearly articulated the rule in 1798. Sharp pointed out that in the construction article-noun-καί-noun (where καί [kai] = “and”), when two nouns are singular, personal, and common (i.e., not proper names), they always had the same referent. Illustrations such as “the friend and brother,” “the God and Father,” etc. abound in the NT to prove Sharp’s point. For more discussion see ExSyn 270-78. See also Titus 2:13 and 2 Pet 1:1

[1:8]  ⁹ tn The reference is now to the false teachers.

[1:8]  ¹⁰ 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.

[1:8]  ¹¹ 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.”

[1:8]  ¹² 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.”

[1:8]  ¹³ 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).

[1:18]  ¹³ tn Grk “be.”

[1:18]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “going according to their own desires of ungodliness.”

[1:10]  ¹⁷ tn Or “they should naturally comprehend.” The present tense in this context may have a conative force.

[1:11]  ²¹ tn Or “they have gone the way of Cain.”

[1:11]  ²² tn Grk “for wages.”

[1:11]  ²³ tn The verb ἐκχέω (ekcew) normally means “pour out.” Here, in the passive, it occasionally has a reflexive idea, as BDAG 312 s.v. 3. suggests (with extra-biblical examples).

[1:11]  ²⁴ tn Or “in.”

[1:11]  ²⁵ tn Grk “and.” See note on “perish” later in this verse.

[1:11]  ²⁶ tn The three verbs in this verse are all aorist indicative (“have gone down,” “have abandoned,” “have perished”). Although the first and second could be considered constative or ingressive, the last is almost surely proleptic (referring to the certainty of their future judgment). Although it may seem odd that a proleptic aorist is so casually connected to other aorists with a different syntactical force, it is not unparalleled (cf. Rom 8:30).