Jude 1:13

wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved for ever.

Wild waves of the sea ... Jude, like countless others, had visited a sea shore following a storm, finding the beach littered and polluted by every kind of filth and trash. In addition to such experience which it may be assumed he had, the words of the Prophet Isaiah pronounced the metaphor for him: "But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt" (Isaiah 57:20). A polluted beach was the perfect figure of the evil Gnostics.

Wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved for ever ... The "wandering stars" here is a clear reference to meteorites which blaze a moment in the night sky and then fall into darkness forever. Yes, Jude used a word which is supposed to have meant, literally, "stars which follow no orbit" (J. B. Phillips), or "stars which have wandered off course" (New English Bible); but Jude was undeniably writing metaphorically. Trees cannot be "twice dead"; oceans do not foam up "shame"; and stars do not "wander." There is hardly anyone alive who has not used exactly the same metaphor Jude used here, in such a remark as "I saw a shooting star!" Stars do not "shoot"; in fact, neither the people who mention such observations, nor Jude in this letter, had any reference whatever to "stars" in the technical sense (although using technical terms), but to drifting fragments in space which, being trapped by the earth's atmosphere, blaze gloriously for a moment and then perish forever. Stars? No. Meteorites is the technical word. It would be just as honest to accuse one who mentioned a "shooting star" of actually believing a star had fallen upon earth, as it is to load Jude's humble and simple meaning here with a lot of Greek astronomy. One fears that the translators have been translating Enoch here, instead of the letter of Jude. We appreciate the words of J. B. Mayor who admitted that "shooting star" would "fit better" in this passage.[39] Indeed it would; for that is exactly what the passage means. Those evil men who troubled the church were just like "shooting stars" that shine a moment and then plunge to doom and darkness. Like his knowing of clouds, winds, sea shore, and fruitless trees, the knowledge of this nocturnal phenomenon was Jude's by his own personal observation and experience. It is absolutely gratuitous to drag Enoch into this verse.