2 Peter 2:4 - Exposition

For if God spared not the angels that sinned; rather, angels when they sinned ; there is no article. St. Peter is giving proofs of his assertion that the punishment of the ungodly lingereth not. The first is the punishment of angels that sinned. He does not specify the sin, whether rebellion, as in Revelation 12:7 ; or uncleanness, as apparently in Jud Revelation 1:6 , Revelation 1:7 , and Genesis 6:4 . Formally, there is an anacoluthon here, but in thought we have the apodosis in Genesis 6:9 . But cast them down to hell. The Greek word, which is found nowhere else in the Greek Scriptures, is ταρταρώσας , "having cast into Tartarus." This use of a word belonging to heathen mythology is very remarkable, and without parallel in the New Testament. Apparently, St. Peter regards Tartarus not as equivalent to Gehenna, for the sinful angels are "reserved unto judgment," but as a place of preliminary detention. Josephus, quoted by Professor Lumby in the 'Speaker's Commentary,' speaks of the oldest heathen gods as fettered in Tartarus, ἐν ταρτάρῳ δεδεμένους ('Contra Apion,' 2.33). And delivered them into chains of darkness. The Revised Version "pits" represents the reading of the four oldest manuscripts; but the variations in two of them (the Sinaitic and Alexandrine have σειροῖς ζόφοις ) , and the fact that σειρός seems properly to mean a pit for the storage of corn, throw some doubt upon this reading. The other reading σειραῖς , cords, may possibly have arisen from the parallel passage in Jud 6, though the Greek word for "chains" is different there. The chains consist in darkness; the pits are in darkness, παρέδωκε , delivered, is often used, as Huther remarks, with the implied idea of punishment. It is simpler to connect the chains or pits of darkness with this verb than (as Fronmuller and others) with ταρταρώσας , "having cast them in bonds of darkness into Tartarus" (comp. Wis. 17:2, 16, 17). To be reserved unto judgment; literally, being reserved; but the readings here are very confused. St. Jude says ( Jude 1:6 ) that the sinful angels are reserved "unto the judgment of the great day." Bengel says, "Possunt autem in terra quoque versari mancipia Tartari ( Luke 8:31 ; Ephesians 2:2 ; etc.) sic ut bello captus etiam extra locum captivitatis potest ambulare." But in the ease of a mystery of which so little has been revealed, we are scarcely justified in assuming the identity of the angels cast into Tartarus with the evil spirits who tempt and harass us on earth.