2 Peter 2:5 - Exposition

And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person; rather, as in the Revised Version, the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others. "The eighth" is a common classical idiom (generally with the pronoun αὐτός ) for a with seven others." Mark the close parallelism with 1 Peter 3:20 , where, as here, the apostle impresses upon his readers the fewness of the saved. A preacher of righteousness. The Old Testament narrative does not directly assert this; but "a just man and perfect," who "walked with God" ( Genesis 6:9 ), must have been a preacher (literally, "herald ") of righteousness to the ungodly among whom he lived. Josephus, in a well-known passage ('Ant.,' 1 Peter 1:3 , 1 Peter 1:1 ), says that Noah tried to persuade his neighbours to change their mind and their actions for the better. Bringing in the Flood upon the world of the ungodly. The Revised Version renders, when he brought a Flood upon the world. In the Greek there is no article throughout this verse. In 1 Peter 3:1 the ungodly are represented as bringing upon themselves swift destruction; here God brings the punishment upon them. The same Greek verb is used in both places. In one place St. Peter gives the human, in the other the Divine, aspect of the same events (comp. Clement I, 7 and 9).