Jude 1:15

15. To execute judgment The office of judge, rather than executioner, is here described, which is performed upon all.

To convince To expose and convict of their sin, stripping away every excuse, and exhibiting their naked guilt.

Deeds… speeches The external sins alone are here mentioned as exhibitions of character.

Ungodly committed As an English adverb we should here have ungodlily.

Hard Hostile, unsubmissive, impenitent.

Sinners… against him The Greek order of words is more emphatic: which they spoke against him, sinners, impious. It is supposed by some that Jude here quotes an apocryphal Book of Enoch, of which Dr.

Mombert says: “The above mentioned apocryphal Book of Enoch was formerly known only by fragments and notices of the early Fathers, but has recently been discovered in an AEthiopic translation, and translated from the AEthiopic into German. It became known in Europe about the close of the last century. Winner, Dorner, and others, ascribe its authorship to a Jew of the first century of the Christian era; Ewald places its date at the end of the second century before Christ. A new edition and translation of this book was published by D. Dillman in 1853, who pronounces it to have been written about B.C. 110. The book consists, according to the careful investigation of the last-named scholar, of three parts: 1. The proper and original Book of Enoch, which constitutes the greatest part of this apocryphal work. 2. Of historical additions for the elucidation of several doctrines and ideas from the pen of another author, who wrote nothing afterwards. 3. Of so-called Noachian additions, connected with other interpolations made by a third author, belonging at least to the end of the first century B.C.… Considering that the variations between the epistle and the Book of Enoch are not inconsiderable, and that the Book of Enoch is not expressly cited, there is still room to doubt whether Jude knew that book.

But the tradition of Enoch’s prophecy he must at all events have known, and considered true as to its kernel.” A late German writer, Volcmar, maintains that the book was written in the time of Hadrian, the beginning of the second century, and his argument Alford approves. In America, Stuart maintains the post-christian character of the book; and Dr. Gardiner, in a very able excursus, maintains more conclusively the same ground, denying that Jude quoted the book. Our own conclusion is, that it contains words and phrases used in a manner not found in any other pre-christian book, and the book can hardly be accepted as pre-christian. Alford says, “That the particulars related in Second Peter and in our epistle of the fallen angels, are found also in the Book of Enoch, is no proof that the writers of these epistles took them from that book. Three other solutions are possible: 1. That the apocryphal writer took them from our epistle; 2. That their source in each case was ancient tradition; 3. That the Book of Enoch itself consists of separate portions written at different times.”