Mat 8:29, Luk 4:34, 2Pe 2:4, Jude 6, Rev 20:10 | JFB

Matthew 8:29

Luke 4:34

2 Peter 2:4

4. if—The apodosis or consequent member of the sentence is not expressed, but is virtually contained in 2Pe 2:9. If God in past time has punished the ungodly and saved His people, He will be sure to do so also in our days (compare end of 2Pe 2:3).

angels—the highest of intelligent creatures (compare with this verse, Jude 6), yet not spared when they sinned.

hell—Greek, "Tartarus": nowhere else in New Testament or the Septuagint: equivalent to the usual Greek, "Gehenna." Not inconsistent with 1Pe 5:8; for though their final doom is hell, yet for a time they are permitted to roam beyond it in "the darkness of this world." Slaves of Tartarus (called "the abyss," or "deep," Lu 8:31; "the bottomless pit," Re 9:11) may also come upon earth. Step by step they are given to Tartarus, until at last they shall be wholly bound to it.

delivered—as the judge delivers the condemned prisoner to the officers (Re 20:2).

into chains— (Jude 6). The oldest manuscripts read, "dens," as ALFORD translates: the Greek, however, may, in Hellenistic Greek, mean "chains," as Jude expresses it. They are "reserved" unto hell's "mist of darkness" as their final "judgment" or doom, and meanwhile their exclusion from the light of heaven is begun. So the ungodly were considered as virtually "in prison," though at large on the earth, from the moment that God's sentence went forth, though not executed till one hundred twenty years after.

Jude 6

6. "Love is the fulfilling of the law" (Ro 13:10), and the fulfilling of the law is the sure test of love.

This is the commandment—Greek, "The commandment is this," namely, love, in which all God's other commandments are summed up.

Revelation of John 20:10

10. that deceived—Greek, "that deceiveth."

lake of fire—his final doom: as "the bottomless pit" (Re 20:1) was his temporary prison.

where—so Coptic. But A, B, Vulgate, and Syriac read, "where also."

the beast and the false prophet are— (Re 19:20).

day and night—figurative for without intermission (Re 22:5), such as now is caused by night interposing between day and day. The same phrase is used of the external state of the blessed (Re 4:8). As the bliss of these is eternal, so the woe of Satan and the lost must be. As the beast and the false prophet led the former conspiracy against Christ and His people, so Satan in person heads the last conspiracy. Satan shall not be permitted to enter this Paradise regained, to show the perfect security of believers, unlike the first Adam whom Satan succeeded in robbing of Paradise; and shall, like Pharaoh at the Rod Sea, receive in this last attempt his final doom.

for ever and ever—Greek, "to the ages of the ages."