2 Peter 2:20-22 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For if after they The persons here spoken of as deluded; have escaped the pollutions of the world The sins which pollute those who know not God; through the knowledge of Christ That is, through faith in him, 2 Peter 1:3; they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end Their last state; is worse than the beginning More inexcusable, and exposing them to a greater condemnation. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness As set forth in the gospel; than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment, &c. The doctrine of Christ, which enjoins nothing but what is holy. It would have been better, because their sin would have been less, and their punishment lighter. See the margin. But it has happened unto them according to the true proverb The ancients used to sum up their wisest and most useful observations in short, nervous, and impressive proverbs, which were more easily understood, and better remembered, than long, laboured discourses. The dog, the sow Unclean creatures: such are all men in the sight of God before they receive his grace, and after they have made shipwreck of the faith. These proverbs teach us the absolute necessity of constant watchfulness and prayer, self- denial and mortification, in order to our persevering in the way of righteousness after we have entered upon it. And, as some think, they teach also that many, if not most of those who relapse into their former habits of sin, had contented themselves with a mere external reformation, and had stopped short of a thorough change of nature, or being made new creatures in Christ Jesus. It may be worth observing, that the former of these proverbs is found Proverbs 26:11, and the latter is said to have been a common proverb among the ancients: see Sir 26:24-26. Horace has a plain reference to both of them, lib. 1. Sir 26:26, where he is speaking of the travels of Ulysses, and says, “If he had been conquered by the charms of Circe, he had lived like an impure dog, or a sow that is fond of the mire.” Surely these proverbs will not be thought coarse or unpolite in St. Peter, when some of the most elegant writers of antiquity have made use of, or referred to them.