‘These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you; shepherds who without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved for ever.'
Jude now vividly describes what these godless persons really are. They are sham imitations of the real thing, fruitless and very often dangerous to those who heed them.
‘These are they who are hidden reefs (‘dangerous objects' or ‘spots') in your love-feasts when they feast with you.' Creeping into the love feasts, which were feasts provide by the better off Christians so that all, including slaves, could enjoy food and fellowship together in love, in order to eat their fill, they cause others to be shipwrecked because of their false ideas, encouraging excess and constantly spoiling what should be so joyous an occasion. (Compare 1 Corinthians 11:21-22). Claiming to be a safe landing place, they turn out to be hidden reefs. We all need to beware of such people. They are like Satan presenting himself as an angel of light (compare 2 Corinthians 11:13-14). We have to test them against the Scriptures.
‘Shepherds who without fear feed themselves.' They claim to be shepherds concerned with feeding the flock (see 1 Peter 5:2), but in reality they are only interested in benefiting themselves, and they do it openly and callously at the love feasts. Compare also Ezekiel 34:2.
‘Clouds without water, carried along by winds.' They give every promise of spiritual rain and fruitfulness, seeming to offer life and blessing, but like clouds carried by the wind, simply produce disappointment and fail to produce the necessary blessing.
‘Autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.' They give a good show of being fruitful like the fig tree that withered at Jesus' word (Matthew 21:19), but underneath like that fig tree they are dead. So they are then plucked up and wither away, thus becoming twice dead. Compare the fruitless branches of the vine in John 15:1-6 which, proving themselves to be dead, were cut off because they produced no fruit. Thus those who receive their teaching will be doubly dead. They will suffer both the first and second death (Romans 6:23; Revelation 20:14)
For the idea of being rooted up as symbolising divine judgment see Psalms 52:5; Proverbs 2:22; Jeremiah 1:10; Matthew 3:10.
‘Wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame.' Wild and out of control their shameful ideas can be seen as like foam on a raging sea. They are all froth and bubble, quickly arising, and soon disappearing, and ending up as nothing. Compare also Isaiah 57:20, ‘the wicked are like the raging sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and dirt'.
‘Wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved for ever.' The idea here may be of the planets whose movements cannot be relied on to indicate the right way. And their destiny is seen as being to fade and finally disappear into everlasting and total darkness. So in the same way these godless persons profess to act as guides, but are simply leading others astray. And their destiny is everlasting darkness (Matthew 8:12; Matthew 22:13).