As there were false prophets in Israel, so there will arise false teachers among the faithful. (Writing from the assumed standpoint of the apostolic age, he projects their coming into the future; in 2 Peter 2:10 they are regarded as already active; cf. 2 Peter 3:3; 2 Peter 3:17.) By their vicious lives they will deny the Master who bought them. Many will follow them, thus causing the Gentiles to blaspheme the Church. But their punishment is certain. God's judgment on sin, pro nounced long ago, has always been and still is fulfilling itself; witness the judgment on the angels that sinned, on the world in the days of the Flood, and on Sodom and Gomorrah. But, as God saved Noah an
d Lot, so He will always save the godly, while keeping the unrighteous under punishment as the fallen angels are kept in pits of darkness until the final judgment day. (Cf. Enoch 10: 12, 5: 43.)
The whole passage should be compared with Jude 1:4-7. For the reference to Israel in the wilderness, which Jude places first, 2 P. substitutes the Flood, placing it, to secure chronological sequence, after the fallen angels. He also adds, in order to soften the severity of Jude, the two cases of mercy Noah, who in accordance with later Jewish tradition (cf. Josephus, Ant. I. iii. 1) is described as a preacher of righteousness, and Lot; for just Lot, cf. Wis_10:6.
2 Peter 2:4. The sin of the fallen angels is not specified, but was traditionally connected with Genesis 6:1-4 *. Jude's account of the sin of the angels is fuller, and shows dependence on Enoch (see on Jude 1:6). Here, as elsewhere (see on 2 Peter 2:11; 2 Peter 2:17), 2 P. shows more reserve than Jude in the use of the Apocrypha.