2 Peter 2:14 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Having eyes full of adultery,— There is a prodigious strength in the original; it properly signifies their having an adulteress continually before their eyes;—having eyes full of an adulteress. Instead of cannot cease from sin, the original should be rendered, and that cease not from sin: if they could not have ceased from sin, it would have been no crime in them; but they were men of most insatiable desires, and in their eyes one might have read the wickedness of their hearts. In this sentence the apostle represents them as wicked in their own practice; in the next, as laying baits for unstable souls. He paints them in lively colours, and gives all their remarkable features, that true Christians might easily know and carefully avoid them. See on 2 Peter 2:18 ch. 2 Peter 3:16 and the note on James 1:14. As the word πλεονεξιαις, rendered covetous practices, is in the plural number, Wolfius and others would understand thereby every immoderate desire, whether of riches or sensual pleasures. So understood, it will connect with what goes before and what follows: for in what goes before, they are charged with debauchery of heart and life; and, in what follows, with covetous practices. Cursed children, or children of a curse, means exposed to a curse, as being vicious themselves, and endeavouring to ensnare others into vice. See Matthew 25:41. 1 Peter 1:14 and Longinus on the Sublime, sect. 4: ad fin.