Jude 1:13 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Raging waves of the sea,— The word Αγρια, raging or wild, is applied to such herbs or trees as grow up of themselves in the desarts or mountains, by way of opposition to those which are in gardens, or cultivated by the care and industry of man. So several animals are called αγρια, wild, to distinguish them from those which are tame, or manageable by man: and because wild fruits are more bitter and less mild; and wild animals commonly less gentle than others, hence the word, by a metaphor, is used for any thing that is intractable, fierce or raging; accordingly here, and Wis 14:1 the word is used for the intractable and enraged waves of a stormy sea; and the corrupt Christians are compared to those troubled unmanageable waves, to intimate their restless, turbulent temper and behaviour among their brethren. See Ephesians 4:14.—foaming out their own shame, that is, "as the raging waves of a tempestuous sea cast out foam, and mire, and dirt; so they, out of their wicked hearts, cast forth wicked words and actions, proclaiming aloud their vices, and glorying in those filthy deeds of darkness, of which they ought to have been ashamed." The apostle seems to have had his eye upon the words of Isaiah 57:20. See also Romans 6:21.Philippians 3:19. He adds, Stars that are planets, or that wander. The Jews used to call those who took upon them to be teachers, by the name of stars; and the same word is applied to teachers in the Christian church, Revelation 1:20. But those false teachers were only planets or wandering stars. There are several interpretations of this phrase: some, by wandering stars, understand those vapours which run along the surface of the earth, called ignes fatui, or false and delusive lights: this would have well suited the delusive light of those false teachers, as it is described by Milton, in his Paradise Lost, b. 9: 50: 634, &c. But the grand objection to this interpretation is, that those delusive vapours are never called stars. Some understand by wandering stars, the comets; which may be so called, though that is not the most usual sense of the phrase; for by αστερες πλανηται, stars that are planets, the Greeks most commonly meant those five wandering stars which we call planets, (they knew of no more,) all which are dark bodies in themselves, and are perpetually in motion from place to place; in both which things they probably differ from the fixed stars: and the false teachers might be compared to them as they were dark in themselves, and as unsteady and wandering from truth and holiness. "As the planets (says Doddridge,) seem to have a very irregular motion, being sometimes stationary, and sometimes retrograde, they are proper emblems of persons so unsettled in their principles, and so irregular in their behaviour as these men were." See Cic. De Nat. Deor. lib. 2: 100: 20 and Parkhurst on the word Πλανητης.