Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
Michael the archangel - nowhere in Scripture plural, 'archangels;' but ONE, "archangel." The only other New Testament passage where it occurs is 1 Thessalonians 4:16, where Christ is distinguished from the archangel, with whose voice He shall descend to raise the dead: therefore Christ is not Michael. The name means, Who is like God. In Daniel 10:13, he is called "One (margin, the first) of the chief princes." He is champion of Israel. In Revelation 12:7, the conflict between Michael and Satan is again alluded to.
Disputed, х diakrinomenos (G1252)] - debated in controversy, shows it was a judicial contest.
About the body of Moses - his literal body. Satan, having the power of death, opposed the raising of it again (or else its being kept from corruption: cf. Deuteronomy 34:6), on the ground of Moses' sin at Meribah, and his murderer the Egyptian. That Moses' body was raised, appears from his presence with Elijah and Jesus (who were in the body) at the transfiguration: the sample and earnest of the coming resurrection-kingdom, to be ushered in by Michael's standing up for God's people (Daniel 12:1-2). Thus in each dispensation a pledge of the future resurrection was given: Enoch in the patriarchal dispensation, Moses in the Levitical, Elijah in the prophetic, Jesus, the first-fruits, in the Christian. It is noteworthy that the same rebuke was used by the Angel of the Lord, or Yahweh the Second Person, in pleading for Joshua, the representative of the Jewish church, against Satan, in Zechariah 3:2; whence some think that also here "the body of Moses" means the Jewish church accused by Satan, before God, for its filthiness; on which ground he demands that divine justice should take its course against Israel, but is rebuked by the Lord, who has 'chosen Jerusalem:' thus, as "the body of Christ" is the Christian church, so "the body of Moses" is the Jewish church.
But the literal body is here meant (though, secondarily, the Jewish church is typified by Moses' body, as it was there represented by Joshua the High Priest); and Michael, whose connection is so close with Yahweh-Messiah, and with Israel, naturally uses the same language as his Lord. As Satan (adversary in court) or the Devil (accuser) accuses the Church collectively, and 'the brethren' individually, so Christ pleads for us as our Advocate (1 John 2:1). Israel's, and all believers' full justification, and the accuser's being 'rebuked' finally, is yet future. Josephus (Antiquities, 4: 8) states that God hid Moses' body, lest, if exposed to view, it should have been idolized. Jude adopts this account from the apocryphal 'assumption of Moses' (as Origen, concerning 'Principalities,' 3: 2, thinks), or else from the ancient tradition on which that work was founded. Jude, as inspired, could distinguish how much of the tradition was true, how much false. We have no such means of distinguishing, therefore can be sure of no tradition, except that which is in the written Word.
Durst not - from reverence for Satan's former dignity (Jude 1:8).
Railing accusation, х krisin (G2920) blasfeemias (G988)] - 'judgment of blasphemy,' evil speaking. Peter said, angels do not, to avenge themselves, rail at dignities, though ungodly, when they have to contend with them: Jude says, that the archangel Michael himself did not rail even when he fought with the Devil, the prince of evil spirits-not from fear of him, but reverence of God, whose delegated power in this world Satan once had, and even in some degree still has.