4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;
5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;
6 and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly;
7 and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked
8 (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)—
9 then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment,
angels (v.4) — See Genesis 6:1-4 and Jude 1:6, where the writer draws attention to pride as being the cause of their downfall. — Guthrie, page 1255.
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These [v.4] were the angels who left their first habitation and committed unspeakable atrocities in the days of Noah. God cast these angelic Beings down to tartarus, which is located in the lower parts of the earth on the sides of the bottomless pit (Isaiah 14:15 cf. Revelation 20:1-3). They are confined in the blackness of darkness until the Great White Throne Judgment. If God spared not these angels, who are a higher creation than man, what hope do these false teachers have of escaping the wrath of God? They, too, are guilty of rebelling against god and leading men to perdition. — Sadler, page 200.
hell (v.4) — Peter used the word tartarus, the Greek name for the place where they supposed the Titans, the enemies of the gods, were confined. Peter, writing in Greek, may have used it as a general term for a place where the wicked angels were held, although his idea of what that was was different from that of the Greeks. The word tartarus is not used anywhere else in the New Testament. The angels are confined in that place, whether or not they are literally in chains.
For over 100 years Noah warned those of his day about the impending judgment of the flood [1 Peter 3:20]. But they seemed as idle tales to those who listened. Consequently, “They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:27). While there isn’t anything essentially wrong with eating and giving in marriage, those in Noah’s day did so as though God did not even exist. They had “corrupted His way,” that is, His way of marriage—one man for one woman. Since both “marrying wives” and “giving in marriage” are mentioned in conjunction with one another, the former is an indication they were adulterers and also guilty of committing polygamy (Genesis 4:19 cf. 6:11). — Sadler, page 200.
Sodom and Gomorrah (v.6) — Genesis 18:16-19:28
example (v.6) — Matthew 10:15; 11:23-24; Luke 17:29
wicked (v.7) = lawless, the consequence of having no fear of God and therefore feeling completely free to live without principles, indulging the fallen nature.
Over the course of time, the filthy language and ungodly lifestyle of the Sodomites “vexed” or tormented Lot’s righteous soul. He knew the vile affections of the men at Sodom were not only contrary to nature, but reprehensible to a holy and righteous God. Yet he remained among them! — Sadler, page 202.
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