JUDE 5-6

Now the author begins instructing his audience with warnings taken from the Old Testament narratives of how God punished His people who were disobedient. Jude has a predeliction for groups of three in his epistle, and so these verses begin with the first two examples: the Jews who were disobedient in the wilderness and the errant angels who left their place in heaven. The first of these examples is not found in the parallel passage in II Peter. The second example is a probable reference to Genesis 6:1-4 and is illustrated in the collage below.

It is at this point that we also run into the first of several translation problems in this short letter. Here are some sample translations of Jude 5a:

    KJV: “...put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, that the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt...”

    RSV: “...remind you, though you were once for all fully informed, that he saved the people...”

    NRSV: “...remind you though you are fully informed, that the Lord once for all saved a people out of the land...”

Just in these three example, all taken from the same translation tradition, you can see that there are two major differences as to how to approach the text. One point of contention concerns the phrase “once for all.” Does it modify the previous information being given to his audience, or perhaps the once only salvation of the Jews out of Egypt? A note to the Jerusalem Bible translation explains that the first option is preferred in parallelism to a similar usage in Jude 3, which refers to the faith delivered to them once for all. In contrast, NIV prefers the phrase to refer to the Exodus and translates it as “at one time delivered his people.”

Whichever of the two options is preferred, Reicke points out, “It is difficult to ascertain whether Jude assumes a general knowledge of biblical history on the part of the readers, or refers to specific instruction that they have received in these matters.”

A more serious matter is the question of who did the saving in the first place. Here are the options given in the various translations and the textual notes appended to them, since this is not really a translation question but the more basic one of picking the correct Greek text out of the different readings found in early manuscripts:

    A. It may read “Lord.” which in Jude's case generally means “God the Father.” That would certainly appear to be the favored reading since the example concerns God leading the people out of Egypt.

    B. On the other hand, some manuscripts simply say “he,” which is vague enough to refer to just about anyone.

    C. Then there are those texts which read, “Jesus.” Metzger explains that these are the vast majority of those available early Greek manuscripts as well as the Coptic and Latin versions and quotations from the early Church writers such as Origen, Cyril, Jerome, and Bede. But the problems with this possibility are just as formidable: (a) Nowhere else in this letter does Jude refer to “Jesus” alone, it is always in the phrase “Jesus Christ.” (b) The idea of the pre-incarnate Christ leading the Jews out of Egypt seems to be an unlikely one.

However, the Jerusalem Bible notes point to I Corinthians 10:4 as a possible parallel expression of that thought. There Paul, in a verse that is difficult in itself, speaks of the Jews in the wilderness being followed by a supernatural Rock, which was Christ. The problem with this “parallel” is that Jude says that “he” led them out of Egypt, not that “he” followed them out of Egypt.

There is yet another possibility offered for the identity of the one who saved them from the Egyptian captivity: Joshua. Since the Greek for “Jesus” is the same as that for “Joshua,” this would seem to be a feasible understanding of Jude's words. The major problem, of course, is that Joshua only comes on the scene much later in Exodus 17:9, and it is not he who leads them out of Egypt even if he is the one who led them into the Promised Land.

Jude 5-6 (1984)