JUDE 12b-13

Next, Jude turns to the natural world for a series of metaphorical descriptions of the false teachers.

Reicke points out that “Jude lists clouds as symbolic of the region of the air, trees for the earth, waves for the sea, and planets for the dark outer spaces and the nether regions, too, since they rise and descend in the heavens.” Thus, the whole of creation is employed in his descriptions.

Neyrey identifies another common factor in all these comparisons – Jude's opponents are 'out of place.' “As a result of their being 'out of place,' they are compared with trees uprooted, evoking the traditional notion of divine judgment (Prov 2:22; Jer 1:10). Thus the opponents are seen as deviants according to the cultural codes of Jude: challenging legitimate honor, trespassing on the roles and statuses ascribed, and polluting all they touch.”

Let us take each of these images in turn:

Waterless clouds

There are two Old Testament passages that Jude may have had in mind in utilizing this comparison:

    “Like clouds and wind without rain

    is one who boasts of a gift never given.” (Proverbs 25:14)

    “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?

    Your love is like a morning cloud,

    like the dew that goes away early.” (Hosea 6:4)

Towner states, “The connection is clear. In the heat and dry of summer, the approach of clouds coming off the sea, blown along by the wind, might have stirred up hope for rain. But they proved only to hold the appearance of blessing. The teaching of the opponents was no more substantial than this.”

M. Green personalizes this description and gives good advice to any of us who fancy ourselves teachers of others: “Here is a graphic example of the uselessness of teaching which is supposedly 'advanced' and 'enlightened' but has nothing to offer the ordinary Christian for the nourishment of his spiritual life. I find this a solemn warning to those who, like myself, are professional theologians. We must constantly ask ourselves if our studies and knowledge are benefiting anybody at all.”

Fruitless trees

This image is familiar to readers of the New Testament from both the story of the barren fig tree found in Luke 13:6-9 and Jesus' saying in Matthew 7:20: “By their fruit you will know them.” More specifically, Towner explains that in this case “the reference to autumn trees in Jude's use of the imagery is to trees at the end of the harvest season when trees would be expected to have fruit...the disappointing absence of fruit suggests useless trees, and the imagery applies to the barrenness of false teachers.”

Wild waves

Reicke says, “The waves of the sea pound upon the rocks or against the sides of a ship, but the looming surf is froth and spray without effect. This is equally true of the insolence and 'big words' (cf. vss. 15,16) which come foaming from the mouths of the heretical teachers as they rave against society and the church.

Towner adds to this imagery by saying, “Both the allusion to the turbulent restlessness of the sea and to the filth (foam) it stirs up reflect some connection with Isaiah 57:20: 'But the wicked are like the tossing sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud!”

J.D. Charles even sees some sort of correlation here with Hesiod's account of the birth of the goddess Aphrodite amid the foam of the sea, but that appears to be highly unlikely.

Wandering stars

“In the pseudepigraphal [i.e. written under the name of someone famous] books of Enoch wandering stars (planets) were understood to be disobedient angels.” (Teller)

“Some think this refers to the planets (wandering in Gk. planetai) whose movements were misunderstood by Jude and his contemporaries; others that they are the shooting stars which appear briefly to give light and then fall out into darkness. The thought seems to be that of Lk. 6:39 ['Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both of them fall into a pit?']; these teachers set themselves in a position where they claim to be guides, but are in fact themselves off course.” (Wheaton)

What is the ultimate fate of such people? Charles states that “just as God has 'reserved' (terein) for the great day of judgment the angels who deserted their heavenly position (Jude 6), 'blackest darkness' has been 'reserved' for the ungodly (Jude 13). Casting his opponents as godless antitypes for whom judgment, long since prescribed, has already been established, Jude views judgment as fulfilled in the ungodly of the present.”

                                       Jude 12-13 (1984)