2 Peter 2:17

These are wells without water In the parallel passage of St Jude (2 Peter 2:12) we have "cloudswithout water." In St Peter's variation we may, perhaps, trace an allusive reference to our Lord's teaching as to the "fountain of springing water" in John 4:14, or to St James" illustration from the "fountain" (the same word as that here translated "well") that sends forth fresh water only, and not salt and fresh together (James 3:11-12). We are reminded also of the "broken cisterns that can hold no water" of Jeremiah 2:13. There, however, we have in the LXX. the proper Greek word for cisterns as contrasted with the "fountain of living waters."

clouds that are carried with a tempest More accurately, mists driven about by a whirlwind, the better MSS. giving "mists" instead of "clouds." The word was probably chosen as indicating what we should call the "haziness" of the speculations of the false teachers. The Greek word for "tempest" is found also in the descriptions of the storm on the Sea of Galilee in Mark 4:27; Luke 8:23. Did St Peter's mind go back to that scene, so that he saw, in the wild whirling mists that brought the risk of destruction, a parable of the storm of heresies by which the Church was now threatened? The imagery, it may be noted, is identical with that used by St Paul, when he speaks of men as "carried about by every wind of doctrine" (Ephesians 4:14).

to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever The two last words are omitted in some of the best MSS. and versions. For "mist" it would be better to read blackness, as in Jude, 2 Peter 2:13. It is noticeable that the word had been used by Homer (Il. xv. 191) of the gloom of Hades, and so had probably come to be associated in common language with the thought of Tartarus, as it is here and in 2 Peter 2:4.