2 Peter 3:10

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night The confidence of the Apostle that this will be the end of the history of the human race is not shaken by the seeming "slackness" in its approach. Either reproducing the thought which he had heard from his Master's lips (Matthew 24:43), or echoing the very words of St Paul (1 Thessalonians 5:2), he declares that it will come, and will come suddenly, when men are not looking for it.

the heavens shall pass away with a great noise The last four words answer to one Greek adverb, not found elsewhere, which implies the "whizzing" or "rushing" sound of an arrow hurtling through the air (Hom. Il. xvi. 361). The "heavens" (in the plural, after the common mode of speech both in the Old and New Testament) shall, in that great day, be the scene of a great convulsion. We have here obviously the same thought as in Matthew 24:29, but the mind of the Apostle, now rising to the character of an apocalyptic seer, beholds in that convulsion not a work of destruction only, but one of renovation. Comp. a like picture of the end of the world's history in Revelation 20:11; Revelation 21:1.

the elements shall melt with fervent heat The word "elements" may possibly stand for what were so called in some of the physical theories of the time, the fire, air, earth, water, out of which all existing phenomena were believed to be evolved (comp. Wis 19:18). The word was, however, used a little later on for what we call the "heavenly bodies," sun, moon, and stars (Justin Mart. Apol. ii. 4. 4), and that meaning, seeing that the "elements" are distinguished from the "earth," and that one of the four elements is to be the instrument of destruction, is probably the meaning here.

the earth also and the works that are therein The use of the word "works" suggests the thought that the Apostle had chiefly in view all that man had wrought out on the surface of the globe; his cities, palaces, monuments, or the like. The comprehensive term may, however, include "works" as the "deeds" of men, of which St Paul says that they shall all be tried by fire (1 Corinthians 3:13).