2 Peter 1:14

2 Peter 1:14. Knowing that quick is the putting off of my tabernacle. There is a mixture of metaphor here. The idea of a ‘putting off' (the word occurs only here and in 1 Peter 3:21), or denuding, which is applicable to a garment, takes the place of the striking or taking down which holds good of the ‘tent' or ‘tabernacle.' We have a similar mixture of metaphors in Psalms 104:2, ‘who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens as a curtain ' (i.e the curtain of a tent). The same occurs also in 2 Corinthians 4:1-3, and it is suggested that it may have come naturally to Paul at least, through his familiarity with the tent of Cilician haircloth, ‘which might almost equally suggest the idea of a habitation and a vesture.' (See Dean Stanley's Comm. on the Epistles to the Corinthians, p. 413.) There is some doubt as to the precise point intended by the ‘quick.' The epithet is a rare form (in Classical Greek purely poetical, and in the N. T. found only here and in chap. 2 Peter 2:1) of the ordinary adjective which means either swift or sudden. It may indicate either the speediness of the approach of death, or the speediness of the work of death. In the one case Peter's motive for stirring them up is his knowledge of the brief interval that had separated him from death. In the other it is his knowledge of the fact that he is to have a swift and sudden death, a mode of death which admonishes him to leave nothing to be done then which can be done now. The latter idea is favoured by the reference which immediately follows to what had been made known to Peter by Christ Himself. It would be superfluous for one who was already far advanced in life to adduce a declaration of Christ's as the ground of his knowledge of the nearness of his own end. It is quite in point for him, however, to cite such a declaration as the ground of his knowledge of the kind of death he was to die. And we see plainly from the narrative of the incident which in all probability was in Peter's mind, an incident which it was left to his brother in the apostleship and companion in the scene itself to record at length and to interpret (John 21:18-19), that what was communicated was his destiny to die a sharp, sudden, violent death. The latter view, therefore, is adopted by Wycliffe (alone among the old English Versions), the Vulgate, and many of the foremost interpreters (Bengel, Huther, Schott, Hofmann, Plumptre, Alford, Mason, etc.). The former, however, is preferred by Dr. Lumby and others, as well as by the A. V., Tyndale (who gives ‘the time is at hand that I must put off,' etc.), Cranmer, the Genevan, and the Rhemish.

even as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Not ‘ hath showed me,' as the A. V. puts it, but ‘ showed me' (comp also 1 Peter 1:11, where the word is rendered ‘signify'), the reference being to the one memorable intimation made by the Sea of Galilee. It is entirely unnecessary to suppose, as is done by some, that Peter had received another special revelation, bearing on the time of his death.