Jude 1:12

Jude 1:12. Here follows a further description of these teachers as set forth in strong figures expressly and earnestly reiterated. These are they who are sunken rocks, seen indeed, but their true nature concealed, in your feasts of charity. The word for ‘rocks' is found only here in the New Testament, though in common Greek writers it is not infrequent in the sense of rocks in or by the sea. The word in 2 Peter 2:13, which is like the word used here, means ‘spots.' Probably a rock which appears like a spot, and gathers to itself the sea wrack and dirt, explains the connection between the two words. It disturbs the quiet harbour where it is found, and risks the vessels that are near.

when they feast with you, feeding themselves as they do without fear, and in contempt of the woe which is pronounced against such shepherds (Isaiah 56:11; cp. 1 Peter 5:2, the word for ‘feeding' showing that this is the reference).

clouds without water, empty, useless, easily carried along therefore by the wind, ostentatious and deceptive wherever they go.

trees as they are in autumn, in ‘the sear and yellow leaf,' with all their vigour gone, not because they have borne fruit, for they are fruitless, and have ever been so; at their best they had ‘leaves only,' and even those are decaying.

twice dead, fruitless all along, and now their leaf withereth, and they are rooted out; in the soil of the vineyard they have no place, and they are fit only to be thrown away, or to burn.