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2Pe_2:19. ἐλευθερίαν αὐτοῖς ἐπαγγελλόμενοι ] Explanation of the ὑπέρογκα ματ . φθεγγόμενοι ; the high speeches have as their contents the praise of liberty.
ἐπαγγελλόμενοι ; they assure, promise, those who submit to their guidance that they will conduct them to true liberty.
αὐτοὶ δοῦλοι ὑπάρχοντες τῆς φθορᾶς ] A sharp antithesis to ἐλευθ . ἐπαγγελλ .: “though they themselves are slaves of φθορά .” By φθορά moral corruption is generally understood, but elsewhere in the N. T. the word never has this meaning; it should rather be taken in the same sense as that which it has in 2Pe_2:12. In Rom_8:21 it denotes the opposite of δόξα , which Hofmann wrongly denies. Schott erroneously takes it to mean “the things of sense;” but these, though they be given up to φθορά , yet cannot be directly defined as φθορά itself.[80] The chief emphasis lies on δοῦλοι . The general statement: ᾧ γάρ τις ἥττηται , τούτῳ καὶ δεδούλωται , serves to show that the term is applied to them not without justification. The verb ἡττᾶσθαι (with the exception of in this passage and in 2Pe_2:20, to be found only in 2Co_12:13) is in classical Greek often used as a passive and construed with ὑπό , and, in harmony with its meaning, frequently with the genitive, and sometimes also with the dative. The latter is the case here: “to whom any one succumbs.” The dat. with δεδούλωται expresses the relation of belonging to: to him he is made the slave, i.e. whose slave he is. Schott arbitrarily asserts that ἥττηται with the dat. brings out that the being overcome “is voluntary and desired on principle.”
[80] Hofmann, appealing to 1Co_15:50, understands φθορά here also as meaning “the corruptible;” but in that passage the context itself proves that the abstract idea is put in place of the concrete, which is not the case here.