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2Pe_2:20 gives an explanation ( γάρ , equal to: namely) of the statement contained in 2Pe_2:19, that those there described are the δοῦλοι τῆς φθορᾶς , after that the general remark: ᾧ … δεδούλωται has been applied to them. Almost all interpreters hold that in this verse the same persons are the subjects as in 2Pe_2:19; so that the ἀποφυγόντες refers to those with the description of whom the author has throughout the whole chapter been engaged. Bengel, Fronmüller, Hofmann are of a different opinion. They assume that ἀποφυγόντες refers to those who are led astray, and that the latter accordingly, and not the seducers, are to be regarded as the subject of the clause. In favour of this view may be urged the term ἀποφυγόντες , which seems to refer back to the ἀποφευγόντας in 2Pe_2:18. But, on the one hand, it is certainly unnatural to consider those to be the subjects here who are the objects in 2Pe_2:18, especially as 2Pe_2:19 has the same subject as 2Pe_2:18; and, on the other, it would be more than surprising if the apostle did not, from here onwards, continue the description of those of whom the whole chapter speaks, but should, all of a sudden, treat of entirely different persons,—and this without in any way hinting at the transition from the one to the other; in addition to this, there is the circumstance that ἡττῶνται corresponds much too directly with ἥττηται .
εἰ γάρ ] The reality, as frequently, expressed hypothetically. Without any reason, Grotius would read: “ οἱ γάρ ” instead of εἰ γάρ .
ἀποφυγόντες ] The participle is not to be resolved by “although,” but by “after that.”
τὰ μιάσματα τοῦ κόσμου ] τὰ μιάσματα , a form occurring only here; 2Pe_2:10 : μιασμός .
τοῦ κόσμου , here in an ethical sense, as composed of those who walk (2Pe_2:18) ἐν πλάνῃ , or, with Wiesinger: “as the dominion over which sin rules,” “the defilements which belong to the world.” Without sufficient reason, Hofmann takes τὰ μιάσματα τ . κ . in a personal sense, and thinks that it means, in the first instance, “those individuals who are the abomination and blemishes of the non-Christian world, and that τούτοις δέ refers to the Christians whom Peter designates as the σπίλοι κ . μῶμοι of the church.” But nothing in the context hints at this, and it is arbitrary to understand by τούτοις other μιάσματα than those designated by that word itself.
ἐν ἐπιγνώσει τοῦ κυρίου … Χριστοῦ ] i.e. by their having come to the knowledge of Christ.
τούτοις (i.e. μιάσμασι ) δὲ πάλιν ἐμπλακέντες ἡττῶνται ] ἐμπλακέντες is valde emphaticum; ἐμπλέκεσθαι enim dicuntur, qui tricis et laqueis implicantur (Gerhard). The particle δέ places in antithesis either the two participles: ἀποφυγόντες and πάλιν ἐμπλακέντες , or the first participle and the finite verb ἡττῶνται ; the former construction is to be preferred as the more correct.
γέγονεν αὐτοῖς … τῶν πρώτων ] The same words are to be found in Mat_12:45; Luk_11:26;[81] τὰ πρῶτα : the former condition, in which they were before their conversion; τὰ ἔσχατα : their subsequent condition, into which they have come after their falling away, i.e. the condition of complete slavery to the φθορά , from which there is no hope of redemption: with the thought, cf. Heb_10:26-27.
[81] There is a similar passage in Past. Herm. iii. 9: quidam tamen ex iis maculaverunt se, et projecti sunt de genere justorum et iterum redierunt ad statum pristinum, atque etiam deteriores quam prius evaserunt.