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2Pe_2:5. Second example: the flood; this is peculiar to the author of this epistle; cf. the corresponding section in Jude. καὶ ἀρχαίου κόσμου οὐκ ἐφείσατο ] The clausal formation is the same as that in 2Pe_2:4. Subaudienda est particula: εἰ (Gerhard). The words which follow on this tell in what the οὐκ ἐφείσατο consisted: κατακλυσμὸν κ . τ . λ .; there is no mention here of a “destruction” (Schott) of the world.
ἀρχ . κόσμος , i.e. mundus antediluvianus.
ἀλλʼ … ἐφύλαξε ] The thought of the deliverance of the righteous is connected with that of the destruction of the ungodly; cf. 2Pe_2:7.
ὄγδοον belongs not to κήρυκα (Heinsius, Lightfoot, and Schwegler in his nachapost. Zeitalter, I. p. 515; cf., as opposed to him, Hilgenfeld, Clement. p. 185), but directly to Νῶε ; Luther correctly: Noah with seven others; cf. Winer, p. 234 [E. T. 312]; Buttmann, p. 26. There is nothing to show that the number eight has a mystical meaning here (Dietlein).[67] The mention of it naturally arose from the recollection of the event; at the same time, however, it marks the small number of the saved contrasted with that of those who perished (Bengel, Schott, etc.). Besides, Noah and those with him, as also Lot afterwards, are taken by the author as types of the ΕὐΣΕΒΕῖς (2Pe_2:9), on whom the judgment of God will not come.
ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣΎΝΗς ΚΉΡΥΚΑ is added as the reason of God’s preservation ( ἘΦΎΛΑΞΕ ) (thus, too, Wiesinger). By ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣΎΝΗ is to be understood here, not the condition of being justified (Wiesinger), but a believing and godly bearing towards God; otherwise in Heb_11:7.
ΚΑΤΑΚΛΥΣΜΌΝ ] Mat_24:38-39; Gen_5:17, LXX. Heb. îÇáÌåÌì : the verb ΚΑΤΑΚΛΎΖΕΙΝ , chap. 2Pe_3:6.
ΚΌΣΜῼ ἈΣΕΒῶΝ ] antithesis to ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣΎΝΗς ΚΉΡΥΚΑ ; the world is thus named, inasmuch as it had become the dwelling-place of ungodly humanity.
ἘΠΆΞΑς ] on this form of the aorist, see Buttmann, Ausf. Gr. § 114, s.v. ἄγω .
[67] “Peter looked upon Noah as the bearer of the eight, and saw in the church saved from the flood a holy eight, making a final close to the old world.”
REMARK.
With regard to its position, Dietlein insists that this verse is intimately connected with 2Pe_2:4, so that “the judgment of imprisonment on the angels must be considered as one and the same event with the Noachic flood;” that the judgment on the ἀρχαῖος κόσμος , 2Pe_2:4-5, must be distinguished from the judgment of God within the second world (2Pe_2:6); and that the latter only, not the former, must be regarded as the example, strictly so called; thus, too, Schott. But the whole structure and mode of expression of this section is opposed to any such division; for (1) The clauses are simply co-ordinate (as 2Pe_2:5 is joined to 2Pe_2:4, so is 2Pe_2:6 to 2Pe_2:5, merely by καί ); (2) The ἀρχαῖος κόσμος is mentioned only here, not in 2Pe_2:4; (3) What is stated in 2Pe_2:6 is not brought prominently forward as an event taking place in the new world; (4) In the idea of the κόσμος ἀσεβῶν the angels cannot be included, since the flood came on the ungodly men only; and it is arbitrary and strange to assume that the flood buried mankind “in the depths, and those spirits which in sin had taken up their abode with them” (Schott). It is arbitrary to regard the judgment on Sodom as the only proper example, since no other position is given to the judgments mentioned in 2Pe_2:4-5 than to that in 2Pe_2:6. The chief reason for the division lies in 2Pe_2:9, which consists of two members, due, however, to the two foregoing examples. From the fact that only one of the members applies to 2Pe_2:4, it does not follow that there no special example can be intended, the less so that the leading idea is not “the deliverance of the righteous,” but “the confinement of the ungodly.” Equally little is proved by the repetition of the verb: οὐκ ἐφείσατο , which serves rather to mark off the ἀρχαῖος κόσμος from the ἀγγελ . ἁμαρτ ., not to unite them into one idea. Even Brückner has rejected the view of Dietlein and Schott. Hofmann, too, while questioning it, approaches it very closely when he says: “The judgment of the flood was also a judgment upon those spirits which had become involved in the sin and in the fate of the race of men then living.”