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2Pe_3:5. Refutation of the assertion: πάντα οὕτω διαμένει , by the adducing the fact of the flood.[89] λανθάνει γὰρ … θέλοντας ] γάρ is not equivalent to δέ , but designates the thought which follows as the reason for their scoffing: “Thus they speak because;” cf. Winer, p. 423 [E. T. 568].
τοῦτο belongs either to λανθάνει or to θέλοντας ; in the first case it refers to what follows: ὅτι κ . τ . λ .; in which case θέλοντας will mean: “willingly, on purpose” (Brückner, Wiesinger, Fronmüller, Hofmann; cf. Winer, p. 436 [E. T. 586]; Buttmann, p. 322. Luther: “but they wilfully will not know”); in the second case τοῦτο refers to the contents of the preceding statement, and θέλειν means “to assert;” “for, whilst they assert this, it is hidden from them that” (Dietlein, Schott). The position both of τοῦτο separated from ὅτι by θέλοντας , and of θέλοντας separated by τοῦτο from λανθάνει , favours the second construction; that θέλειν can be used in the sense of “to assert,” is clear from Herodian, v. 3. 11: εἰκόνα τε ἡλίου ἀνέργαστον εἶναι θέλουσι ; the word marks the assertion as one based on self-willed arbitrariness, and as without any certain foundation.
ὅτι οὐρανοὶ ἦσαν ἔκπαλαι ] οἱ οὐρανοί , the plural according to the common usage.
ἔκπαλαι ; cf. chap. 2Pe_2:3, not: “of old, formerly,” but: “from of old,” i.e. jam inde a primo rerum omnium initio (Gerhard).
ἦσαν belongs in the first instance to οὐρανοί ; yet the subsequent γῆ is to be taken as applying to it also.
καὶ γῆ ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ διʼ ὕδατος συνεστῶσα ] συνεστῶσα expresses the idea of originating out of a combination; συνίστημι is often employed thus by the Greeks in the intransitive tenses, though the reference contained in συν sometimes disappears almost entirely. The prepositions ἐξ and διά must not be regarded as synonymous; ἐξ refers to the substance, διά to the means. A twofold significance is thus attributed to the water in the formation of the earth, which is also in harmony with the Mosaic account of the creation, where the original substance is distinctly spoken of as ὕδωρ , and in the formation of the earth water is mentioned as the instrumental element (Brückner). There is, accordingly, no foundation for the assertion of de Wette, that the author conceived the origin of the world, according to Indo-Egyptian cosmogony, as a species of chemical product of water. Many interpreters, as Bengel, Wiesinger, Schott, Fronmüller, Hofmann, as also Winer, p. 390 [E. T. 441], explain ἐξ ὕδατος by saying that the earth arose out of the water “in which it lay buried.” But this interpretation is refuted by the meaning of the verbal idea συνεστῶσα , which belongs to ἐξ ὕδατος ; thus, too, an element would be introduced which would be of only secondary importance.[90] Although ΣΥΝΕΣΤῶΣΑ belongs grammatically only to Γῆ , yet in thought it has been applied to ΟὐΡΑΝΟΊ also; thus Brückner, Wiesinger, Schott, and in this commentary. This reference may be justified thus far, that ΟὐΡΑΝΟΊ is understood of the second day’s work of creation, the visible heavens; but it is necessary only if ΚΌΣΜΟς , 2Pe_3:6, is to be taken as meaning the heavens and the earth. De Wette arbitrarily refers the preposition ἘΞ only to the earth, and ΔΙΆ to the heavens; the latter in the sense of: “through the water, between the water.” Τῷ ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ ΛΌΓῼ ] draws emphatic attention to the fact that the active cause of the creation of the world was the Word of God; to this Τῷ ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ ΛΌΓῼ , the Τῷ ΑὐΤΟῦ ΛΌΓῼ , 2Pe_3:7, corresponds.
[89] Schott disputes this, and maintains that the scoffers appealed to the fact of the flood in support of their opinion, “in as far as it did not form a definite close of the earthly development of the world, by an annihilation of the world,” and that now what the writer wished to bring forward against it was why that judgment of destruction was executed simply by means of a flood, and consequently was not an absolute annihilation, but only a change of form; but how much here must be read between the lines, and to which no allusion is made.
[90] The interpretation of Hornejus shows to what eccentricities commentators sometimes have recourse: dicitur autem terra consistere ἐξ ὕδατος , i.e. ἐκτὸς ὕδατο ; seu πρὸς ὕδατι , extra aquam s. ad aquas; διʼ ὕδατος , i.e. μετὰ S. ἐν μέσῳ ὕδατος cum aqua s. in media aqua.—The opinion of Steinfass, too, that “ συνεστῶσα is to be limited to the creation and existence of human beings, animals, and vegetables,” finds no justification in the words of the epistle.