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4 sqq. εἰ γὰρ ὁ θεός κ.τ.λ. to the end of 2Pe 2:10. The sentence has a different climax to that which we expect. The protasis is, roughly, this: “Speedy punishment awaits these men. For if God did not spare the angels … nor the old world at the Flood … nor Sodom and Gomorrah,”—the natural apodosis would be, “He will not spare these false teachers.” But as a matter of fact the writer’s thought is diverted, when he comes to his second example (of the Flood), to the preservation of Noah; and, at his third example, to the saving of Lot. And so in his apodosis he puts the saving of the righteous from among sinners in the first place, though he does not omit the punishing of the wicked.
Note that his examples vary from those in Jude, who has (1) the people saved out of Egypt, (2) the angels, (3) Sodom and Gomorrah. The first example in Jude is obscurely expressed, and perhaps this is why our writer substitutes another for it.
Note also the recurrent participial construction:
ταρταρώσας παρέδωκεν … ἐφύλαξεν—ἐπάξας … τεφρώσας κατέκρινεν.
ἀγγέλων ἁμαρτησάντων κ.τ.λ. The example is taken from the Book of Enoch. See Introd. p. xlvii.
σειροῖς ζόφου ταρταρώσας παρέδωκεν (Jude, δεσμοῖς ἀϊδίοις ὑπὸ ζόφον τετήρηκεν). There is a curious question of reading here:
ABC have σειροῖς and א σιροῖς: KLP, the Latin Vulgate, the Syriac, and one Egyptian version σειραῖς. σιροῖς or σειροῖς means pits, specially underground receptacles for the storage of grain. We do not find the word in that portion of Enoch which exists in Greek, but we read of angels and stars being confined underground in wildernesses—in the glens (νάπαι) of the earth and in various abysses.
σειραῖς “chains,” answers to the δεσμοῖς of Jude, and chains are specially mentioned in Enoch; but here again the word σεῖραί does not occur. Both words are uncommon, but σειροῖς is the more unusual: σειραῖς would be an “elegant” word for chains, and it is rather characteristic of our writer to refine the vocabulary of Jude; but in strength of attestation σειροῖς has the better claim to be adopted.
τηρουμένους. Another reading κολαζομένους τηρεῖν (the words occur again in 2Pe 2:9) has rather strong attestation (אA, the Latin and Egyptian version; against BCKLP). Our author’s style does not forbid us to think that he may have repeated the words just as he has repeated οὐκ ἐφείσατο in 2Pe 2:4-5 and κόσμος in 2Pe 2:5.