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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 2 Timothy 3:8 - 3:8
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Ver. 8. Now in the same manner ( ὃí ôñüðïí äὲ ) that Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also withstand the truth. The reference to these ancient magicians shows, as already stated, the class of corrupt opponents more immediately in the eye of the apostle. It appears that a very old tradition among the Jews had handed down the two names here mentioned as those of the leading magicians who endeavoured to rival the miracles of Moses, and foil him in his mission. The names appear in the Chaldee paraphrast, at Exo_1:15, very nearly the same as here—Janis and Jimbres; and again as Janis and Jambres at Exo_7:11. Other modes of spelling the names in the Rabbinical writings (such as Jonos and Jombros, Janos and Jambrinos), with various, evidently fabulous, accounts respecting them, are given by Schöttgen on this passage; also by Wetstein. It is needless to go into these tales, which apparently belong to different periods, and are not always consistent with each other. But there is no reason to doubt the correctness of the tradition as to the names and the persons they represented, there being no conceivable temptation in such a case to depart from the truth, and a very great probability that the truth so far should have found some place in Jewish memorials of the past. As regards the substance of the historical allusion, nothing depends on the specific names; for the action ascribed here to Jannes and Jambres is the same that in the narrative of Exodus is associated with the magicians generally; nor can it be doubted that a body so peculiar in the powers they professed to exercise, and so influential in their position, would have their recognised heads and leaders, by whatever names they might be called. In proud reliance on their thaumaturgical skill, and doubtless supposing that Moses and Aaron were only members of a similar craft with their own, they withstood the claim to a divine commission and a strictly supernatural power which was put forth by those men of God, entered with them into a competitive trial, and so completely failed in the attempt that they were obliged to own themselves vanquished. Such, too, the apostle affirms, would be the issue of the trial which was then proceeding between the ministers of the gospel and the adversaries—not false teachers, properly so called, but deceitful workers, the professors of secret lore and magical art. The conflict now, as of old, was essentially one between God’s truth on the one side, and the devil’s lie on the other; between the one grand remedy of Heaven for the ills of humanity, and the wretched devices of self-seeking, fraudulent men,—men, it is added by the apostle, corrupted in their mind, reprobate (or worthless) concerning the faith. Such was generally the condition of the class of persons who assumed the delusive pretensions referred to, and plied the infamous traffic connected with them. From the very nature of things, their consciences must have been entirely sophisticated, and a moral state induced strongly repellent to the faith of the gospel.