2 Peter 2:5Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The Apostle speaks as though saying this: God knows how to punish without fail and without mercy those who live in sins, as He punished the angels who sinned, the people before the flood, and the cities of Sodom. He also knows how to reward those who do righteousness, as He rewarded Noah and Lot.

"He did not spare the first world," that is, from Adam to Noah, "bringing the flood upon the world of the impious." This impiety of men was the cause of the flood.

The Lord preserved both Noah and Lot from the destruction that overtook their contemporaries because of their piety. For Noah did not yield to the impiety of the people before the flood, and Lot in no way imitated the licentiousness of the Sodomites.

"Noah, the eighth." Noah was the tenth patriarch from the creation of the world. Yet he is called the eighth according to the number of those saved from the flood, like the Russian phrase "himself with eight." The Russian translation confirms this: "He preserved Noah's family in eight souls." Noah is called a preacher of righteousness because he preached God's righteous judgment to the sinners of the first world. In Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, he is called a preacher of repentance. In Clement of Rome (1 Cor 9), he is called a preacher of the renewal of the world.

This is the second example of the punishment of the ungodly and of judgment upon them. By contrast, the deliverance of the pious from judgment is also indicated, as in the following third example (vv. 6-9).

“He did not spare,” as a righteous Judge (cf. v. 4). “The first world” means, more precisely, the ancient world, before the flood. It means the world in general, not only the human race, for by God’s judgment every living thing was destroyed by the flood.

“With eight souls”: Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their three wives. In his First Epistle (1 Pet 3:20), the apostle expressly points to the small number saved with Noah from the flood.

As an example of God’s terrible judgment upon heretical corrupters and those corrupted by them, the apostle first cites the fallen angels. The Lord bound them with chains of Hades’ darkness and delivered them to be kept for judgment and punishment, despite their former most exalted dignity.

Second, the apostle points to the example of the ungodly world before the flood. By the justice of God, it was entirely covered by the waves of the flood. Only the household of Noah, preacher of righteousness, was preserved, eight souls in all.

The examples of the destruction of men during the flood, and likewise during the annihilation of the cities of Sodom, are given to show the certain destruction of heretics. Compared with the world before the flood and the inhabitants of Sodom and the other destroyed cities, they are both fewer in number and more guilty.

Jesus Christ Himself says that the ancient ungodly cities would have repented if they had seen what the cities contemporary with Him saw (see Mt 10:15; Lk 10:12).

But heretics could have known both the greater glory of Christ and all His sufferings for our deliverance from sins. Therefore they are more guilty than the inhabitants of the destroyed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

As Noah's prophecy did not find faith in those who heard it, and the flood of water long foretold came unexpectedly, so the Son of Man, when He comes, will scarcely find faith on the earth (Lk 18:8). The day of the fiery flood will come like a thief (2 Pet 3:3-10).