2 Peter 3:8Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Having concluded his discourse on the end of the age, that it will certainly come and will come through fire, as we have explained at length, the apostle turned to the duration of time before the end of the world...

But even a span of time lasting a thousand years, if its end were the end of the world, could be called the last time for all, or even the last day. For it is said in Scripture, "In Your sight a thousand years are as one day."

Thus whatever was done during those thousand years would be spoken of as being done in the last times or on the last day.

The quotation combines Ps 89:5, "For in Your sight a thousand years are as yesterday when it is past," and 2 Pet 3:8, "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

Peter means the time of service under the law, during which the Israelites especially flourished after the building of God's temple. From Solomon, who built the house, until the Roman siege after the honorable Cross, a thousand years were completed. But this thousand years is reckoned before You as one day, or rather as a small part of a day. The apostle rightly calls the time before the Savior's coming night, because all men remained in darkness and confusion. The Sun of righteousness had not yet shone for them.

Scripture says that human life is brief and filled with sorrows. You alone, O God, are eternal and unchangeable, and a thousand years are with You as one day, or even shorter than a portion of the night.

Those to whom the night watch is entrusted are relieved at the fourth watch. It was precisely in the fourth watch that the Lord appeared to His holy apostles (Mt 14:25).

If the apostle speaks this way about a thousand years, then it is clear that human life is a very small interval. Although the day of the Lord is as a thousand years, it is indivisible. Yet no man lives a thousand years, and no man knows the whole day of the Lord.

The Jews, like the Romans, divided the night into four watches, three hours in each. The fourth watch was from three to six o'clock in the morning.

As a man keeps in memory one day and the deeds done in that day, so God does not forget the deeds of a thousand years. During such a long time He does not remove sinners from the world, which is fleeting before Him. In this He shows His power.

Since it is written of the day of judgment that one day will be as a thousand years, how does anyone know whether he will spend days, months, or even years in that fire?

This one thing must not be hidden, and so forth. What the apostle said about the ordering of the heavens and the earth from the beginning, and about the present heavens and earth, is hidden from the mockers. It is hidden from them because they do not believe it, not knowing the truth about it.

For believers this too is a mystery of faith, yet for them it is not hidden and must not be hidden. What is hidden from the unbelieving mockers is precisely that the Lord is not slow in fulfilling the promise, as some think.

He acts according to His long-suffering, though for Him time is not measured as it is for men. Men count time as slow and as quick.

Having revealed the approximate time of the world's transformation, and with it the second coming of the Lord, whose possibility the heretics doubted, the apostle indicates that the remoteness of this time is only apparent.

From the standpoint of the Ever-Existing One, a thousand years are the same as one day, as the psalmist had already said (see Ps 89:5). Therefore one cannot regard the Lord as delaying, either in general or in particular relation to men.

They are given more time for repentance and conversion to God, just as many years were given before the flood for amendment. During those years, many fathers of those who perished in the flood died.