the he (she or it) · demonstrative pronoun — nominative plural masculine
dreamers
ἐνυπνιαζόμενοιenupniazomenoi
G1797
to dream · verb — present middle or passive deponent participle, nominative plural masculine
defile
μιαίνουσιν,miainousin
G3392
to sully or taint · verb — present active indicative, 3rd person plural
flesh
σάρκαsarka
G4561
flesh (as stripped of the skin) · noun — accusative singular feminine
despise
ἀθετοῦσιν,athetousin
G114
to set aside · verb — present active indicative, 3rd person plural
dominion
κυριότηταkuriotēta
G2963
mastery · noun — accusative singular feminine
and
δὲde
G1161
but · conjunction
evil
βλασφημοῦσιν.blasphēmousin
G987
to vilify · verb — present active indicative, 3rd person plural
dignities
δόξαςdoxas
G1391
glory (as very apparent) · noun — accusative plural feminine
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Hebrews 13:17 Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may d…
2 Peter 2:10-12 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are n…
Exodus 22:28 Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people.
1 Timothy 1:10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other…
1 Peter 2:17 Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.
Numbers 16:3 And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congreg…
Ecclesiastes 10:20 Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that w…
1 Corinthians 3:17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jude 1:8-15
The apostle here exhibits a charge against deceivers who were now seducing the disciples of Christ from the profession and practice of his holy religion. He calls them filthy dreamers, forasmuch as delusion is a dream, and the beginning of, and inlet to, all manner of filthiness. Note, Sin is filthiness; it renders men odious and vile in the sight of the most holy God, and makes them (sooner or later, as penitent or as punished to extremity and without resource) vile in their own eyes, and in a while they become vile in the eyes of all about them. These filthy dreamers dream themselves into a fool's paradise on earth, and into a real hell at last: let their character, course, and end, be our…
also--rather, "In like manner nevertheless" (notwithstanding these warning examples) [ALFORD].
these . . . dreamers--The Greek has not "filthy" of English Version. The clause, "these men dreaming" (that is, in their dreams), belongs to all the verbs, "defile," "despise," and "speak evil." All sinners are spiritually asleep, and their carnal activity is as it were a dream (Th1 5:6-7). Their speaking evil of dignities is because they are dreaming, and know not what they are speaking evil of (Jde 1:10). "As a man dreaming seems to himself to be seeing and nearing many things, so the natural man's lusts are agitated by joy, distress, fear, and the other passions. But he is a stranger to self-c…
Likewise also these filthy dreamers - He means to say that these false teachers and their followers were as unbelieving and disobedient as the Israelites in the wilderness, as rebellious against the authority of God as the fallen angels, and as impure and unholy as the Sodomites; and that consequently they must expect similar punishment.
Our translators, by rendering ενυπνιαζομενοι filthy dreamers, seem to have understood St. Jude to mean les pollutions nocturnes et voluntaires de ces hommes impurs, qui se livrent sans scrupule a toutes sortes des pensees; et salissant leur imagination pas la vue de toutes sortes d' objets, tombent ensuite dans les corsuptions honteuses et criminelles. See C…
The Church Fathers
Similarly, those who indeed defile the flesh, etc. It must be understood that these, like the Sodomites who defiled the flesh, are also to be damned, like the unbelieving people who blasphemed the majesty of divine power, like the angels who despised the dominion of their Creator.
"Similarly to the same," he says, "also those dreamers,"—that is, who dream in their imagination lusts and wicked desires, regarding as good not that which is truly good, and superior to all good,—"defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of majesty," that is, the only Lord, who is truly our Lord, Jesus Christ, and alone worthy of praise. They "speak evil of majesty," that is, of the angels.
Jude calls them "dreamers" because they have no idea of the truth but fantasize as if they were dreaming and concoct doctrines full of impiety. They say that our flesh, that is to say, our body, is the work of the devil and blaspheme the lordship and glory of the Holy Trinity, accepting the Father as the eternal and uncreated One but reducing the Son and the Holy Spirit to the status of creatures made in time. These are the noxious teachings of Marcion and Arius, which explains why the apostle expresses himself so sharply against them. They do not confess that there is one God, Maker of both the visible and the invisible worlds, but they deify matter and darkness and detest the flesh. Jude condemns these people, even to the point of saying that they have polluted their mind and their entire being.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh,.... Which may be literally understood, either of the Jewish doctors, who pretended to be interpreters of dreams, as R. Akiba, R. Lazar, and others (n); or of the false teachers in the apostle's time, and of their filthy dreams, and nocturnal pollutions in them; which sense the Arabic and Ethiopic versions confirm; the former rendering the words thus, "so these retiring in the time of sleep, defile their own flesh"; and the latter thus, "and likewise these, who in their own sleep, pollute their own flesh"; as also of their pretensions to divine assistance and intelligence by dreams; and likewise may be figuratively understood of them; for…
Jude 8-10
8. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
8. Similiter isti quoque somniis delusi, carnem quidem contaminant, dominationem vero, rejiciunt, et in glorias maledicta congerunt.
9. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
9. Atqui Michael archangelus, quando judicio disceptans cum diabolo, disputabat de corpore Mosis, non ausus fuit judicium inferre contumeliae; sed dixit, Increpet te Dominus.
10. But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, a…
supernatural beings: Literally glorious ones, which are probably evil angels. In the Old Testament and in Judaism, angels were given a prominent role in the judgment. The false teachers might have been downplaying the reality of a judgment to come (see 1:18; 2 Pet 3:3-4) or denying the glorious origin of these fallen angels (cp. 2 Pet 2:10).
