What Does 2 Peter 2:5 Mean?

(5) **And spared not the old world**.—The fact that the Flood is taken as the second instance of divine vengeance gives us no clue as to the source of the first instance. In the *Book of Enoch* the Flood follows closely upon the sin of the angels, as in Genesis 6 upon that of the sons of God, so that in either case the first instance would naturally suggest the second. **Noah the eighth person.**—According to a common Greek idiom, this means *Noah and seven others*; and the point of it is that the punishment must have been signal indeed if only eight persons out of a whole world escaped. The coincidence with 1Peter 3:20 must not pass unobserved, especially as there the mention of “spirits in prison” immediately precedes, just as here, the angels in “caves of darkness.” The suggestion that eight is here a mystical number (the sabbatical seven and one over) is quite gratuitous; as also that “eighth” may mean eighth from Enos, which would be utterly pointless, there being neither mention of Enos nor the faintest allusion to him. (Comp. Clement I. vii. 6; ix. 4; and see Note on 2Peter 2:9.) **Bringing in the flood upon the world.**—“In” should be omitted. The phrase is exactly parallel to “bring upon themselves swift destruction “in 2Peter 2:1. The word for “bring” is the same in both cases.