The Two-Hundred-Seventy-Fourth (Jude Part 2)
- Rob
- 6 hours ago
- 12 min read
We’re continuing our study of Jude this week, and we’re starting off with a very interesting glimpse into a spiritual event. A glimpse that seems to raise more questions than answers. Jude is continuing to give historical examples to his readers in order to warn them of evil that’s in close proximity to the body of Yeshua, so let’s get into it!
The next verse in our study involves an event that is unclear as to when or why it occurred (Jude 9). Similar to most of the previous verses, the Hebrew and Greek versions are pretty much in alignment. They both refer to an interaction between YHWH’s messenger Michael and the fallen messenger Satan.
At this point, it’s probably good to remind ourselves that essentially throughout the entirety of scripture there is not an actual name given to the leader of all the fallen messengers. While we typically call him Satan, this is simply a transliteration of the Hebrew word satan which means adversary or accuser. In Greek, we’ll also see him referred to as Devil, but this is also not a name because it’s just a word that means slanderer. We see it elsewhere used by Paul to mean just that, vice referring to the Devil himself (1 Timothy 3:11).
In this verse, we see the Greek call him the Devil, and in Hebrew they call him Ha-Satan, which literally means “The Accuser” or “The Adversary.” That is how the Hebrew distinguishes between the individual leader of the fallen messengers and using the word to mean an accuser, or adversary. As a side note, when you look at the instance where Yeshua calls Peter Satan, when the Greek uses the proper noun indicating that individual, the Hebrew actually does not say Ha-Satan (Matthew 16:23). It says satan, without the ha, meaning Yeshua was calling Peter an adversary rather than calling him the actual fallen messenger Satan. This is the same pattern used in the Old Testament Hebrew (satan:1 Samuel 29:4, 1 Kings 5:4, etc., Ha Satan:Zechariah 3:2).
The event Jude talks about involves Michael and Satan getting into an argument over Moses. Specifically, in the Greek, it states that it was about the body of Moses, whereas the Hebrew says it was the grave of Moses. We know according to scripture that the burial place of Moses was unknown (Deuteronomy 34:6), however that’s the only reference to tie Jude’s statement to and it doesn’t give us any detail as to what Michael and Satan’s argument was about.
If you read through commentaries on this verse, you’ll find that most of them suggest the possibility of Satan wanting to reveal Moses’ burial location to the Israelites in order to lead them into making it an idol, or more generally a place of worship. Perhaps that was the point of argument, we cannot know for sure through scripture, but we do know that the Greek word used for argument in this verse is a combination of the Greek word for “through,” which intensifies the Greek word for “judge.” In other words, Michael and Satan went back and forth thoroughly on the subject so it clearly had some important aspects to it. In the end, whatever the argument was, the point of Jude bringing it up is to state that Michael himself did not curse (in Hebrew), or slander (in Greek), Satan. Instead, he called on YHWH to rebuke (in Greek), or condemn/punish (in Hebrew), Satan for what he was trying to do.
In this example, Jude is pointing back to those evil people he was talking about in verse 8 who despise the authority of YHWH and curse His Kingship. Remember from last week that Jude had been providing instances of those among the ancient Israelites who were not faithful and obedient to YHWH and connecting those individuals to a similar group he was seeing in his day. Here, Jude’s saying these Godless individuals in his day that are around the believers curse, or slander, out of habit or instinct. We see that context in the next verse (Jude 10). He’s pointing out that this behavior is not anything from YHWH and he is warning his reader against that type of action.
What’s interesting about this verse is the differences between the Greek and Hebrew versions. In the Greek, it talks about these individuals slandering things they don’t understand and, with an odd reference to irrational/unthinking animals, that they are destroyed/corrupted by this slandering. A little confusing if you ask me, but when we look at the Hebrew it seems to give an idea of who Jude is actually referring to.
The Hebrew version of verse ten talks about these individuals cursing while they know nothing and despising what they do know. The question is, what do they know that they’re despising? The translator’s note in the Hebrew version says this likely refers to those who know YHWH’s Law but refuse to obey it, and while that might be true I think it’s one step higher than that. I think this is pointing back to verse eight and their despising YHWH’s authority. This naturally flows down to His Law, which the note references, because unless He has that authority, His Law is meaningless. We’ll see some additional justification for this interpretation in the next few verses.
How does this give us an idea of who Jude is talking about? Well, the only people at the time Jude was writing that previously knew YHWH’s authority, and by extension His Law, were the Jews. In other words, Jude was not talking about new believers coming over from pagan roots. He was talking about Jews that the believers were around, and in a minute you’ll see that it’s highly likely that he’s not talking about Jewish believers. We’ll give more context to that when we get there.
For now, we’ll leave it at Jude is talking about Jews and we’ll move on to the next verse. There’s nothing notable as far as differences go between the Hebrew and Greek for this verse, and in it, Jude is talking about more examples from Israel’s history of those that were disobedient and unfaithful to YHWH (Jude 11). From Cain to Korah’s rebellion, the examples are pretty self-explanatory, but the interesting one is Balaam because of the additional context Jude provides.
Jude essentially just mentions Cain and the rebellion of Korah, but when it comes to Balaam he goes into the additional detail of looking for profit and falling into the temptation of Balaam because of it. I find this interesting because it suggests that whoever Jude was talking about was trying to get money out of the believers he was writing to. In the case of Balaam, it takes some studying but you find that the whole Balaam’s donkey situation seemed to be brought about by Balaam doing things against YHWH’s command (Numbers 22-24). Jude including that event along with talking about these individuals seeking profit indicates they are interacting with, or trying to influence, the believers in order to get something out of them.
The next verse is where things start to diverge again between the Hebrew and Greek versions (Jude 12). The Greek talks about love/fellowship/charity feasts (depending on the translation) and these people being focused on themselves vice the believers, and this was always confusing to me personally. It then goes on to talk about waterless clouds and dead fruit trees. This last part of the verse is identical to the Hebrew, whereas the first part, the confusing part, is completely different.
The Hebrew version instead talks about these individuals being prideful about the gifts of the believers before going on to talk about the clouds and trees. This may sound weird by itself, but when put in context of the waterless clouds and fruitless trees it’s clear Jude is saying these individuals seem to take credit for what the believers have received without them actually receiving it themselves. This is another allusion to the Jews, and more specifically the unbelieving Jews, since what the believers received was actually born out of the body of Israel. In other words, the only way the believers could have received what they did, meaning everything the Holy Spirit provides to us, is through YHWH choosing Israel as His people and all the covenants and promises that He made with, and to, them.
What we’re seeing here by looking at the Hebrew version is that Jude was warning the believers about unbelieving Jews and everything they were doing and saying. The reference to trees without fruit is a clear parallel to Yeshua’s ministry where multiple times He equated the Jews to a barren fig tree (Luke 13:6-9, Mark 11:12-14, 20-21, Matthew 21:18-22). The reference to clouds without water may sound weird because we know clouds are made out of water, but there’s a parallel we can see in one of Peter’s letters that tells us Jude was talking about clouds that don’t release life-giving water on the land (2 Peter 2:17). In fact, it seems that someone involved at some point in the Greek translation made this association to Peter’s letter as well, because Peter’s statement about the blackest darkness being reserved for these individuals is copied at the end of the next verse while that statement is nonexistent in the Hebrew version of Jude (Jude 13).
Interestingly, the parallels don’t stop there between Jude and Peter’s letters. Peter also talks about Sodom and Gomorrah (2 Peter 2:6), condemned angels held in darkness (2 Peter 2:4), men like irrational animals blaspheming what they don’t understand being blemishes among the believers’ feasts (2 Peter 2:12-13), and Balaam (2 Peter 2:15). In fact, much of the oddly placed wording and differences between the Greek version of Jude and the Hebrew version come directly from Peter’s letter. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were copying each other’s work!
While it is certainly possible that either Peter or Jude read each other’s letters, there is a more likely cause for these similarities. As I’ve studied the differences between the Hebrew and Greek scripture, it’s become clear to me that the Greek version involves much more interpretation than we realize. In other books besides Jude, things like we see here between Peter and Jude’s letters exist as well. A verse from another part of a book is repeated in Greek to help the reader with context, or wording is adjusted based on what the translator believed the text was saying, etc. This is just another example of that because we can see clearly that not only was the same exact wording between the two, but also the differences between the Hebrew and Greek almost exclusively have to do with this wording.
Why would this be the case? Why would anyone modify Jude’s letter in this way? While we can only speculate, my belief is that whoever did this was confused by what the text was saying. Either that, or they knew the context of Jude’s letter was no longer applicable to the believers of their time, so they desired to “adjust” Jude’s point to fit something more along the lines of a false teacher like Peter was talking about vice an unbelieving Jew, which is what the Hebrew alludes to.
We know from previous studies that the believers of the first century were more like what we call Messianic Jews today vice what we consider Christians today. They went to synagogue, they observed the Feasts and Sabbath, and in fact, many of them were born into those practices since they were Jews to begin with. We also know that towards the end of the first century the unbelieving Jews not only kicked the believers out of their synagogues and their communities, but they went so far as to speak curses against them and repeat those curses regularly, including every Shabbat in their synagogues. This, in my belief, is one of the primary causes of the divide between believers and Israel we see today in terms of believers not knowing they have any relation/identity with the faithful Israel of scripture.
I think that by the time Jude’s letter was being translated into Greek, believers were well separated from unbelieving Jews so either the translator had no idea what Jude was talking about or the translator knew that specific message was no longer applicable. Hence, the translator modified the text when writing it in Greek to a different, but similar idea of false teachers among believers. The goal would have been to warn of the severity of judgment that would be given to these individuals and prevent believers from being strayed by their teachings.
You may wonder how I can be so sure that the Hebrew version is more accurate to Jude’s original writing, and the answer is that the differences between the Greek and Hebrew are such that it’s highly unlikely, if not flat out impossible, for the Hebrew version to have come from the Greek version. We’ve already identified the odd words and phrases that also seem out of place in the Greek version. In addition, while there’s certainly historical instances of words being skipped accidentally during copying or translation, the amount of missing words and phrases when going from the Greek to the Hebrew of Jude is staggering for such a short letter, and many of those words and phrases matching exactly to what’s in Peter’s letter is too coincidental. The differences in word usage also don’t make sense when going from the Greek to the Hebrew. For example, we can see commonly in the Greek Septuagint that even when the same word is used in the Hebrew text a synonym is written into the Greek version. We see the same thing in Jude’s letter. If the Hebrew was translated from the Greek, it would have been far more likely that the Greek words would have been translated differently instead of reusing the same Hebrew word.
If I were to personally pick one difference that tells me for sure that the Hebrew version of Jude is more accurate to his original letter, it would be the similarities, and even sometimes word for word quoting, between the Hebrew Jude and the Old Testament Hebrew texts. Not only does the phraseology align between the two, which would be impossible for a translator to come up with in such frequency on his own when translating from Greek to Hebrew, but there are quotes of Old Testament scripture in the Hebrew version that simply do not exist in the Greek. For a translator to take it upon himself to translate a whole Greek sentence to match a verse in Hebrew scripture, while not impossible, is extremely unlikely.
We’ll get into that verse next week, but for now, let’s finish up this week’s study with the next verse (Jude 13). As alluded to earlier, the first part of this verse is similar between the Greek and Hebrew versions in that they both talk about the waves of the sea. However, that’s where the similarities end since the Greek talks about those waves foaming up shame while the Hebrew talks about them throwing out mire and mud.
Again, the Greek here to me is just confusing. What does foaming up their shame even mean? The metaphor is lost on me. The Hebrew however, is very clear. The imagery is one of these people’s actions doing nothing but stirring up mud and muck rather than something good and uplifting. Jude is closing out his metaphors with this, a vivid image that makes it clear that not only are these unbelieving Jews taking credit for the believers’ gifts, not only are they not even producing anything good like life-giving water or fruit, but they are producing with their works something nasty and evil. He’s making it clear that these people are not to be followed in any way, shape, or form.
The first century believers were very closely intertwined with the unbelieving Jews at the time, and likely looked to them as experienced “seniors” in the worship of YHWH. After all, the only major difference between the two groups was the belief in Yeshua as the Messiah. That and following a man-made oral tradition, of which the Jewish believers were also learning how to get away from based on Yeshua’s teaching. We see elsewhere that even Jewish believers were trying to figure out what should be expected of people who wanted to follow Yeshua (Acts 15:1-31).
Jude’s message was for believers, both those that were Jewish and those that weren’t, to not be deceived by or follow what the unbelieving Jews, who they sat next to in synagogue, ate next to during YHWH’s Feasts, and lived next to in their cities, did or said. In some ways, this message is applicable again to believers today. As many are learning more and more about how YHWH’s Laws are still applicable and good for us to follow out of obedience and love for Him, some are looking to traditions and practices of Judaism in the belief that it is more in line with what YHWH desires than the typical Christian church format. That is not the right path, and Jude’s letter makes that clear.
We’ll continue studying Jude’s message next week! Shabbat shalom and YHWH bless you!
-Rob and Sara Gene
The Gospel
We are born sinful as a result of Adam and Eve's sin (Genesis 2:17, 3:6, 1 John 1:8)
The consequence of sin, which is unavoidable through our own works, is death (Romans 6:23)
Yeshua, the Son of YHWH, lived sinless and was put to death (Hebrews 4:15)
His death, therefore, cleanses us of sin that would have required our death
He rose on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:4)
Because of His resurrection, we are confident in our future resurrection and eternal life
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