Jude 1:11-13
Clouds Without Water
11Woe to them! They have traveled the path of Cain; they have rushed for profit into the error of Balaam; they have perished in Korah’s rebellion.
12These men are hidden reefs in your love feasts, shamelessly feasting with you but shepherding only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried along by the wind; fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead after being uprooted.
13They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.
Berean Standard Bible
Jude has been describing these men since verse 4, and in verse 11 he stops describing and pronounces. Woe to them, he says, and then three names go down with nothing explained. They have traveled the path of Cain, they have rushed for profit into the error of Balaam, they have perished in Korah's rebellion. He expects his readers to know all three stories and hands them only the labels.
Then he stops naming men and starts drawing pictures. There are five across the next two verses, and they are the part of this letter a child will remember.
These men are hidden reefs in your love feasts, shamelessly feasting with you but shepherding only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried along by the wind; fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead after being uprooted.
The reef explains the other four. A reef under the surface does not look like anything. It is not disguised, it is submerged, and a boat comes apart on it at full speed with nobody at fault for missing it. Jude sets that picture at the love feast, which is the shared meal, so the danger is not at the door. It is passing the bread.
Clouds without water and fruitless trees in autumn are the same disappointment twice. A cloud in a dry month is a rumor of rain and this one carries none, and autumn is when you go and look at a tree and this one has nothing on it. Neither one repays the walk toward it.
They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.
Wild waves foam up their own shame, which comes out of them rather than out of anything done to them. Then the wandering stars, where the list stops. A star is the one thing overhead that holds still, and these do not. Jude ends on darkness reserved forever and writes no softening line after it.
Read the five together and what he gives is not a way to spot these men. A hidden reef cannot be spotted, which is what hidden means, and a cloud that will not rain looks exactly like one that will until the afternoon is over. What Jude describes is what empty looks like from the far side of it, and the only test he leaves behind is time and whether anything came.
The list does not stay pointed outward either. Nobody sets out to be a cloud without water. A person can promise something he means at the time and then never bring it, and by autumn the tree is bare whatever anybody intended.
Questions
1 Jude names three men and explains none of them. What does he attach to each name?
AnswerA path, an error, and a rebellion. Cain gets a path they traveled, Balaam gets an error they rushed into for profit, and Korah gets a rebellion they perished in. He expects his readers to know the three stories already.
2 Jude calls these men hidden reefs. Why is hidden the word that matters?
AnswerBecause a reef you can see is a reef you steer around. The trouble is at the shared meal, in the most ordinary place the group has, and nothing about it shows until something strikes it.
3 A cloud with no rain and a tree with no fruit are the same disappointment. What is it?
AnswerSomething turned up looking exactly like what you needed and there was nothing in it. Rain comes out of clouds and fruit gets picked in autumn, and both of these arrived empty. Jude is not describing men who look dangerous. He is describing men who look useful.
4 If a hidden reef cannot be spotted, what use is this list to a family?
AnswerIt points at what to watch for afterwards rather than in advance. The test Jude leaves is time and whether anything came of it, which is slower than judging people on sight and a good deal more honest.
What This Means for Us
Five pictures, and not one of them is a way to tell in advance. What the list gives this family instead is a standard, and the standard is what God is like. He says a thing and then he does it, for people who had nothing to bring him in the first place. The men in Jude's list promised and delivered nothing. He promised and handed over his own Son.
So each person names one thing they have been leaning on instead of him, and we thank him that he has never once come over this house without rain.
Prayer
Father, you have never promised us a thing you did not bring. Keep this family from putting our weight on what turns out to be only weather. Where we have been empty toward each other, make us people that something actually comes from. Thank you that you gave us your Son and did not stop at saying so. Amen.