Jude 1:14-16
Grumblers Who Flatter
14Enoch, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied about them: “Behold, the Lord is coming with myriads of His holy ones
15to execute judgment on everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of every ungodly act of wickedness and every harsh word spoken against Him by ungodly sinners.”
16These men are discontented grumblers, following after their own lusts; their mouths spew arrogance; they flatter others for their own advantage.
Berean Standard Bible
Jude reaches back for a witness in verse 14, and the man he picks is Enoch, described as the seventh from Adam. That description is doing one job, which is distance. Whatever else is happening in the argument, Jude is saying the warning is old, and that it was spoken about people like these long before any of them sat down at the meal.
"Behold, the Lord is coming with myriads of His holy ones to execute judgment on everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of every ungodly act of wickedness and every harsh word spoken against Him by ungodly sinners."
Ungodly turns up three times inside that one sentence, and Jude leaves the repetition standing rather than smoothing it out. It lands on the people, then on what they did, then on the ones who said things. The coming has two purposes and both of them are named, to execute judgment and to convict, and then the sentence says what is being convicted. Every ungodly act of wickedness, and every harsh word spoken against him.
That second item is where verse 16 picks up. Jude turns from the prophecy back to the men in the room, and three of the four things he lists come out of a mouth.
These men are discontented grumblers, following after their own lusts; their mouths spew arrogance; they flatter others for their own advantage.
Grumbling and flattery look like opposites, and they are not. A grumbler is unhappy with what he has been given, and a flatterer says whatever gets him more of it, and Jude puts the two in one verse. He names what the flattery is for as well: their own advantage. Nobody flatters a man he expects nothing from. The grumbling points down at what he was handed and the flattery points up at whoever might hand him more, and the two of them are aimed at exactly the same thing.
Set the prophecy beside verse 16 and the arrangement speaks for itself. The quotation ends on harsh words spoken against him, and the very next sentence describes men whose mouths never stop working. Jude puts them next to each other and does not draw the line himself.
Questions
1 Jude calls his witness Enoch the seventh from Adam. What does that description add?
AnswerDistance. It sets the warning a long way back rather than in the middle of the argument Jude is having now. Whatever these men imagine is new about them, the prophecy quoted against them is older than anything they are doing.
2 The word ungodly appears three times in one sentence of the prophecy. Why not vary it?
AnswerBecause the repetition is the hammer. Jude quotes the line as it stands and lets the word land three times, on the people, on their acts, and on the ones doing the talking. Smoothing it out would make the sentence easier to sit through.
3 Jude names four things about these men. How many of them involve talking?
AnswerThree. They grumble, their mouths spew arrogance, and they flatter others for their own advantage, and only following after their own lusts sits outside that. The portrait Jude draws here is mostly a portrait of how a man talks.
4 Grumbling and flattery sound like opposites. What do they have in common in this verse?
AnswerBoth are ways of getting. The grumbler is unhappy with what he was given and says so, and the flatterer says pleasant things to somebody who can give him more. Jude names the motive plainly when he writes for their own advantage.
What This Means for Us
A family notices grumbling, because grumbling is unpleasant to be around. Flattery is harder to catch, because flattery is pleasant, and the person doing it looks like he is being kind. Jude puts both in one verse and gives them one motive. They are two ways of working on people to get something, and both come out of a mouth that has stopped being grateful for what it already has.
So each person names one thing they have grumbled about this week, and we thank God out loud for that same thing before we leave the table.
Prayer
Father, our mouths give us away, and you hear every word of it. Where we have grumbled about what you gave us, make us grateful for it instead. Where we have been pleasant to people in order to get something out of them, make us honest. Thank you that you are coming, and that we are yours. Amen.