Albert Barnes Commentary 2 Peter 2:17

"These are springs without water, and mists driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved." — 2 Peter 2:17 (ASV)

These are wells without water. Jude 1:12–13 employs several other epithets to describe the same class of people. The language employed by both Peter and Jude is remarkably terse, pointed, and emphatic.

To an Eastern mind, nothing would be more expressive than to say of professed religious teachers that they were "wells without water." It was always a sad disappointment for a traveler in the hot sands of the desert to come to a well where water was expected, only to find it dry. This experience only aggravated the trials of the thirsty and weary traveler.

Such were these religious teachers. In a world aptly compared, in regard to its real comforts, to the wastes and sands of the desert, they would only severely disappoint the expectations of all those seeking the refreshing influences of the truths of the gospel. There are many such teachers in the world.

Clouds that are carried with a tempest. These are clouds driven about by the wind that send down no rain upon the earth. They promise rain, only to be followed by disappointment. Substantially the same idea is conveyed by this phrase as by the previous one. "The Arabs compare people who put on the appearance of virtue, when they are actually destitute of all goodness, to a light cloud that makes a show of rain and afterwards vanishes."—Benson.

The sense is this: The cloud, as it rises, promises rain. The farmer's expectation is excited that the thirsty earth will be refreshed with needed showers. Instead of this, however, the wind "gets into" the cloud; it is driven about, and no rain falls, or it ends in a destructive tornado that sweeps everything before it. So it is with these religious teachers. Instruction regarding the way of salvation was expected from them; but, instead of that, they disappointed the expectations of those who were eager to know the way of life, and their doctrines only tended to destroy.

To whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. The word translated mist here, (zofov), properly means deep gloom, thick gloom, darkness (see 2 Peter 2:4); and the phrase "mist of darkness" is intended to denote intense darkness, or the thickest darkness. It undoubtedly refers to the place of future punishment, which is often represented as a place of intense darkness. See Barnes on Matthew 8:12.

When it is said that this is reserved for them, it means that it is prepared for them, or is kept in a state of readiness to receive them. It is like a jail or penitentiary built in anticipation that there will be criminals, and with the expectation that there will be use for it.

So God has constructed the great prison-house of the universe, the world where the wicked are to dwell, with the knowledge that there would be need for it; and so he keeps it from age to age that it may be ready to receive the wicked when the sentence of condemnation is pronounced on them .

The word forever is a word that properly denotes eternity (eiv aiwna), and is such a word that it could not have been used if it had been meant that they would not suffer forever. Compare Barnes on Matthew 25:46.