John Calvin Commentary 2 Peter 2:14

"having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; enticing unstedfast souls; having a heart exercised in covetousness; children of cursing;" — 2 Peter 2:14 (ASV)

Beguiling, or baiting, unstable souls. By the metaphor of baiting, he reminds the faithful to beware of their hidden and deceitful arts, for he compares their impostures to hooks which may catch the unwary to their destruction. By adding unstable souls, he shows the reason for caution; that is, when we have not struck firm roots in faith and in the fear of the Lord. He also intimates at the same time that those who allow themselves to be baited or lured by such flatteries have no excuse, for this must be ascribed to their levity. Let there be, then, a stability of faith, and we shall be safe from the artifices of the ungodly.

An heart they have exercised with covetous practices, or, with lusts. Erasmus renders the last word “rapines.” The word has a doubtful meaning. I prefer “lusts.” As he had before condemned incontinence in their eyes, so he now seems to refer to the vices latent in their hearts. However, it ought not to be confined to covetousness. By calling them cursed or execrable children, he may be understood to mean that they were so either actively or passively; that is, that they brought a curse with them wherever they went, or that they deserved a curse.

As he has previously referred to the injury they did by the example of a perverse and corrupt life, so he again repeats that they spread by their teaching the deadly poison of impiety, in order that they might destroy the simple. He compares them to Balaam, the son of Bozor, who employed a venal tongue to curse God’s people.

And to show that they were not worthy of a long refutation, he says that Balaam was reproved by an ass, and that thus his madness was condemned. But by this means he also restrains the faithful from associating with them. For it was a dreadful judgment of God that the angel made himself known to the ass before he did to the prophet, so that the ass, perceiving God was displeased, dared not advance farther, but went back, while the prophet, under the blind impulse of his own avarice, pushed forward against the evident prohibition of the Lord.

For what was afterward answered to him—that he was to proceed—was evidence of God's indignation rather than a permission. In short, as the greatest indignity to him, the mouth of the ass was opened, so that he who had been unwilling to submit to God's authority might have the ass as his teacher. And by this miracle the Lord designed to show how monstrous a thing it was to change the truth to a lie.

It may be asked here by what right Balaam had the name of a prophet, when it appears that he was addicted to many wicked superstitions. To this I reply that the gift of prophecy was so special that, though he did not worship the true God and did not have true religion, he might yet have been endowed with it. Besides, God has sometimes caused prophecy to exist in the midst of idolatry, so that men might have less excuse.

Now, if anyone considers the chief things which Peter says, he will see that his warning is equally suitable to the present age. For it is an evil which prevails everywhere that men use scurrilous mockery for the purpose of deriding God and the Savior; indeed, they ridicule all religion under the cloak of wit. And when addicted, like beasts, to their own lusts, they will mingle with the faithful; they prattle something about the gospel, and yet they prostitute their tongue to the service of the devil, so that they may bring the whole world, as far as they can, to eternal perdition.

They are in this respect worse than Balaam himself, because they gratuitously pour forth their maledictions, while he, induced by reward, attempted to curse.