2nd Timothy Chapter 3 verse 8 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 8. - And like for now, A.V.; withstand for resist, A.V.; corrupted in mind for of corrupt minds, A.V. And; but would be better. Jannes and Jambres; the traditional names of the magicians who opposed Moses; and, if Origen can be trusted, there was an apocryphal book called by their names. But Theodoret ascribes their names to an unwritten Jewish tradition. Their names are found in the Targum of Jonathan on Exodus 7:11; Exodus 22:22; and are also mentioned, in conjunction with Moses, with some variation in the name of Jambres, by Pliny ('Hist. Nat.,' 31:2), who probably got his information from a work of Sergius Paulus off magic, of which the materials were furnished by Elymas the sorcerer (Acts 13:6-8). Withstood (ἀντέστησαν); the same word as is used of Elymas in Acts 13:8 (so ch. 4:15 and elsewhere). Corrupted in mind (κατεφθαρμένα τὸν νοῦν); elsewhere only in 2 Peter 2:12, in the sense of" perishing," being "utterly destroyed," which is the proper meaning of καταφθείρομαι Here in a moral sense κατεφθαρμένοι τὸν νοῦν means men whose understanding is gone, and perished, as διεφθαρμένος τὴν ἀκοήν means one whose hearing has perished - who is deaf. In 1 Timothy 6:5 St. Paul uses the more common διεφθαρμένων. Reprobate (ἀδόκιμα); as Titus 1:16, and elsewhere frequently in St. Paul's Epistles. It is just the contrary to δόκιμος (2 Timothy 2:15, note).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(8) Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses.--To one brought up, like Timothy, by a pious Jewish mother, and who from a child knew the Holy Scriptures and all the history and ancient traditions connected with the early history of the people, such a comparison would be very striking. No child of Israel could hear the name of Moses, the loved hero of the chosen people, unmoved; and to be told that these false teachers of Ephesus stood in the same relation to him and the Church of Christ as, in old days--in the never-to-be-forgotten Egyptian episode--those famous magicians Jannes and Jambres stood to Moses, would throw for Timothy a new light on all the words and works of these wicked and ambitious men. We can well imagine the comparison being repeated in many an assembly of the faithful, long after the great Apostle's death: how St. Paul had likened these early Heresiarchs to those evil men who before Pharaoh had dared to resist God and His servant Moses. These magicians, also termed wise men and sorcerers (Exodus 7:11-22) at the court of Pharaoh, appear as the enemies of Moses. The names "Jannes" and "Jambres," though not given in the sacred text, are preserved in the oral tradition of Israel. The names are found in the Targum of Jonathan on Exodus 7:11; Exodus 22:22. These traditions relate how these men were sons of Balaam, and in the first instance were the instructors of Moses, though subsequently his enemies and opponents. One legend mentions them as perishing in the catastrophe when the waves of the Red Sea overwhelmed the armies of Egypt; another tradition speaks of their having met their death in the slaughter after the worship of the golden calf, the making of which they advised. It was their prophetic words, so say these legendary histories, which, foretelling the birth of Moses, induced Pharaoh to give this order for the destruction of the Jewish children. The later Jews distorted the names into John and Ambrose.So do these also resist the truth.--The point of comparison between the depraved teachers of Ephesus and these Egyptian sorcerers consisted in a persistent and deadly enmity to the truth, which existed in both cases. The life of the prophet Balaam, the traditionary father of this Jannes and Jambres, supplies a vivid illustration of this malignant and persistent hatred of what is known and felt to be true. That these Ephesian heretics in like manner availed themselves, or pretended to avail themselves of occult power is just probable, though in the comparison this point is of but little moment. We know, however, that the claim at least to possess mysterious and unearthly powers was often made by covetous and worldly men in these times: as, for instance, by Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-24), by Elymas the sorcerer, the false prophet and Jew in Cyprus (Acts 13:6-12). See also the episode of Acts 19:18-20, when "many which used curious arts came to Paul and his companions, and confessed and shewed their deeds." . . .