But Michael the archangel, when disputing with the devil he reasoned about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a railing judgment against [him], but said, [The] Lord rebuke thee.
Jude has just described men who defile the flesh, reject authority, and insult glorious beings. Beside them he sets Michael the archangel, who would not insult even the devil when the two argued over the body of Moses.
Jude does not tell this story to satisfy curiosity about angels. He holds it up against the men he is exposing.
The only reason this dispute between the archangel and Satan is brought in is to show the real character of those who speak evil of dignities. These men allow themselves to speak with insults. The archangel would not, even when dealing with Satan, the embodiment of all evil, and even though he knew Satan's hatred of the people of God. Instead he acted "with the seriousness of one who acts according to God," and appealed to the judgment of God Himself. And in doing so he uses the very words the Lord Himself uses: "The Lord rebuke you." The Lord said this when Satan stood at His right hand to resist Jehovah's gracious action for Jerusalem, represented by Joshua the high priest (Zechariah 3:1-2).
Scripture names Michael in only a handful of places, and one pattern runs through them all.
But who is Michael (which means "who is like God")? This distinguished angel is named five times in Scripture (Daniel 10:13, 21; Daniel 12:1; Jude 9; Revelation 12:7). He seems to be the leader of the angelic ranks, since Jude calls him "the archangel." In Daniel 10:13, where Michael is first named, the margin calls him "first of the chief princes" (ESV: "one of the chief princes"). In each of the five passages where his name occurs, and in their contexts, the Jewish people are in question. Clearly he is the angel charged with guarding the interests of Israel.
Why fight over a dead body? One answer looks at how Israel treated Moses while he lived, and at what his corpse could have become.
The accounts of Moses in Exodus and Numbers show how constantly the people of Israel argued with him, grumbled against him, and spoke evil of him... But the moment he was dead, what would that same devil not have given for the body! He had stirred the people up against Moses while Moses was alive. The dead body would have become a relic... So the devil would have gained twice over. First he set them against Moses while he was alive. And he would have gained still more after Moses' death, by making them worshippers of Moses. So we can easily understand why the Lord buried the body Himself.
Commentators differ here, and some refuse to settle it at all.
Of the nature of his reasoning with the devil about the body of Moses we have absolutely no knowledge. Speculations on the subject have been endless, above all those built on the mysterious statement in Deuteronomy 34:6. But this is one of God's secrets, and man cannot penetrate it.
Because the event appears nowhere else in Scripture, some have treated it as borrowed folklore. Others answer that the source is the Spirit, not tradition.
Jude does not quote from tradition. He does not quote from a source that is no longer available, nor, as some suppose, from one of Zechariah's visions (chapter 3). The Holy Spirit revealed to him what actually happened when Moses had died.
What matters is who is speaking.
If this is confined to that one Scripture, so be it; one clear word of God is as sure as a thousand.
Michael's restraint is a pattern to copy. Insults drag the better man down to the worse.
Suppose two people are trading insults, a good man and a bad man. If the bad man's abuse provokes the good man to answer in kind, the good man comes down to his level. It does not lessen the other man's abuse at all... Here we have the beautiful conduct of the angel as a pattern for the saint. We should not be provoked. When people insult us, we should not insult them back, but act as the Lord Himself acted. He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.
There is also something owed to what Satan still is, fallen though he is.
The devil is fallen now, but he was once a high dignity in the angelic realm. Until God strips him of that rank, his dignity should be respected. Even so high an angelic dignity as Michael respected it. He did not take it on himself to rebuke him, but left the Lord to do it.
- Contrast. Jude sets men who insult authority beside the archangel who would not. The verse exists to make that comparison sting.
- Contender. Scripture names Michael five times. He leads the angels and guards Israel's interests, so his restraint is not weakness but rank under orders.
- Corpse. The devil wanted Moses' body. Many say he meant to make it a relic for worship, which is why God buried Moses Himself. Others say the reason stays God's secret.
- Confidence. Scripture records the event nowhere else, yet one clear word of God is as sure as a thousand.
- Copy it. Answering abuse with abuse lowers you to the abuser's level. Michael's "The Lord rebuke you" hands the case to the Judge. That is the pattern to follow.
But these, whatever things they know not, they speak railingly against; but what even, as the irrational animals, they understand by mere nature, in these things they corrupt themselves.
Jude has just pointed to Michael the archangel, who would not hurl abuse even at the devil. These men are his opposite: they attack what they cannot know, and they ruin themselves by what they do know.
The word "these" points back to people Jude has already described. They are not outsiders attacking from a distance. They hold a place inside the church.
"But these speak evil" — this now refers to people who had been baptised and had taken their place in the church. Even so, they were giving in to every form of corruption, and were abandoning the very things they professed. I do not say that they were outside. This is the difference between Jude and John. When we come to John's Epistle they went out; but the corrupting thing in Jude is that there they are poisoning others.
The verse uses two words for knowing. What they "know not" is conscious knowledge. What they "know naturally" is knowledge picked up by experience, the way an expert knows his trade.
epistamai mainly means to know something by being close to it… It is the knowledge gained by experience — the knowledge of an expert… In Jude 10 there is what they do not know (they had no conscious knowledge of it, oida), and what they know naturally, epistamai.
"Speak evil" translates a harsh word — the same one used for blasphemy. What they attack is the very thing their condition shuts them out of.
The reader will notice how the word railing keeps coming back. In verses 8 and 10 it is translated "speak evil." To show what it means, it is enough to say that the gospels use the same word in the phrase "blaspheme against the Holy Spirit" (Mark 3:29). It is a word that shows the will and the corruption of the heart at deadly work… They speak abusively against the things they do not know. These are probably the spiritual things, the divine truths the Christians around them spoke of — things they could not grasp. For "the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14). As for the things they understand by mere nature, in these they corrupt themselves, using them only to satisfy their own appetites and passions.
The comparison to unreasoning animals is not just calling these men animal-like. An animal that follows instinct is only being an animal. A man who does the same adds something the animal never had.
In the things they know naturally they corrupt themselves. As one has truly said, "a man cannot become like an animal without sinking far below the animal; and what in the animal only shows the absence of a moral element, in man will show the presence of an immoral one."
Neither side of their life escapes. Their ignorance produces abuse. Their knowledge produces filth. Older translations put the second half of the verse as "in these things they corrupt themselves," and the writers quoted here follow that wording.
Verse 10 contains a very cutting indictment. Men who are ignorant as well as arrogant usually fall to abusing what they do not understand. These men did that. They also corrupted themselves in the natural things they did understand… Things spiritual they rail at. In things natural they corrupt themselves. Truly a terrible indictment!
Jude's contrast between Michael and "these" leaves a lesson about our own speech. Answering abuse with abuse never wins.
Suppose two people are railing, a good man and a bad man. The bad man's railing provokes the good man to rail. Then the good man goes down to the level of the bad. It does not lessen the other man's railing at all… The angel's beautiful conduct is a pattern for the believer. We should not be provoked. When we are insulted, we should not insult back, but act as the Lord Himself acted. He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.
Yet Kelly is careful to separate two things that look alike. Jude himself writes with great force against these men, and that is not the same fault.
Strong language against what is good is disgraceful. Against what is bad it is thoroughly right… Railing is abuse of what is good. Here we have the sharpest and most cutting exposure of what is evil.
- Inside. These men are not outside critics. They hold a place among Christians and poison others from within.
- Ignorant. They attack spiritual truth. As natural men, they cannot reach it.
- Abusive. The word for "speak evil" is the word for blasphemy. It shows the will and the heart's corruption at work.
- Debased. What they do understand, they understand only by instinct. In a man, instinct produces immorality, not innocence. It sinks him below the animal.
- Answered. Michael is the pattern. He did not insult back but left the case with the Lord. Naming evil is still right, because exposing what is bad is not railing.