II Peter 3:11 – Exegetical Playground(!)

“Thus all these things being dissolved, what sort [of persons] ought you be in holy livings and godlinesses?”

My, my, my. As I’ve related before, for years I’ve anticipated studying these very verses and now that I’m here, it’s like an exegetical candy shop! These verses are full of unusual grammatical twists that beg pondering but then, what’s more, such ponderings hold the promise of being rewarded with stratospheric implications. My, my, my. How like God Himself. In Greek, this verse contains only thirteen words, yet its application(s) is profound.

First, exegetical observations. Interesting that, once again, Peter switches to present tense. Anything but aorist is always deliberate. Present tense. You would think it would be a future tense (interestingly, the same word was in the future tense back in v10), which is exactly what most translators do with the verse. Of course, in English, our primary understanding of present tense involves time. Not so with Greeks. They were more concerned with time than the Hebrews … but not much. (And the Hebrews seemed to care nothing at all for time). For Greeks, the present tense more expressed the idea of continuous, on-going, or habitual action. As I said, most translators render the first phrase a future, like “Since all these things will be dissolved …” on the proposition it is a “futuristic present.”  That is definitely possible, especially for a Hebrew mind. In other words, one is in a sense picturing the future as if it is actually happening. Robertson also suggests the present expresses that the process of dissolution is already occurring. Certainly that is true, but I really don’t think that’s what he means. Somehow he is definitely referring to future events – the Day of the Lord, in particular, so it would seem inconsistent to me to suddenly be making a point about how things are actually already devolving.

It makes perfect sense for the “ought you be” to be present tense, again realizing the emphasis is not on time but on the action as continuous or habitual.

There are several other interesting little grammatical twists in the verse, but I’ll close by mentioning that the words “holy living” and “godliness” are actually plurals in Greek, hence my translation, “holy livings and godlinesses.” I would suppose he is using the plural to emphasize all of the individual practices and choices that add up to “holy living and godliness.” I’ve never read anywhere else where something typically singular was expressed in plural – and any reason why. Apparently this is the only NT use of these words as plurals. Interesting.

Well those are just some miscellaneous exegetical observations. As I said, there are more. But I need to get on to applications. So will do that in the following posts.