Angels, the Flood, and the Cities
4 For if God didn’t spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved for judgment; 5 and didn’t spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly, 6 and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live in an ungodly way,
Three precedents in ascending order of visibility, each showing that judgment announced long ago has always arrived.
The argument runs as one long conditional: if God did not spare these, then he knows how to do what verse 9 will say. Three cases are offered, and they are chosen because their outcomes are matters of record.
First the angels who sinned, cast down to Tartarus — tartaroō G5020, a word used nowhere else in the New Testament — and committed to pits of darkness reserved for judgment. Jude describes the same event as angels who did not keep their own domain Jude 1:6. Rank did not protect them, which is the point of putting them first.
Second the ancient world, not spared but flooded, with Noah preserved along with seven others — a preacher of righteousness, so the world that perished had been warned. Third, Sodom and Gomorrah turned to ashes and condemned to destruction, having been made an example. The word for ashes is exact, and the letter says plainly what the ruin was for: an example to those who would afterward live ungodly Genesis 19:24–25.
Angels, then a world, then two cities. In each, the announcement preceded the event by a long interval, which is precisely the mockers' objection in chapter 3.
settled What this mark means