Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the
flesh
Which may be literally understood, either of the Jewish doctors,
who pretended to be interpreters of dreams, as R. Akiba, R.
Lazar, and others F14; or of the false teachers in the
apostle's time, and of their filthy dreams, and nocturnal
pollutions in them; which sense the Arabic and Ethiopic versions
confirm; the former rendering the words thus, "so these retiring
in the time of sleep, defile their own flesh"; and the latter
thus, "and likewise these, who in their own sleep, pollute their
own flesh"; as also of their pretensions to divine assistance and
intelligence by dreams; and likewise may be figuratively
understood of them; for false doctrines are dreams, and the
teachers of them dreamers, ( Jeremiah
23:25 Jeremiah
23:27 Jeremiah
23:28 Jeremiah
23:32 ) , as are all those doctrines of men that oppose the
trinity of persons in the Godhead; that contradict the deity and
sonship of Christ; that depreciate any of his offices; that
lessen the glory of the person and grace of the Spirit; that cry
up the purity, power, and righteousness of human nature, and are
contrary to the free grace of God. These arise from the darkness
of the understanding, and a spirit of slumber upon them; are the
fictions of their own brain, and of their roving imagination; are
illusory and deceitful, and are in themselves vanities, and like
dreams pass away. And the dreamers of these dreams may be said to
"defile the flesh"; since they appear to follow and walk after
the dictates of corrupt nature; and because by their unclean
practices, mentioned in the preceding verse, they defile the
flesh, that is, the body: all sin is of a defiling nature, and
all men are defiled with it; but these were notoriously so; and
often so it is, that unclean practices follow upon erroneous
principles.
Despise dominion;
either the government of the world by God, denying or speaking
evil of his providence; the Ethiopic version renders it, "they
deny their own God", either his being, or rather his providence;
or the dominion and kingly power of Christ, to which they cared
not to be subject; or rather civil magistracy, which they
despised, as supposing it to be inconsistent with their Christian
liberty, and rejected it as being a restraint on their lusts;
choosing rather anarchy and confusion, that they might do as they
pleased, though magistracy is God's ordinance, and magistrates
are God's representatives:
and speak evil of dignities;
or "glories"; the Arabic version reads, "the God of glory": this
is to be understood either of angels, those glorious creatures,
called thrones, dominions or ecclesiastical governors, who are
set in the first and highest place in the church, and are the
glory of the churches; or else civil magistrates, as before, who
are the higher powers, and sit in high places of honour and
grandeur. False teachers are injurious to themselves, disturbers
of churches, and pernicious to civil government.
F14 T. Hieros. Maaser Sheni, fol. 55. 2, 3.