THE SECOND EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER - Chapter 2 - Verse 12

Verse 12. But these, as natural brute beasts. These persons, who resemble so much irrational animals which are made to be taken and destroyed. The point of the comparison is, that they are like fierce and savage beasts that exercise no control over their appetites, and that seem to be made only to be destroyed. These persons, by their fierce and ungovernable passions, appear to be made only for destruction, and rush blindly on to it. The word rendered natural, (which, however, is wanting in several manuscripts,) means as they are by nature, following the bent of their natural appetites and passions. The idea is, that they exercised no more restraint over their passions than beasts do over their propensities. They were entirely under the dominion of their natural appetites, and did not allow their reason or conscience to exert any constraint. The word rendered brute, means without reason; irrational. Man has reason, and should allow it to control his passions; the brutes have no rational nature, and it is to be expected that they will act out their propensities without restraint. Man, as an animal, has many passions and appetites resembling those of the brute creation, but he is also endowed with a higher nature, which is designed to regulate and control his inferior propensities, and to keep them in subordination to the requirements of law. If a man sinks himself to the level of brutes, he must expect to be treated like brutes; and as wild and savage animals—lions, and panthers, and wolves, and bears—are regarded as dangerous, and as "made to be taken and destroyed," so the same destiny must come upon men who make themselves like them.

Made to be taken and destroyed. They are not only useless to society, but destructive; and men feel that it is right to destroy them. We are not to suppose that this teaches that the only object which God had in view in making wild animals was that they might be destroyed; but that men so regard them.

Speak evil of the things that they understated not. Of objects whose worth and value they cannot appreciate. This is no uncommon thing among men, especially in regard to the works and ways of God.

And shall utterly perish in their own corruption. Their views will be the means of their ruin; and they render them fit for it, just as much as the fierce passions of the wild animals do.

{d} "brute beasts" Jer 12:3 {+} "perish" "be destroyed"