Behind | Workbook: Jude 5

Grab your Workbook Journal!

[Record your answers in the workbook provided at the beginning of this course.]

Read Jude 5 again in the NIV alongside two other modern English translations:

Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. (NIV)

So I want to remind you, though you already know these things, that Jesus first rescued the nation of Israel from Egypt, but later he destroyed those who did not remain faithful. (NLT)

Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. (ESV)

5. How do the NLT and ESV translations differ from the NIV translation of Jude 5?

In Jude 5, the NIV describes “the Lord” as rescuing Israel from Egypt, while the NLT and ESV both explicitly refer to Jesus in this role. Interestingly, this second translation is the most common in early manuscripts across a number of different languages, and most quotations of Jude 5 by early Christians also include the name of Jesus in this verse rather than the more general “Lord.”

6. Jude 5 is the only place in the New Testament where Jesus is mentioned by name in an Old Testament story. Why do you think this is so unusual?

While the Son of God is eternal like the Father and Spirit, he only received the name Jesus when he became human in the first century AD, long after the close of the Old Testament and many centuries after the Exodus.

There is still debate as to the implications of this verse in Jude placing Jesus in the Old Testament, and even whether “Jesus” is an original and authentic part of the verse, as opposed to “Lord” as it appears in the NIV. In any event, this anomaly in Jude is an example of the nuance we find in even the Bible’s simplest books.

Reference: John Painter and David A. deSilva, James and Jude, 2012, pp. 197-201.