What Does Jude 1:8 Mean?
Likewise also these sleepers who dream stain the flesh, set aside lordship, and speak harm against the weights.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.THE KEY
What English calls “dignities” is Greek for glories: things bearing honor and weight, which their speech tries to strip away.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now of a posture that joins dreaming to defiling flesh, rejecting dominion, and slandering glories. Dreaming alone is not the charge; the verse names the conduct that accompanies it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A dream does not make defilement clean, rebellion rightful, or slander harmless.
THE ROOT
δόξας
doxas
GROWS FROM
δοκ- (dok-), the word family of δοκέω (dokeō)
To think or regard; δόξα develops as reputation, honor, or glory, what is regarded as weighty.
The KJV word “dignities” can sound like a rank or title, while δόξας names glories: what bears honor and weight. The verse’s accusation is that their speech strikes at what they refuse to honor.
ALSO GROWS
doxa: Glory, honor, reputation
δόξα
This is the singular form behind Jude’s “glories,” naming what their speech reviles.
doxazō: To glorify, honor
δοξάζω
The related verb shows the same family can describe giving honor, the opposite direction from slander.
endoxos: Held in honor, glorious
ἔνδοξος
This related word names the honored standing that the verse says they speak against.
κυριότητα
kyriotēta
GROWS FROM
κυρι- (kyri-), the word family of κύριος (kyrios)
Lord or master; by extension, lordship and the exercise of authority.
“Despise dominion” reaches beyond disliking a title: the word belongs to the family for lordship and ruling. The verse places rejection of rule beside the defiling of flesh and the slandering of glory.
ALSO GROWS
kyrios: Lord, master
κύριος
The source word names the one who holds authority, making clear what “dominion” involves.
kyrieuō: To rule, exercise lordship
κυριεύω
This related verb shows dominion as active rule, not merely status.
μιαίνουσιν
miainousin
GROWS FROM
μιαιν-
miain-
To stain, pollute, or make unclean.
“stain” in this verse is miainousin. The verb gives defilement the force of staining or pollution: the charge concerns what is done to flesh, not only an inward idea. Its placement beside rejected dominion and reviled glory joins bodily conduct to the posture of contempt.
ALSO GROWS
miasma: Pollution, stain
μίασμα
This noun makes the image of defilement concrete: something has been stained.
miasmos: Defilement, pollution
μιασμός
This related noun names the condition produced by staining, echoing the verse’s charge against the flesh.
THE PATTERN
Contempt becomes visible in the body, in resistance to rule, and in speech against what is honored.
Therefore God gave them over in the cravings of their hearts into uncleanness, for their bodies to be made weightless among themselves.Let us tear their bonds apart, and throw their cords off us.You shall not curse the gods, nor curse the lifted one of your people.THE THREAD
But most of all, those who walk behind the flesh in craving for stain, and who look down on dominion. Bold and self-pleasing, they do not tremble to speak harm against the weights.Second Peter repeats Jude’s linked language about despising dominion and speaking evil of glories. That shared wording lets the charges read as one posture of contempt, joining bodily conduct, rejection of rule, and slander.
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