SEV Biblia, Chapter 3:5
Cierto, ellos ignoran voluntariamente, que los cielos fueron creados en el tiempo antiguo y la tierra salido del agua y en el agua, por la palabra de Dios;
Clarke's Bible Commentary - 2 Peter 3:5
Verse 5. For this they willingly are ignorant of] They shut their eyes against the light, and refuse all evidence; what does not answer their purpose they will not know. And the apostle refers to a fact that militates against their hypothesis, with which they refused to acquaint themselves; and their ignorance he attributes to their unwillingness to learn the true state of the case. By the word of God the heavens were of old] I shall set down the Greek text of this extremely difficult clause: oupanoi hsan ekpalai, kai gh ex udatov kai di udatov sunestwsa, tw tou qeou logw? translated thus by Mr. Wakefield: "A heaven and an earth formed out of water, and by means of water, by the appointment of God, had continued from old time." By Dr. Macknight thus; "The heavens were anciently, and the earth of water: and through water the earth consists by the word of God." By Kypke thus: "The heavens were of old, and the earth, which is framed, by the word of God, from the waters, and between the waters." However we take the words, they seem to refer to the origin of the earth. It was the opinion of the remotest antiquity that the earth was formed out of water, or a primitive moisture which they termed ulh, hule, a first matter or nutriment for all things; but Thales pointedly taught archn de twn panqwv udwr einai, that all things derive their existence from water, and this very nearly expresses the sentiment of Peter, and nearly in his own terms too. But is this doctrine true? It must be owned that it appears to be the doctrine of Moses: In the beginning, says he, God made the heavens and the earth; and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Now, these heavens and earth which God made in the beginning, and which he says were at first formless and empty, and which he calls the deep, are in the very next verse called waters; from which it is evident that Moses teaches that the earth was made out of some fluid substance, to which the name of water is properly given. And that the earth was at first in a fluid mass is most evident from its form; it is not round, as has been demonstrated by measuring some degrees near the north pole, and under the equator; the result of which proved that the figure of the earth was that of an oblate spheroid, a figure nearly resembling that of an orange. And this is the form that any soft or elastic body would assume if whirled rapidly round a center, as the earth is around its axis. The measurement to which I have referred shows the earth to be flatted at the poles, and raised at the equator. And by this measurement it was demonstrated that the diameter of the earth at the equator was greater by about twenty-five miles than at the poles.
Now, considering the earth to be thus formed ex udatov, of water, we have next to consider what the apostle means by di udatov, variously translated by out of, by means of, and between, the water.
Standing out of the water gives no sense, and should be abandoned. If we translate between the waters, it will bear some resemblance to Gen. i. 6, 7: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of, wtb bethoch, between, the waters; and let it divide the waters from the waters: and God divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; then it may refer to the whole of the atmosphere, with which the earth is everywhere surrounded, and which contains all the vapours which belong to our globe, and without which we could neither have animal nor vegetative life. Thus then the earth, or terraqueous globe, which was originally formed out of water, subsists by water; and by means of that very water, the water compacted with the earth-the fountains of the great deep, and the waters in the atmosphere-the windows of heaven, Gen. vii. 11, the antediluvian earth was destroyed, as St. Peter states in the next verse: the terraqueous globe, which was formed originally of water or a fluid substance, the chaos or first matter, and which was suspended in the heavens - the atmosphere, enveloped with water, by means of which water it was preserved; yet, because of the wickedness of its inhabitants, was destroyed by those very same waters out of which it was originally made, and by which it subsisted.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 5. For this they willingly are ignorant of , etc.] Namely, what follows; for as these men were such as had professed Christianity, and had the advantage of revelation, and had the opportunity of reading the Scriptures, they might have known that the heavens and the earth were from the beginning; and that they were made by the word of God; and that the earth was originally in such a position and situation as to be overflowed with a flood, and that it did perish by a general inundation; and that the present heavens and earth are kept and reserved for a general burning; and it might be discerned in nature, that there are preparations making for an universal conflagration; but all this they chose not to know, and affected ignorance of: particularly that by the word of God the heavens were of old : not only in the times of Noah, but from the beginning; as the Ethiopic version reads, and which agrees with the account in ( Genesis 1:1); by the heavens may be meant both the third heaven, and the starry heavens, and the airy heavens, with all their created inhabitants; and especially the latter, since these were concerned in, and affected with the general deluge; and these were in the beginning of time, out of nothing brought into being, and so were not eternal, and might be destroyed again, or at least undergo a change, even though they were of old, and of long duration: for it was by the word of God that they at first existed, and were so long preserved in being; either by the commanding word of God, by his powerful voice, his almighty fiat, who said, Let it be done, and it was done, and who commanded beings to rise up out of nothing, and they did, and stood fast; and so the Arabic version renders it, by the command of God; or by his eternal Logos, the essential Word of God, the second Person in the Trinity, who is often in Scripture called the Word, and the Word of God, and, as some think, by the Apostle Peter, ( 1 Peter 1:23), and certain it is that the creation of all things is frequently ascribed to him; (see John 1:16 Hebrews 1:2,10 11:3); wherefore by the same Word they might be dissolved, and made to pass away, as they will: and the earth standing out of the water and in the water ; that is, by the Word of God; for this phrase, in the original text, is placed after this clause, and last of all; and refers not only to the being of the heavens of old, but to the rise, standing, and subsistence of the earth, which is here particularly described for the sake of the deluge, the apostle afterwards mentions: and it is said to be standing out of the water, or consisting out of it; it consists of it as a part; the globe of the earth is terraqueous, partly land and partly water; and even the dry land itself has its rise and spring out of water; the first matter that was created is called the deep, and waters in which darkness was, and upon which the Spirit of God moved, ( Genesis 1:2); agreeably to which Thales the Milesian asserted f42 , that water was the principle of all things; and the Ethiopic version here renders the words thus, and the Word of God created also the earth out of water, and confirmed it: the account the Jews give of the first formation of the world is this f43 ; at first the world was ymb ym , water in water; what is the sense (of that passage ( Genesis 1:2);) and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters? he returned, and made it snow; he casteth forth his ice like morsels, ( <19E717> Psalm 147:17); he returned and made it earth; for to the snow he saith, Be thou earth, ( Job 37:6
