2 Peter 2:22 (KJV)

What does 2 Peter 2:22 mean?

2 Peter 2:22 describes people who have turned back to the corrupt way of life they had escaped. The writer uses two blunt animal sayings to portray that return as a loss of the change they had experienced.

After the warning in verse 21, the writer calls the sayings a “true proverb,” a familiar expression that fits what has happened. The dog’s return to its vomit and the washed sow’s return to mud give the reader two vivid pictures of going back to something left behind.

The Greek behind 2 Peter 2:22

• “proverb” — παροιμία (paroimia): The Greek word can mean a familiar saying or figure of speech. It marks the animal pictures as sayings used to describe the people in the passage.
• “turned” — ἐπιστρέφω (epistrephō): The Greek word carries the sense of turning back or returning. It emphasizes a movement back toward the dog’s former condition.

Why 2 Peter 2:22 matters

• The first saying draws on an older biblical proverb. Proverbs 26:11 compares a dog returning to its vomit with a fool repeating foolish behavior. The comparison helps explain why 2 Peter uses such a striking image.
• The washed sow adds a picture of outward cleaning followed by a return to dirt. Its washing matters to the comparison because the people described had previously escaped “the pollutions of the world” in verse 20.
• The saying concerns the people described in the passage, not dogs or pigs as a subject in themselves. “It is happened unto them” connects both animal pictures to those people’s return.