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1. He "delivered them": but into whose hands? Indeed, He delivers guilty mortals into the hands of guilty angels (Matthew 18:34; 1 Corinthians 5:5; 1 Timothy 1:20). Some answer, that themselves are the instruments to torture themselves. After a sort, every transgressor is his own tormentor; and wickedness is a vexation to itself. Ambition racks the aspiring; envy eats the marrow of his bones that envieth; the covetousness which would be most rich, keeps the affected with it most poor; sobriety begets the headache; lust afflicts the body that nourishes it; and we say of the prodigal, he is no man's foe but his own.

2. "Into chains of darkness." Into darkness — there is their misery; into chains — there is their slavery.

(1) Darkness signifies the wrath of God, and is opposed to that favour of His which is called the light of His countenance (Psalm 4:6).

(2) "Chains."

(a)  The power of Divine justice.

(b)  The guiltiness of their own conscience.

(T. Adams.)

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KJV: For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

WEB: For if God didn't spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;