But does the text affirm that the preaching was done to these spirits while they were in prison? May it not be that the preaching was done at some previous time to persons who were, when Peter wrote, in prison, or, if you please, in a state of death? So it would be true that the spirits were in prison when Peter makes mention of them, and yet the preaching might have been done to them at a former period, while they were still in the flesh and could be benefited by it. This is the view taken of the passage by Dr. Clarke. He says:-- “_He went and preached_] By the ministry of Noah one hundred and twenty years.” Thus he places Christ’s going and preaching by his Spirit in the days of Noah, and not during the time his body lay in the grave. Again, he says:-- “The word πνευμασι, _spirits_, is supposed to render this view of the subject improbable, because this must mean _disembodied_ spirits; but this certainly does not follow; for the _spirits of just men made perfect_, Heb. 12:23, certainly means righteous men, and men _still in the church militant_; and the Father of _spirits_, Heb. 12:9, means men _still in the body_; and the God of the _spirits_ of all flesh, Num. 16:22, and 27:16, means _men_, _not_ in a disembodied state.” The preaching was certainly to the antediluvians. But why should Christ single out that class to preach to, about twenty-four hundred years afterward, in hell? The whole idea is forced, unnatural, and absurd. The preaching that was given to them was through Noah, who, by the power of the Holy Ghost (1 Pet. 1:12), delivered to them the message of warning. Let this be the preaching referred to, and all is harmonious and clear; and this interpretation the construction of the original demands; for the word rendered in our version, “were disobedient,” is simply the aorist participle; and the dependent sentence, “when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah,” limits the verb “preached” rather than the participle. The whole passage might be translated thus: “In which also, having gone to the spirits in prison, he preached to the then disobedient ones, when once [or at the time when] the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah.”