Chapter II
1 Therefore you are without defense, O man who is judging all. For in what you judge the other, you condemn yourself, for you judging practice the same
This section turns the anapologetos (?) status onto the circumcised Jew. V.1 is the presummary statement to chapter 2, declaring the physical Jews to be under the same judgment as the idolatrous Gentiles of ch. 1. Judging (krino) is semantically related to condemning (katakrino) There is an important note to make here (to be fully explored in v.6) that the judging Jew is defenseless because of what he does, over and against what he is—a member of the Torah community. But again, I get ahead of myself.
2 And we know that God’s judgment is according to truth upon those doing these
Those doing these refers to the idolatrous Gentiles of ch.1, with Paul here affirming that that the krima (judgment) is neither arbitrary nor tyrannical, but just and true. This may seem to be an obvious conclusion about the actions of the supreme God. It is nuanced for a readership on the one hand that yearned, sang, and celebrated God’s justice throughout the Old Testament, and on the other hand to former pagans who had given up lukewarm gods who catered to the whims of those offering the best sacrifices and were themselves ultimately ruled by the Fates.
3 And you would reason this, O man judging those doing these and doing the same, since you might yourself escape God’s judgment?
Or reckon or account for logize. The tense is subjunctive, and could also be taken in the jussive sense. “Reckon up this then, O judging man!” Most important overarching point: Merely being within the ethnic boundary of Torah does not mean that one receives the justification of Torah. More to come.
4 Or of the wealth of his kindness and forbearance and of patience you despise, not knowing that God’s kindness leads you unto repentance?
Anoches is forbearance, which comes up later. I tend to translate a lot of words with the prefix “fore” when they share the often untranslated Greek prefix pro, but this is one word that doesn’t have it. This helps to preserve the sense that Paul’s language is connoting the temporal Israel story, and not a present interior spirituality. Repentance is the same word as the John the Baptist summons, metanoian.
5 And according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you treasure to yourself wrath in the day of wrath and the revelation of God’s righteous judgment.
Unrepentance (ametanoeton) in direct contrast to the summons of God’s kindness. We return to wrath and apokalupsis as part of the continued argument of Ch. 1. Day of wrath evokes, of course, much of the Old Testament prophetic language, as well as, for the early Christian church, the apocalyptic prophecies of Jesus himself, about which we have different interpretations, but I don’t think that we need to sort those out here to interpret what Paul’s talking about.
6 Which he will repay to each according to his works
See below. Apodidomi for repay, not antimisthian in ch. 1. Psalm 62, by the way.
7 To those on the one hand according to the perseverance of good work glory and honor and they will live incorruptible eternal life
One of the more startling things I’ve come to realize about justification is that in Pauls’ writings it absolutely does not include the concept of salvation. We’ve come to use the word to mean “the whole process of becoming a Christian/salvation,” but in Paul, as we’ll see throughout it means God’s pronouncement of righteousness upon the called/initiated believer. In other words, it is not the process of conversion itself, nor is it the final hope that God will judge for us an ultimate saving rescue. In other words, salvation is not by faith alone. Salvation, soteria, as is the testimony of the entire New Testament, is God’s final judgment according to the whole life lived. Neither is conversion by faith alone, which is a meaning we have collapsed into justification. This for Paul is generally kletos; calling or election. It is entirely by God’s grace, and is inextricably linked to the baptismal event whereby we die and rise with Christ and receive the Holy Spirit. What then is justification? Though it is deeply connected to these other events—a foreshadowing of the one and the consequence of the other—it is yet separate. I understand it, over and against being understood as final salvation or simple conversion, it is God’s forensic declaration of righteousness. In Paul’s context this is the expression of covenant membership, of knowing (this is related to what we might call assurance) “who’s in.” This clarified definition sorts out all of the confusion that will ensue if we insist on reading this verse at lies, and yet holding next to it all of his language about how Gentiles are justified by faith apart from Torah. In other words, the Gentiles, as the Jews, receive the euangelion in faith by God’s grace. Ultimately they will be saved by God’s favorable judgment according to their lives. But how does one know that they are, after receiving the euangelion in faith, within the covenant? The mission sent from James would have them circumcised, and they must keep kosher! No, says Paul, they are covenanted, they are declared righteous, they are justified, not by the actions/works of Torah, but by faith alone.
8 but to those by selfishisness and in disobeying the truth and confiding in injustice, wrath and rage
It reads literally, tois de ex eritheias kai apethousi te aletheia peithomenois de te adikia orge kai thumos. So, and to those by/from selfishness (genitive) and disobeying truth (dative) and confident (dative plural) injustice (dative singular) wrath and rage (nominative.) In other words, there are enough structural parts missing that there could be multiple “valid” translations, so I’m casting with the majority here.
9 Tribulation and distress, upon every soul of man having worked ill, both of the Jews first and Gentile.
Agan, ethnic Judaism does not provide protection from the revealed wrath of God, and in fact, as is spelled out later, is perhaps cause for more severe judgment, which is according to those things done.
10 But glory and honor and shalom to all working good, to the Jew first and to the Gentile.
As according to the covenant promise to Abraham in Genesis. Its interesting to read Romans 1-4 as a solution to the Adamic problem as well as the fulfillment of the covenant to Abraham; and of course the giving of the Torah at Sinai is the fulfillment of the covenant with Abraham, as is ultimately the incarnation and the cross—which, of course, are ultimately the solution to the Adamic problem. Not enough time to go into any detail here, but we’ll be going through all of these throughout the book.
11 For there is no favoritism before God
Para is tricky to translate. Could also mean alongside or with. Possible reference to Deuteronomy? (Takes no bribes, shows no partiality.)
12 For those without the Torah sin, and those without Torah are lost, and those under Torah sin, and will be judged through Torah
The word anomos here is usually translated lawless in the NIV and others, but the context of the entire argument here is that Paul is referring to the Jewish law specifically, not Kant’s categorical imperative. Lost is apolontai, which can also mean perish. The very law which the Israelites are unable to keep becoming a judgement to them is fully spelled out later.
13 For the hearers of Torah are not just beside God, but the doers of Torah will be justified.
Ethnic Israel is not made just (dikaioi) or righteous, but spiritual Israel will be justified/righteousized. (dikaiothesontai) The verse works much better when you realize it’s a play on the same word. The word hearers denotes Israelites to second temple Jews in a special sense, as cowboys would designate Americans or frogs the French, because of the daily Shema prayer (Shema is Hebrew for “hear”) recited in Hebrew: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one. The Shema will actually show up in chapter 3 as part of Paul’s argument.)
14 For when the Gentiles not having the Torah by nature do those things of Torah, these not having the Torah are Torah to themselves.
Nature is again phusis here. In other words, those not having God’s revealed seal of election, when they act as God’s elect, become sealed themselves without the phusis sign—circumcision, of course.
15 These are indicated Torah’s work written in their hearts, their fellow-witnesses of conscience and among one another their accusing reasonings or even defending
A dense sentence for sure, and I’m not sure I understand Paul’s point at the end of it. This is not Paul’s only reference to inscribed commandments, as he will later contrast the inscription in the heart by the spirit with the inscription on the stone. I think the sense of the second half of the verse is that the Gentile’s consciences are fellow witnesses (in the legal sense) with their hearts of a moral compass not wholly given over to sin, as was the case of the idolatrous Gentiles shown in chapter 1. They among one another (metaxu allelon) feel the keen edge of accusing (kategorounton) and defending (apologoumenon—as earlier) reasonings or arguments. (logismon) This sensitivity to the dik, even when not wholly realized, is the evidence of their election, though not yet Paul’s justification. If anyone has a clearer interpretation I welcome it.
16 In the day when God judges men’s hidden things according to my euangelion through the Messiah Jesus
We have here a reference to the apokalupsis of the opening chapter. Things is not specified, but is just the generic article ta krupta. Keep in mind that Paul’s euangelion is not the same thing as we mean when we carelessly use the word gospel, referring to an abstract system of salvation or private religious experience. Paul’s gospel contains those things, but is primarily the pronouncement he made in chapter 1—that Jesus has been determined the Messiah and Lord by God’s mighty action of raising from the dead. This helps clarify the possessive article Paul affixes—it isn’t Paul’s euangelion because the salvation system is unique to Paul, but it is Paul’s news because it is the news (in the most headline-flashing sense of news you can think of) that Paul is running around the Mediterranean announcing. One last note on this verse: krupta doesn’t necessarily need to mean “dirty secrets.” The whole problem that Paul is addressing in this chapter and the next is that Gentile Christians are being asked to make dramatic public actions to demonstrate their covenant membership. God judging the hidden things is not an outing of everyone’s sexual imaginations (though it may include that too) but a celebration of one’s interior covenant-keeping, over and against the exterior covenant-keeping practices of keeping kosher, getting circumcised, etc.
17 And if you might name yourself Jewish and rest upon Torah and boast in God
I’ve long wished we had a better English word to use for kauchaomai, but I’m afraid that boast is still the best we have. (Vaunt and pride would be the runners-up.) In Paul’s writing kauchis (boasting) is always the opposite of tapeinos (lowliness), and it’s hard to capture the sense of elevation, rather than pure puffery. The sense remains clear though—Paul is taking the ethnic Jews to task for their presumption to the moral high ground. Torah again in the specific sense of circumcision, Sabbath-keeping, food laws—those things which separate them from the Gentile dogs.
18 And you know (his) will and you discern those superior instructed by Torah
Know could also be recognize. (Ironical, of course.) The superior are the diapheronta, possibly also the worthy or worthsome.
19 And trusting yourself to be a guide of the blind, a light of those in darkness
This section is all the more striking in light of the Jewish national hopes of the 1st century, in which the national consciousness of Israel was perpetually ready for violent revolt against the Roman oppressors from their moral high ground. The sense in which Jesus acted against that hope by refusing to be a revolutionary military figure and instead announcing that revolt against Rome would only lead to calamity upon the land and the temple is continued by Paul in this passage. Ethnic Israel is only fooling itself when it follows false Messiahs into the desert.
20 A teacher of the foolish, an instructor of infants, having the forms of knowledge and of truth in the Torah
Morphos (form) is also sometimes translated nature. The second temple Jewish claim is not to have a truth-claim which rivals that of the Pagans, but one which is as superior as a man would be to his beasts. (Hence some of the rabbinic complaints about being ruled by mere animals.)
21 Therefore you teaching the other why do you not teach yourself? You heralding not to steal why do you steal?
The next few verses are fairly straightforward. The people of Torah have committed grievous hypocrisy, and this is Paul’s polemic against it. I would guess (and it’s only a guess) that Paul aims these barbs at the Jewish state as it exists piloted by the Hasmonean dynasty, as well as against your average Joe Jew and his private behavior. But this is just a guess, based on how the very public moral failures of the Herods would have been much better known, and a much more serious count against the possibility of the Jewish “state” as it was being reckoned as morally superior to their pagan oppressors.
22 You saying to not to commit adultery, why do you commit adultery? You detesting idols why do you (commit sacrilege?)
Again, the actions of the Herods would have specific reference in this verse through the Salome and Siloam incidents and many others. (I’m afraid I don’t know nearly as much about Israel’s civil government in Paul’s generation as I do about it in Jesus’ time. Perhaps it’s time to reread some Josephus)
23 (Those) which in the Torah to boast, through the overstepping of the Torah you dishonor God
To boast in the infinitive, which doesn’t translate perfectly. Bear with me preferring crude accuracy to intelligibility. Overstepping is parabaseos, rather than hamartia, drawing attention to the way in which their having of the Torah makes their trespass the worse. Keep in mind as well that dishonoring God isn’t merely a social error, but the opposite error of Paul’s foundational humanness which honors and worships him.
24 For God’s name through you is blasphemed among the Gentiles, just as it is written (Is, Ez)
Paul’s quotation here (echoing Isaiah 52 and Ezekiel 36) is very interestingly not a reference to God’s anger against Israel’s sinfulness, but a sense of shame that they’ve allowed themselves to be degraded into exile. (As was, and this is very important later, admonished to them as the great punishment at the end of Deuteronomy) The Gentiles might blaspheme God’s name because the Jews are sinful, but what’s even worse than that obvious meaning is that the Gentiles blaspheme God’s name because it looks as if he and his people have been defeated, pillaged and carried off.
25 For on the one hand circumcision profits if you might practice the Torah; but on the other if you might be an overstepper of Torah, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.
Another men…de sentence. As it would mean to 1st century Jewish ears, if you truly are the people of God, your circumcision is advantageous. (What else does practicing the Torah mean but the boundary-marker of who is and who is not God’s covenant people?) But if you overstep Torah, as did the Herods and the compromised aristocracy, and all those who are responsible for the present shameful exile, you may be physically circumcised, but you are no better than the pagan dogs. Your circumcision means nothing. Uncircumcision is very interestingly not aperitomen, as would expect from the way the language behaves every other way, but akrobustia. There’s a lot of confusion about this word. It probably means “foreskinned,” but linguists aren’t sure whether it came from Hebrew or Greek roots. (Or both.) In either case, it isn’t, like so much Pauline contrariety, a simple negating prefix.
26 Therefore if the uncircumcised might keep the Torah’s justices, will not his uncircumcision be accounted unto circumcision?
Dikaiomata. Right requirements, righteous requirements, just requirements all fine. Again, logisthesetai could also be reckoned or reasoned.
27 And the uncircumcision by nature judges himself accomplishing the Torah which through the letter and circumcision the overstepper of the law
It would be helpful to render “he” here, but akrobustia is actually a feminine noun. (Yet it means foreskin?) By nature, ek phuseos. Krinei can and most often does mean judging in a process sense, but can also mean “deliver a verdict,” which makes sense here.
28 For he is not in that shown Jewish neither is this is the shown flesh uncircumcision
Shown is phaneron, which some have paraphrased outwardly, probably the correct equivalent.
29 But he in the hidden is Jewish, and circumcision of the heart in the spirit not in the letter, whose praise not from men but from God.
In krupto, which goes nicely as inward (instead of secret), and means unable to be seen or visibly shown.
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