Rom 7:1-5
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The New Testament > The Epistle to the Romans > Chapter 7
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Questions
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Lexical notes
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Verse 1
- "Dominion." Compare the usage of this word in Rom 5:21; Rom 6:9; Rom 6:14. Note esp. Rom 6:14 since it seems this chapter is will be taking up the question of what it means to be "not under the law, but under grace."
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Verse 2
- "Bound by the law." Paul seems to be referring to the law described in Deut 24:1.
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Verse 4
- "Wherefore . . . ye also." The phrasing here draws a comparison between Jewish law as it pertains to a woman whose husband as died. However, this should not be read strictly as an analogy. That is, there are themes from this example that Paul will employ in discussing law—namely, the ideas of law, death, and union (old and new)—however, trying to make one-to-one identification mappings between, say, the first husband and the law, seem to be strained, going beyond Paul's purpose.
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Verse 5
- "Which were by the law." Although this is a fairly literal translation of the Greek, most modern translations amend this so it makes more sense. Several translations (e.g. NRSV, NASB, NET, NIV, NKJV) add the word "arouse" to make more sense of the phrase. For example, the NRSV for this verse is: "While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death" (emphasis added). In this sense, perhaps the "sinful passions" (NRSV) or "motions of sins" (KJV) are "by the law" because the law, in prohibiting a certain act, makes that very act more attractive. That is, in the very act of prohibiting an act, attention is drawn to that act. However, it should be noted, that although several modern translations seem to take this approach, this is only one of several possible interpretive directions to take. James D. G. Dunn, for example, in his Word Biblical Commentary volume on Romans 1-8, translates this verse as: "For when we were in the flesh the sinful passions which operate through the law were effective in what we are and do so as to bear fruit for death." Here, the phrase "the sinful passions which operate through the law" seems truer to the ambiguity in the Greek in that it allows for this "operat[ion]" of sin through (or by) the law to function in many possible ways, either by arousing interest in sin, or by some other way (Dunn seems to take this in terms of the law acting through us, tying in, perhaps, to the notion of serving the law of sin rather than the law of God; cf. Rom 7:6; Rom 7:25).
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Exegesis
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Related links
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