Vincent Word Studies - Romans 1:29

Vincent Word Studies - Romans 1:29 - 1:29

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Vincent Word Studies - Romans 1:29 - 1:29

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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Filled

The retribution was in full measure. Compare Pro 1:31; Rev 18:6.

Wickedness (πονηρίᾳ)

See on Mar 7:22.

Covetousness (πλεονεξίᾳ)

Lit., the desire of having more. It is to be distinguished from φιλαργυρία, rendered love of money, 1Ti 6:10, and its kindred adjective φιλάργυρος, which A.V. renders covetous Luk 16:14; 2Ti 3:2; properly changed by Rev. into lovers of money. The distinction is expressed by covetousness and avarice. The one is the desire of getting, the other of keeping. Covetousness has a wider and deeper sense, as designating the sinful desire which goes out after things of time and sense of every form and kind. Hence it is defined by Paul (Col 3:5) as idolatry, the worship of another object than God, and is so often associated with fleshly sins, as 1Co 5:11; Eph 5:3, Eph 5:5; Col 3:5. Lightfoot says: “Impurity and covetousness may be said to divide between them nearly the whole domain of selfishness and vice.” Socrates quotes an anonymous author who compares the region of the desires in the wicked to a vessel full of holes, and says that, of all the souls in Hades, these uninitiated or leaky persons are the most miserable, and that they carry water to a vessel which is full of holes in a similarly holey colander. The colander is the soul of the ignorant (Plato, “Gorgias,” 493). Compare, also, the description of covetousness and avarice by Chaucer, “Romaunt of the Rose,” 183-246.

“Covetise

That eggeth folk in many a guise

To take and yeve (give) right nought again,

And great treasoures up to laine (lay).

.....

And that is she that maketh treachours,

And she maketh false pleadours.

.....

Full crooked were her hondes (hands) two,

For Covetise is ever woode (violent)

To grippen other folkes goode.”

“Avarice

Full foul in painting was that vice.

.....

She was like thing for hunger dead,

That lad (led) her life onely by bread.

.....

This Avarice had in her hand

A purse that honge by a band,

And that she hid and bond so strong,

Men must abide wonder long,

Out of the purse er (ere) there come aught,

For that ne commeth in her thought,

It was not certaine her entent

That fro that purse a peny went.”

Maliciousness (κακίᾳ)

See on naughtiness, Jam 1:21.

Full (μεστοὺς)

Properly, stuffed.

Envy, murder (φθόνου, φόνου)

Phthonou, phonou. A paronomasia or combination of like-sounding words. Compare Gal 5:21. Murder is conceived as a thought which has filled the man. See 1Jo 3:15.

Debate (ἔριδος)

In the earlier sense of the word (French, debattre, to beat down, contend) including the element of strife. So Chaucer:

“Tales both of peace and of debates.”

“Man of Law's Tale,” 4550.

Later usage has eliminated this element. Dr. Eadie (“English Bible”) relates that a member of a Scottish Church-court once warned its members not to call their deliberations “a debate,” since debate was one of the sins condemned by Paul in this passage. Rev., correctly, strife.

Deceit (δόλου)

See on Joh 1:47.

Malignity (κακοηθείας)

Malicious disposition.