John Bengel Commentary - Romans 2:14 - 2:14

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

John Bengel Commentary - Romans 2:14 - 2:14


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Rom 2:14. Ὅταν, when) After Paul has finished the refutation of the perverse judgment of the Jews against the Gentiles, he next proceeds to show the true judgment of God against the latter. He treats here of the Gentiles more directly, for the purpose of convicting them; and yet, what is granted to them in passing, is granted with this end in view, that the Jew may be dealt with the more heavily; but Rom 2:26 treats of the Gentiles quite incidentally, in order to convict the Jew. Wherefore, ὅταν, when, is used here [Rom 2:14]; ἐὰν, if, there [Rom 2:26].-γὰρ for) He gives the reason, why the Gentiles should also be required to be the doers of the law; for when they do ever so little of it, they recognise their obligations to obey it. And yet he shows, that they cannot be justified by the law of nature, or by their ownselves. There are four sentences beginning with the words: when-these-who-the conscience bearing witness along with. The second is explained by the third, the first by the fourth.-ἔθνη) Not, τὰ ἔθνη; some individuals of the Gentiles; and yet there is no man, who does not fulfil some of the requirements of the law (ἐκ τῶν τοῦ νόμου). He did not choose to say ἐθνικοὶ, which is usually taken rather in a bad sense.-μὴ νόμον· νόμον μὴ,-not the law: the law not) Not even here is the change in the arrangement of the words without a reason; in the former place, the not is the emphatic word, so that greater force may be given to the, have not; in the latter place, the word νόμον, the law, contains the emphasis, thus forming an antithesis to the ἑαυτοις, unto themselves. So also, νὁμος, law, has sometimes the article, and sometimes not, and not without a good reason in each instance, Rom 2:13; Rom 2:23; Rom 2:27; Rom 3:19-21; Rom 7:1., etc.-φύσει, by nature) The construction is, μὴ νόμον ἔχοντα φύσει, not having the law by nature.[29] [But Engl. vers. joins nature with do, not with having] precisely as in Rom 2:27, ἡ ἐκ φύσεως ἀκροβυστία, the uncircumcision by nature, contrary to the Syriac version of Rom 2:27, which connects the word nature with doing, “doing by nature the law.” The Gentiles are by nature (that is, when left to themselves, as they are born, not as individuals, but as nations), destitute of the (written) law; the Jews are by nature Jews, Gal 2:15, and therefore have by nature the (written) law, ch. Rom 11:24, the end of the verse. Nor yet, however, is there any danger, that the force of the construction, which most follow, do by nature those things, which are of [contained in] the law, should be lost; for what the Gentiles, who have not the law, do, they in reality do by nature. The term law, in the writings of the apostle, does not occur in the philosophical, but in the Hebrew use; therefore, the phrase, natural law, is not found in sacred Scripture; Rom 2:12 shows, that the thing itself is true.-ποιῇ do), not only in actual performance, but also in their inmost thoughts, Rom 2:15, at the end.-οὗτοι, these) This little word turns the collective noun ἔθνη, Gentiles, to a distributive sense [so far to wit as they really do it.-V. g.]-νόμος, a law) What the law is to the Jews, that the Gentiles are to their ownselves.

[29] It may be thought by this interpretation, that the clause which precedes the words, von Natur, in the German version should be omitted to avoid the ambiguity, although, perhaps, the Author knowingly and willingly made use of the ambiguous [equivocal] punctuation.-E. B.