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Rom_2:9-10. Emphatic recapitulation of Rom_2:7-8, inverting the order, and in addition, giving special prominence to the universality of the retribution. The placing the penal retribution first gives to this an aspect the more threatening and alarming, especially as the terms expressing it are now accumulated in one breath.
θλῖψις κ . στενοχωρία ] Tribulation and anguish, sc[625] ἔσται . The calamity is thus described as pressing upon them from without ( ΘΛῖΨΙς ), and as felt inwardly with the sense of its being beyond help ( ΣΤΕΝΟΧ .), Rom_8:35; 2Co_4:7; 2Co_6:12; compare LXX. Isa_30:6; Deu_28:53.
ἘΠῚ ΠᾶΣΑΝ ΨΥΧῊΝ ἈΝΘΡ .] denotes not simply “upon every man” (so even Philippi), but “upon every soul which belongs to a man” who practises evil. The ψυχή is thereby designated as that which is affected by the ΘΛῖΨ . Κ . ΣΤΕΝΟΧ . (Act_2:43; Mat_26:28, al[626]); comp Winer, p. 147 [E. T. 194]. It is the part which feels the pain.[628]
πρῶτον ] Quite as in Rom_1:16. The Jews, as the people of God, in possession of the revelation with its promises and threatenings, are therefore necessarily also those upon whom the retribution of judgment—not the reward merely, but also the punishment—has to find in the first instance its execution. In both aspects they have the priority based on their position in the history of salvation as the theocratic people, and that as certainly as God is impartial. “Judaei particeps Graecus,” Bengel. The Jewish conceit is counteracted in the first clause by ʼΙουδαίου τε πρῶτον , in the second by ΚΑῚ ἝΛΛΗΝΙ , and counteracted with sternly consistent earnestness. The second ΠΡῶΤΟΝ precludes our taking the first as ironical (Reiche).
εἰρήνη ] welfare, by which is intended that of the Messiah’s kingdom, as in Rom_8:6. It is not materially different from the ἀφθαρσία and ΖΩῊ ΑἸΏΝΙΟς of Rom_2:7; the totality of that which had already been described in special aspects by ΔΌΞΑ and ΤΙΜΉ (comp on Rom_2:7).
Regarding the distinction between ἘΡΓΑΖ . and ΚΑΤΕΡΓΑΖ . (works and brings to pass) see on Rom_1:27.
[625] c. scilicet.
[626] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
[628] See Ernesti, Urspr. d. Sünde, II. p. 101 ff.