Vou. IIl.—7
98 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Gm 1X
37. We are more than conquerors (i7reprixapev). A vict- ory which is more than a victory. “<A holy arrogance of victory in the might of Christ ” (Meyer).
38. Powers (apya/). Angelic, higher than mere angels.
Things present (évecr#Ta). Only in Paul and Heb. ix. 9. The verb literally means ¢o stand in sight. Hence to impend or threaten. So 2 Thess. ii. 2; 2 Tim. iii. 1; 1 Cor. vii. 26. Used of something that has se¢ in or begun. So some render here.* Bengel says: “Things past are not mentioned, not even sins, for they have passed away.”
Luther says: “ Who hath not known passion, cross, and trav- ail of death, cannot treat of foreknowledge (election of grace) without injury and inward enmity toward God. Wherefore take heed that thou drink not wine while thou art yet a sucking babe. Each several doctrine hath its own reason and measure and age.”
1. In Christ. Not dy Christ, as the formula of an oath, Christ being never used by the apostles in such a formula, but God. Rom. i. 9; 2 Cor. i. 23; xi. 31; Philip. i. 8. For this favorite expression of Paul, see Gal. ii. 17; 1 Cor. i. 2; 2 Cor. ii. 14, 175 xii. 19, ete.
Conscience. Seeon 1 Pet. iii. 16.
Bearing me witness. Rev., bearing witness with me. See on ch, vili. 16. Concurring with my tcstimony. Morison re- marks that Paul speaks of conscience as if it were something
—
* Meyer says : Not absolutely coinciding with things present in the usual sense, though this is linguistically possible, Lut never in the New Testament. He renders: What is in the act of having set in, and cites Gal. i, 4 “where however, commentators differ. The Vulgate favors Meyer, rendering instan- tia.
Cu. IX.] THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 99
distinct from himself, and he cites Adam Smith’s phrase, “the man within the breast.”
In the Holy Ghost. So Rev. The concurrent testimony of his declaration and of conscience was “the echo of the voice of God’s Holy Spirit” (Morison).*
2. Heaviness, sorrow (Avmn ddvvn). LHeaviness, so Wye. and Tynd., in the earlier sense of sorrow. So Chaucer:
*¢ Who feeleth double sorrow and heaviness But Palamon ?” “‘Knight’s Tale,” 1456.
Shakspeare:
‘“‘T am here, brother, full of heaviness.” 2 **Henry IV,” iv., 5, &:
Rev., sorrow. ’Odvvn is better rendered pain. Some derive it from the root ed eat, as indicating conswming pain. Compare Horace, curae edaces devouring cares. Only here and 1 Tim. vi. 10).
Heart. See on ch. i. 21.
3. | could wish (juvxounv). Or pray, as 2 Cor. xiii. 7, 9; Jas. v.16. Lit., J was wishing ; but the imperfect here has a tentative force, implying the wish begun, but stopped at the outset by some antecedent consideration which renders it im- possible, so that, practically, it was not entertained at all. So Paul of Onesimus: “ Whom J could hawe wished (éBovdounv) to keep with me,” if it had not been too much to ask (Philem. 13). Paul would wish to save his countrymen, even at such
* The American Committee of Revision justly take exception to the varia- tion in the rendering of mveiua dyov Holy Spirit, Ghost, by the English Re- visers. Throughout Matthew, Mark, and Luke they use Ghost, with Spirit in margin, as also throughout Acts and Romans. In John, Spirit throughout, except in xx. 22, for no apparent reason. In 1 Corinthians, both ; in 2 Corin- thians, Ghost throughout; in Ephesians, Spirit. In 1 Thessalonians, both. In Timothy, Titus, Ist and 2d Peter, Ghost ; in Jude, Spirit. See my article on “The Revised New Testament,” Presbytcrian Review, October, 1881, and some severe strictures in the same direction by Professor Dickson, ‘‘ St. Paul’s Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit,” p. 240.
100 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. IX.