19. Hath resisted (av3éornxev). Rev., more correctly, with- standeth. The idea is the result rather than the process of re- sistance. A man may reszst God’s will, but cannot maintain his resistance. The question means, who can resist him ?
20. O man. Man as man, not Jew.
106 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT [Cu. IX.
That repliest (6 dvtazoxpivouevos). Only here and Luke xiv. 6. Lit., 20 contradict in reply ; to answer by contradicting. Thus, in the case of the dropsical man (Luke xiv.), Jesus an- swered (amoxpuveis) the thought in the minds of the lawyers and Pharisees by asking, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” Then He asked, “ Who of you would refuse on the Sabbath to extricate his beast from the pit into which it has fallen?” And they were unable to answer Him in reply : to answer by contradicting Him. So here, the word signifies to reply to an answer which God had already given, and implies, as Godet observes, the spirit of contention.
21. Power (éfovclav). Or right. See on Mark ii. 10; John Tele.
Lump (¢updparos). From pupdw to mix so as to make into dough. Hence any substance mixed with water and kneaded. Philo uses it of the human frame as compounded. By the ‘ump is here meant human nature with its moral possibilities, “but not yet conceived of in its definite, individual, moral stamp” (Meyer).* The figure of man as clay moulded by God carries us back to the earliest traditions of the creation of man (Gen. ii. 7). According to primitive ideas man is re- - garded as issuing from the earth. The traditions of Libya made the first human being spring from the plains heated by the sun. The. Egyptians declared that the Nile mud, exposed to the heat of the sun, brought forth germs which sprang up as the bodies of men. A subsequent divine operation endowed these bodies with soul and intellect, and the divine fashioner ap- pears upon some monuments moulding clay, wherewith to form man, upon a potter’s wheel. The Peruvians called the first man “animated earth ;” and the Mandans of North America related that the Great Spirit moulded two figures of clay, which he dried and animated with the breath of his mouth, one receiving the name of First Man, the other that of Companion. The Babylon- ian account, translated by Berosus, represents man as made of
* See an article on “The Potter and the Clay,”
by Dean Plumptre “¢ Aix. positor,” first series, iv., 469. ey ‘
Ga Tx] THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 107
clay after the manner of a statue. See Frangois Lenormant, “ Beginnings of History.”
To make one vessel unto honor and another unto dis- honor (zrovjoas 6 per eis Tysnv oKxedos, d Sé es atyuiav). Rev., more correctly, to make one part a vessel unto honor, and an- other part, ete. For vessel, see on 1 Pet. iii. 7; compare Matt. xii. 29; Acts ix.15. The vessel here is the one which has just come from the potter’s hand. Those in ver. 22 have been in household use.
22. Willing (9é\@v). Although willing, not because. Re- ferring not to the determinate purpose of God, but to His spon- taneous will growing out of His holy character. In the former sense, the meaning would be that God’s long-suffering was de- signed to enhance the final penalty. The emphatic position of willing prepares the way for the contrast with long-suffering. Though this holy will would lead Him to show His wrath, yet He withheld His wrath and endured.
Vessels of wrath (cxevn opyfjs). Not filled with wrath, nor prepared to serve for a manifestation of divine wrath ; but ap- pertaining to wrath. Such as by their own acts have fallen under His wrath. Compare Ps. ii. 9.
Fitted (xatnpticpéva). Lit., adjusted. See on mending, Matt. iv. 21; perfect, Matt. xxi. 16; Luke vi. 40; 1 Pet. v. 10. Not jitted by God for destruction, but in an adjectival sense, ready, ripe for destruction, the participle denoting a present state previously formed, but giving no hint of how it has been formed. An agency of some kind must be assumed. That the objects of final wrath had themselves a hand in the mat- ter may be seen from 1 Thess. ii. 15, 16. That the hand of God is also operative may be inferred from the whole drift of the chapter. “The apostle has probably chosen this form because the being ready certainly arises from a continual reciprocal action between human sin and the divine judg- ment of blindness and hardness. Every development of sin is a net-work of human offences and divine judgments” (Lange).