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µέμφεται "; τῷ γὰρ βουλήματι * αὐτοῦ tls ἀνθέστηκε; 20. μενούνγε, ὦ w Heb. viii. ἄνθρωπε.] ” σὺ τίς et 6 ἀνταποκρινόμενος * τῷ O€G ; μὴ ἐρεῖ τὸ πλάσμα * Actsxxvii.
~ , τῷ πλάσαντι, Τί µε ἐποίησας οὕτως; 21. ἢ οὐκ ἔχει ἐξουσίαν 6
43; 1 Pet. iv. 3. y Ch. ii. 1-3
c
kepapets* τοῦ πηλοῦ, ἐκ τοῦ αὐτοῦ φυράµατος ποιῆσαι ὃ μὲν eis 2 age a Jer. c. 18; Isaiah xlv. 9; Sir, xxxvi. (xxxiii.) 13; Sap. xv. 7.
1 » ανθρωπε stands before pevovvye in 3 ΑΒ (B omits ye), and so in all crit. edd.
It was through God, in the last resort, that Moses and Pharaoh were what they were, signal instances of the Divine mercy and the Divine wrath.
Ver. 19 ff. But human nature is not so easily silenced. This interpretation of all human life, with all its diversities of character and experience, through the will of God alone, as if that will by itself explained everything, is not adequate to the facts. If Moses and Pharaoh alike are to be explained by reference to that will—that is, are to be explained in pre- cisely the same way—then the difference between Moses and Pharaoh disappears. The moral interpretation of the world is annulled by the religious one. If God is equally behind the most opposite moral phenomena, then it is open to any one to say, what Paul here anticipates will be said, τί ἔτι µέμφεται: why does he still find fault? For who withstands his resolve? To this objection there is really no answer, and it ought to be frankly admitted that the Apostle does not answer it. The attempt to understand the rela- tion between the human will and the Divine seems to lead of necessity to an antinomy which thought has not as yet succeeded in transcending. To assert the absoluteness of God in the unexplained unqualified sense of verse 18 makes the moral life unintelligible; but to explain the .moral life by ascribing to man a freedom which makes him stand in in- dependence over against God reduces the universe to anarchy. Up to this point Paul has been insisting on the former point of view, and he insists on it still as against the human presumption which would plead its rights against God; but in the very act of doing so he passes over (in ver. 22) to an intermediate stand- point, showing that God has not in point of fact acted arbitrarily, in a freedom un- controlled by moral law; and from that again he advances in the following chapter to do full justice to the other side of the antinomy—the liberty and responsibility ofman. The act of Israel, as well as the will of God, lies behind the painful situa- tion he is trying to understand.
Ver. 20. ὦ ἄνθρωπε is not used con-
temptuously, but it is set intentionally over against τῷ θεῷ: the objector is re- minded emphatically of what he is, and of the person to whom he is speaking. It is not for a man to adopt this tone to- ward God, For pevotvye cf. x. 18, Phil. iii. 8; the idea is, So far from your having the right to raise such objections, it is rather for me to ask, Who art thou? etc. Paul, as has been observed above, does not refute, but repels the objection. It is inconsistent, he urges, with the relation of the creature to the Creator. μὴ ἐρεῖ κ.τ.λ. Surely the thing formed shall not say, etc. The first words of the quotation are from Isa. xxix. 16: μὴ ἐρεῖ τὸ πλάσμα τῷ πλάσαντι αὐτό OW σύ µε ἔπλασας; ἢ τὸ ποίηµα τῷ ποιή- σαντι Οὐ συνετῶς µε ἐποίησας; The fact that the words originally refer to Israel] as a nation, and to God’s shaping of its destiny, does not prove in the least that Paul is dealing with nations, and not with individuals, here. He never pays any attention to the original appli- cation of the O.T. words he uses; and neither Moses nor Pharaoh nor the person addressed as ὦ Gv@pwie is anation. The person addressed is one who feels that the principle enunciated in ver. 18 must be qualified somehow, and so he makes the protest against it which Paul attempts in this summary fashion to repress. A man is not a thing, and if the whole explana- tion of his destiny is to be sought in the bare will of God, he will say, Why didst Thou make me thus? and not even the authority of Paul will silence him.