Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Romans 7:1-25, Bound while the husband lives
A wife is bound to her husband only while he lives, and believers have died to the law to belong to Christ. Then Paul describes a divided self that knows the good and cannot do it.
Romans 7:1-25, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul uses marriage law to make a point: a wife is free to remarry once her husband dies, and believers have likewise died to the law through Christ and now belong to him. He insists the law itself is holy and good, but sin used it as a foothold and brought death. He then speaks in the first person of a self that wants the good and does the opposite, ending in a cry of despair and then thanks to God; who this speaker is remains debated.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/marriage-and-divorce\/","n":"Divorce and the certificate","s":"A Jewish husband ended a marriage, or a betrothal, by handing his wife a written certificate before witnesses that left her free to marry again, and the teachers argued over the grounds. In Greek and Roman law either partner could end a marriage by leaving.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/teachers-of-the-law\/","n":"Teachers of the law","s":"Trained experts in the law of Moses, also called scribes, some local and some from Jerusalem, who taught by citing earlier teachers.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sages-and-philosophers\/","n":"Philosophers and their schools","s":"Stoics, Epicureans and other schools taught a whole way of life in lecture halls and marketplaces. A traveling teacher with a message about God would be heard, and judged, as one more philosopher.","r":""}
Under biblical law both death and divorce ended a marriage, and Paul uses the one that fits his picture (Keener); some Jewish traditions pictured God's people married to the law (the cultural backgrounds notes). The ESV Study Bible takes the law in verse 1 to be the law of Moses, known to Jews and to Gentiles familiar with the Old Testament. Greek interpreters read laws by their principle, while Palestinian Jews attended to exact wording, down to letters and spellings (Keener). Jewish teachers said study of the law overcame the evil impulse, philosophers spoke of reason at war with the passions, and many Diaspora Jews held that a mind informed by the law could master the passions (Keener; the cultural backgrounds article Flesh and Spirit). The article notes that Paul does not share this confidence: the mind too can be ruled by the flesh (verses 23 and 25). Keener says the cry of verse 24 was a familiar way of voicing despair. Who the I is remains debated: Keener reads it as Paul's own past under the law seen in hindsight, while Wright notes that a first-person I speaking for something more general was common in the ancient world.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Romans 7:2-4, 7:6, 7:7-13, 7:9, 7:10-11, 7:15-22 and 7:24
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Romans 7:2, and article Flesh and Spirit
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Romans 7:1-3
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: Romans, Part One, comment on Romans 7:7-12
