13:8 Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no quarreling between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are close relatives. 4
12:14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.
2:1 8 Therefore 9 you are without excuse, 10 whoever you are, 11 when you judge someone else. 12 For on whatever grounds 13 you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.
2:1 But as for you, communicate the behavior that goes with 20 sound teaching.
1 tn The Hebrew term רִיב (riv) means “strife, conflict, quarreling.” In later texts it has the meaning of “legal controversy, dispute.” See B. Gemser, “The rîb – or Controversy – Pattern in Hebrew Mentality,” Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East [VTSup], 120-37.
2 sn Since the quarreling was between the herdsmen, the dispute was no doubt over water and vegetation for the animals.
3 tn This parenthetical clause, introduced with the vav (ו) disjunctive (translated “now”), again provides critical information. It tells in part why the land cannot sustain these two bedouins, and it also hints of the danger of weakening the family by inner strife.
4 tn Heb “men, brothers [are] we.” Here “brothers” describes the closeness of the relationship, but could be misunderstood if taken literally, since Abram was Lot’s uncle.
5 tn Heb “heavy.”
6 tn This parenthetical clause, introduced by the vav (ו) disjunctive (translated “now”), provides information necessary to the point of the story.
7 sn A quotation from Isa 52:5.
8 sn Rom 2:1-29 presents unusual difficulties for the interpreter. There have been several major approaches to the chapter and the group(s) it refers to: (1) Rom 2:14 refers to Gentile Christians, not Gentiles who obey the Jewish law. (2) Paul in Rom 2 is presenting a hypothetical viewpoint: If anyone could obey the law, that person would be justified, but no one can. (3) The reference to “the ones who do the law” in 2:13 are those who “do” the law in the right way, on the basis of faith, not according to Jewish legalism. (4) Rom 2:13 only speaks about Christians being judged in the future, along with such texts as Rom 14:10 and 2 Cor 5:10. (5) Paul’s material in Rom 2 is drawn heavily from Diaspora Judaism, so that the treatment of the law presented here cannot be harmonized with other things Paul says about the law elsewhere (E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 123); another who sees Rom 2 as an example of Paul’s inconsistency in his treatment of the law is H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law [WUNT], 101-9. (6) The list of blessings and curses in Deut 27–30 provide the background for Rom 2; the Gentiles of 2:14 are Gentile Christians, but the condemnation of Jews in 2:17-24 addresses the failure of Jews as a nation to keep the law as a whole (A. Ito, “Romans 2: A Deuteronomistic Reading,” JSNT 59 [1995]: 21-37).
9 tn Some interpreters (e.g., C. K. Barrett, Romans [HNTC], 43) connect the inferential Διό (dio, “therefore”) with 1:32a, treating 1:32b as a parenthetical comment by Paul.
10 tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).
11 tn Grk “O man.”
12 tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”
13 tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”
14 tn Or “pattern.”
15 tn Or “disobeyed”; Grk “in the likeness of Adam’s transgression.”
16 tn Or “sensible.”
17 tn Grk “domestic,” “keeping house.”
18 tn Or “word.”
19 tn Or “slandered.”
20 tn Grk “say what is fitting for sound teaching” (introducing the behavior called for in this chapter.).
21 tn Grk “training us” (as a continuation of the previous clause). Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started at the beginning of v. 12 by translating the participle παιδεύουσα (paideuousa) as a finite verb and supplying the pronoun “it” as subject.
22 tn Grk “ungodliness.”