3:17 But to Adam 3 he said,
“Because you obeyed 4 your wife
and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,
‘You must not eat from it,’
cursed is the ground 5 thanks to you; 6
in painful toil you will eat 7 of it all the days of your life.
6:7 At Adam 8 they broke 9 the covenant;
Oh how 10 they were unfaithful 11 to me!
5:12 So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people 12 because 13 all sinned – 5:13 for before the law was given, 14 sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin 15 when there is no law. 5:14 Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam (who is a type 16 of the coming one) transgressed. 17 5:15 But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. 18 For if the many died through the transgression of the one man, 19 how much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ multiply to the many! 5:16 And the gift is not like the one who sinned. 20 For judgment, resulting from the one transgression, 21 led to condemnation, but 22 the gracious gift from the many failures 23 led to justification. 5:17 For if, by the transgression of the one man, 24 death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ!
5:18 Consequently, 25 just as condemnation 26 for all people 27 came 28 through one transgression, 29 so too through the one righteous act 30 came righteousness leading to life 31 for all people. 5:19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man 32 many 33 were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one man 34 many 35 will be made righteous.
1 tn The Hebrew construction in this sentence uses an independent nominative absolute (formerly known as a casus pendens). “The woman” is the independent nominative absolute; it is picked up by the formal subject, the pronoun “she” written with the verb (“she gave”). The point of the construction is to throw the emphasis on “the woman.” But what makes this so striking is that a relative clause has been inserted to explain what is meant by the reference to the woman: “whom you gave me.” Ultimately, the man is blaming God for giving him the woman who (from the man’s viewpoint) caused him to sin.
2 tn The words “some fruit” here and the pronoun “it” at the end of the sentence are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied for stylistic reasons.
3 tn Since there is no article on the word, the personal name is used, rather than the generic “the man” (cf. NRSV).
4 tn The idiom “listen to the voice of” often means “obey.” The man “obeyed” his wife and in the process disobeyed God.
5 sn For the ground to be cursed means that it will no longer yield its bounty as the blessing from God had promised. The whole creation, Paul writes in Rom 8:22, is still groaning under this curse, waiting for the day of redemption.
6 tn The Hebrew phrase בַּעֲבוּרֶךָ (ba’avurekha) is more literally translated “on your account” or “because of you.” The idiomatic “thanks to you” in the translation tries to capture the point of this expression.
7 sn In painful toil you will eat. The theme of eating is prominent throughout Gen 3. The prohibition was against eating from the tree of knowledge. The sin was in eating. The interrogation concerned the eating from the tree of knowledge. The serpent is condemned to eat the dust of the ground. The curse focuses on eating in a “measure for measure” justice. Because the man and the woman sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, God will forbid the ground to cooperate, and so it will be through painful toil that they will eat.
8 tn Or “Like Adam”; or “Like [sinful] men.” The MT reads כְּאָדָם (kÿ’adam, “like Adam” or “as [sinful] men”); however, the editors of BHS suggest this reflects an orthographic confusion of בְּאָדָם (bÿ’adam, “at Adam”), as suggested by the locative adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”) in the following line. However, שָׁם sometimes functions in a nonlocative sense similar to the deictic particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “Behold!”). The singular noun אָדָם (’adam) has been taken in several different ways: (1) proper name: “like Adam” (כְּאָדָם), (2) collective singular: “like [sinful] men” (כְּאָדָם), (3) proper location: “at Adam,” referring to a city in the Jordan Valley (Josh 3:16), emending comparative כְּ (kaf) to locative בְּ (bet, “at”): “at Adam” (בְּאָדָם). BDB 9 s.v. אָדָם 2 suggests the collective sense, referring to sinful men (Num 5:6; 1 Kgs 8:46; 2 Chr 6:36; Jer 10:14; Job 31:33; Hos 6:7). The English versions are divided: KJV margin, ASV, RSV margin, NASB, NIV, TEV margin, NLT “like Adam”; RSV, NRSV, TEV “at Adam”; KJV “like men.”
9 tn The verb עָבַר (’avar) refers here to breaking a covenant and carries the nuance “to overstep, transgress” (BDB 717 s.v. עָבַר 1.i). Cf. NAB “violated”; NRSV “transgressed.”
10 tn The adverb שָׁם (sham) normally functions in a locative sense meaning “there” (BDB 1027 s.v. שָׁם). This is how it is translated by many English versions (e.g., KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). However, in poetry שָׁם sometimes functions in a nonlocative sense to introduce expressions of astonishment or when a scene is vividly visualized in the writer’s imagination (see BDB 1027 s.v. 1.a.β), or somewhat similar to the deictic particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “Behold!”): “See [שָׁם] how the evildoers lie fallen!” (Ps 36:13); “Listen! The cry on the day of the
11 tn The verb בָּגַד (bagad, “to act treacherously”) is often used in reference to faithlessness in covenant relationships (BDB 93 s.v. בָּגַד).
12 tn Here ἀνθρώπους (anqrwpou") has been translated as a generic (“people”) since both men and women are clearly intended in this context.
13 tn The translation of the phrase ἐφ᾿ ᾧ (ef Jw) has been heavily debated. For a discussion of all the possibilities, see C. E. B. Cranfield, “On Some of the Problems in the Interpretation of Romans 5.12,” SJT 22 (1969): 324-41. Only a few of the major options can be mentioned here: (1) the phrase can be taken as a relative clause in which the pronoun refers to Adam, “death spread to all people in whom [Adam] all sinned.” (2) The phrase can be taken with consecutive (resultative) force, meaning “death spread to all people with the result that all sinned.” (3) Others take the phrase as causal in force: “death spread to all people because all sinned.”
14 tn Grk “for before the law.”
15 tn Or “sin is not reckoned.”
16 tn Or “pattern.”
17 tn Or “disobeyed”; Grk “in the likeness of Adam’s transgression.”
18 tn Grk “but not as the transgression, so also [is] the gracious gift.”
19 sn Here the one man refers to Adam (cf. 5:14).
20 tn Grk “and not as through the one who sinned [is] the gift.”
21 tn The word “transgression” is not in the Greek text at this point, but has been supplied for clarity.
22 tn Greek emphasizes the contrast between these two clauses more than can be easily expressed in English.
23 tn Or “falls, trespasses,” the same word used in vv. 15, 17, 18, 20.
24 sn Here the one man refers to Adam (cf. 5:14).
25 tn There is a double connective here that cannot be easily preserved in English: “consequently therefore,” emphasizing the conclusion of what he has been arguing.
26 tn Grk “[it is] unto condemnation for all people.”
27 tn Here ἀνθρώπους (anqrwpou") has been translated as a generic (“people”) since both men and women are clearly intended in this context.
28 tn There are no verbs in the Greek text of v. 18, forcing translators to supply phrases like “came through one transgression,” “resulted from one transgression,” etc.
29 sn One transgression refers to the sin of Adam in Gen 3:1-24.
30 sn The one righteous act refers to Jesus’ death on the cross.
31 tn Grk “righteousness of life.”
32 sn Here the one man refers to Adam (cf. 5:14).
33 tn Grk “the many.”
34 sn One man refers here to Jesus Christ.
35 tn Grk “the many.”