2:25 For circumcision 4 has its value if you practice the law, but 5 if you break the law, 6 your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
2:1 7 Therefore 8 you are without excuse, 9 whoever you are, 10 when you judge someone else. 11 For on whatever grounds 12 you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.
1 tn The plural Greek term ἄνθρωποι (anqrwpoi) is used here in a generic sense, referring to both men and women, and is thus translated “people.”
2 tn Grk “by something greater”; the rest of the comparison (“than themselves”) is implied.
3 tn Grk “the oath for confirmation is an end of all dispute.”
4 sn Circumcision refers to male circumcision as prescribed in the OT, which was given as a covenant to Abraham in Gen 17:10-14. Its importance for Judaism can hardly be overstated: According to J. D. G. Dunn (Romans [WBC], 1:120) it was the “single clearest distinguishing feature of the covenant people.” J. Marcus has suggested that the terms used for circumcision (περιτομή, peritomh) and uncircumcision (ἀκροβυστία, akrobustia) were probably derogatory slogans used by Jews and Gentiles to describe their opponents (“The Circumcision and the Uncircumcision in Rome,” NTS 35 [1989]: 77-80).
5 tn This contrast is clearer and stronger in Greek than can be easily expressed in English.
6 tn Grk “if you should be a transgressor of the law.”
7 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).
8 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.
9 tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).
10 tn Grk “O man.”
11 tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”
12 tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”
13 tn Grk “they”; the referent (people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.