Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 51:203 (Jul 1894)
Article: Another Rendering Of Romans 9:3.
Author: Samuel Hutchings

BSac 51:203 (July 1894) p. 511

Another Rendering Of Romans 9:3.

Samuel Hutchings

Orange, N. J.

The rendering of this passage in the Authorized and Revised Versions is adopted by nearly all the commentators, including Stuart, Hodge, Calvin, and Barnes. They assume that the original is capable of but one construction, but the objections to the common interpretation are so great, that, after careful examination, I am convinced it cannot be the true one.

BSac 51:203 (July 1894) p. 512

1. The verb is in the indicative, not the optative, mood, and imperative necessity alone can justify the giving the sense of the optative to the indicative. The classics are appealed to as authority for this anomaly. Whether the examples cited require such a rendering can be decided only by the connection. The sense of the passage must determine it. But even if such an occasional construction in the classics, and that too in poetry, were allowed, it would not follow that in a plain prose sentence in the New Testament we must give to the indicative the sense of the optative.

Two other passages in the New Testament are quoted in proof that the indicative is used for the optative. Thus (Acts 25:22), “I also could wish to hear the man myself.” Agrippa had doubtless heard much of Jesus, as well as of Paul, and now, being informed by Festus that the apostle had been accused by the Jews, the king says, “I wished, or was wishing, [ἐβουλόμην] to hear him myself.” As if he had said, “Is this the Paul of whom I have heard so much? It has been my desire to hear him, and I am glad of this opportunity.” Again, in Gal. 4:20, according to the Revised Version, “I could wish [ἤθελον, imper. indic] to be present.” The common version renders it by the present: “I desire.” But why should not the imperfect indicative here have the usual sense? Paul says: “I desired [that is, from the time that I heard of your defection from the gospel] to be present with you.”

2. The next objection to the usual exegesis is that it makes Paul willing to be excluded from all hope of salvation, involving not only endless suffering, but also positive enmity toward Christ forever. We can conceive that Paul might be willing to endure all temporal evils for the sake of his brethren, even to the sacrifice of his life. This, Mr. Barnes says, is all that is meant, repudiating the idea that the apostle is willing to be lost forever. But this cannot be the meaning, for the most intense physical sufferings might be endured without separation from Christ.

Calvin says: “The additio...