Romans 3:1-2 - Exposition

What advantage then hath the Jew! or what is the profit of circumcision! Much ( πολὺ , a neuter adjective, agreeing with τὸ περισσὸν ) every way (not by all means; the meaning is that in all respects the position of the Jew is an advantageous one): first (rather than chiefly, as in the Authorized Version. One point of advantage is specified, which might have been followed by a secondly and a thirdly, etc. But the writer stops here, the mention of this first being sufficient for his purpose. Others are enumerated, so as to elucidate the purport of κατὰ πάντα τρύπον , in Romans 9:4 , Romans 9:5 ) for that they (the Jews) were entrusted with the oracles of God . The word λόγια (always used in the plural in the New Testament) occurs also in Acts 7:38 ; Hebrews 5:12 ; 1 Peter 4:11 . Of these passages the most apposite is Acts 7:38 , where the Divine communications to Moses on Mount Sinai are spoken of as λόγια ζῶντα (cf. Numbers 24:4 , Numbers 24:16 , where Balaam speaks of himself as ἀκούων λόγια θεοῦ ). Some (as Meyer), in view of the supposed, reference in the following verse to the Jews rejection of the gospel, take the word λόγια here to mean especially the revealed promises of the Redeemer. But neither the word itself nor its use elsewhere suggests any such limited meaning; nor does the context really require it. It may denote generally the Divine revelations of the Old Testament, which, for the eventual benefit of mankind, had been entrusted exclusively to the Jews.