Roma 4:19

4:19 Without being weak in faith, he considered ¹  his own body as dead ²  (because he was about one hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

Roma 9:5

9:5 To them belong the patriarchs, ³  and from them, ⁴  by human descent, ⁵  came the Christ, ⁶  who is God over all, blessed forever! ⁷  Amen.

[4:19]  ¹ tc Most mss (D F G Ψ 33 1881 Ï it) read “he did not consider” by including the negative particle (οὐ, ou), but others (א A B C 6 81 365 1506 1739 pc co) lack οὐ. The reading which includes the negative particle probably represents a scribal attempt to exalt the faith of Abraham by making it appear that his faith was so strong that he did not even consider the physical facts. But “here Paul does not wish to imply that faith means closing one’s eyes to reality, but that Abraham was so strong in faith as to be undaunted by every consideration” (TCGNT 451). Both on external and internal grounds, the reading without the negative particle is preferred.

[4:19]  ² tc ‡ Most witnesses (א A C D Ψ 33 Ï bo) have ἤδη (hdh, “already”) at this point in v. 19. But B F G 630 1739 1881 pc lat sa lack it. Since it appears to heighten the style of the narrative and since there is no easy accounting for an accidental omission, it is best to regard the shorter text as original. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating doubt as to its authenticity.

[9:5]  ³ tn Grk “of whom are the fathers.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[9:5]  ⁴ tn Grk “from whom.” Here the relative pronoun has been replaced by a personal pronoun.

[9:5]  ⁵ tn Grk “according to the flesh.”

[9:5]  ⁶ tn Or “Messiah.” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed.”)

[9:5]  ⁷ tn Or “the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever,” or “the Messiah. God who is over all be blessed forever!” or “the Messiah who is over all. God be blessed forever!” The translational difficulty here is not text-critical in nature, but is a problem of punctuation. Since the genre of these opening verses of Romans 9 is a lament, it is probably best to take this as an affirmation of Christ’s deity (as the text renders it). Although the other renderings are possible, to see a note of praise to God at the end of this section seems strangely out of place. But for Paul to bring his lament to a crescendo (that is to say, his kinsmen had rejected God come in the flesh), thereby deepening his anguish, is wholly appropriate. This is also supported grammatically and stylistically: The phrase ὁ ὢν (Jo wn, “the one who is”) is most naturally taken as a phrase which modifies something in the preceding context, and Paul’s doxologies are always closely tied to the preceding context. For a detailed examination of this verse, see B. M. Metzger, “The Punctuation of Rom. 9:5,” Christ and the Spirit in the New Testament, 95-112; and M. J. Harris, Jesus as God, 144-72.