Hypernotes on Galatians 2:15-21
We who are
Jews by nature and not sinners from the Gentiles
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h9mei=j fu/sei 0Ioudai=oi
kai\ ou0k e0c e0qnw=n a9martwloi/
We by nature Jews
and not
from Gentiles sinners
1.
h9mei=j, “we,” is emphatic,
because it is unnecessary grammatically.
It heightens the contrast between Jews and Gentiles. In the light of the preceding context, the we
must refer to Jewish Christians like
Peter and Paul. Paul is thus laying down
common ground between himself and Peter.
Like a good debater/rhetorician, Paul starts with where his opponent is
at with the goal of moving that opponent toward his own position.
2.
fu/sei
0Ioudai=oi: “by nature Jews” Although the
word Ioudaios could refer merely to
someone from the southern region of
3.
kai\
ou0k e0c e0qnw=n a9martwloi/: “and not
sinners from the Gentiles” Since a
sinner for a Jew by definition would have been someone who violates the Jewish
Law, a Gentile literally was a sinner by definition. By very virtue of not being a Jew, all
Gentiles were, in one sense, violators of the Law by the very fact that they
were not Jews.
The
identification of Gentiles as sinners of course implied for many Jews a
disdainful sense of God’s disfavor on them.
A good example of this attitude is Psalms
of Solomon 17:21-25: “See, Lord, raise up for them their king, the son of
David, to rule over your servant Israel … Undergird him with the strength to
destroy the unrighteous rulers, to purge Jerusalem from Gentiles … to drive out the
sinners from the inheritance…”[1]