Thousands of Hasidim in black hats and coats crowd around a long white table at a Rebbe's tish under a lit canopy at night. — Yehudim יְהוּדִים

Tribal men in feathered headbands and fiber skirts advance through a forest clearing carrying bows, spears and blades. — Yevanim · the Goyim גּוֹיִם

A tish of the Boyan Hasidic dynasty in Yerushalayim on Sukkot, 2009. Photograph by Eli Segal, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Men of an inland tribe at war practice in a forest clearing. Image supplied for this exhibit.

Two painted scenes side by side. Left: Jim Elliot, wounded by a spear, kneels in the jungle as Waorani warriors stand behind him. Right: William Tyndale stands bound to a stake as flames rise around him.

Two who carried the Besuras HaGeulah to those under chet kadmon, and died at their hands. Jim Elliot was speared by Waorani warriors on the Curaray River in Ecuador in January 1956. William Tyndale, translator of the Scriptures into English, was strangled and burned at Vilvoorde near Brussels in 1536. Illustration supplied for this exhibit.

The patient in critical condition in a hospital bed — Figure 1: Linda the v.p. of AFII filling up in her body what is left of His Sufferings.

Close-up view of the wound — Figure 2: Close-up view of terrible wound on her back and on-going need for your prayers.

In one sentence: the atonement wounds have been healed by His resurrection, but the tribulations of missionaries that come with bringing His Saving Wounds before the nations are not all healed, and Paul gladly takes his portion of them (Col 1:24) so the body of Messiah bears less.

Exhibit · Romans 3:9

Under the Power of Chet

כֻּלָּם תַּחַת הַחֵטְא

Both Jews and non-Jews are under the power of Chet Kadmon, the first sin the power of which holds every human being under its sway, causing the Mevaser (מְבַשֵּׂר) or "messenger," "herald," or "one who brings good news / tidings" to often bear the fate of an unwelcome, suffering intruder.

IThe Verse

Romans 3:9 · Shaul's indictment closes

Koine Greek

Τί οὖν; προεχόμεθα; οὐ πάντως· προῃτιασάμεθα γὰρ Ἰουδαίους τε καὶ Ἕλληνας πάντας ὑφ’ ἁμαρτίαν εἶναι.

Exhibit rendering, OJB register

What then? Are we (Yehudim) better off? Not altogether. For we have now charged both Yehudim and non-Jews as all alike under (the) Chet (Sin, i.e., the power of Chet Kadmon Ro 7:9,23).

This verse is the hinge of the opening argument of Romans. From 1:18 Shaul has prosecuted the nations: they suppressed the emes about Hashem and traded His kavod for images. From 2:1 he turns the same court on his own people, who hold the Torah and teach it, yet break it. Here in 3:9 the two cases are joined into one verdict. No one stands outside the courtroom.

IIThree Words

Reading the Greek closely

προεχόμεθαproechometha · "are we better off?"

A rare verb, and its voice is debated. Read as middle, it asks whether Israel can hold up some shield in its defense. Read as passive, it asks whether Israel is now outdone by the nations. Either way the answer is ou pantos, "not at all." Shaul has just affirmed in 3:2 that Israel was entrusted with the oracles of G-d. Privilege is real. Immunity is not.

προῃτιασάμεθαproētiasametha · "we previously charged"

Found only here in the Brit Chadasha. It is the language of a court filing: the aitia is the charge written over the accused. Shaul points back to the indictment he has already entered in chapters 1 and 2. Like a beis din reading the counts aloud, he now pronounces both defendants guilty on the same charge.

ὑφ’ ἁμαρτίανhyph’ hamartian · "under chet"

Not "having sinned," but "under sin," as a slave is under his master. Shaul uses the same construction for being tachat haTorah (ὑπὸ νόμον) and in 7:14, "sold under chet." Chet here is a ruling power, almost a person, which entered the world in 5:12 and has reigned since. Ἕλληνας, "Yevanim," is Shaul's term for the whole non-Jewish world.

IIIChet Kadmon

The first sin and its dominion

Linda Goble, the v.p. of AFII.org, corresponded with Eizabeth Elliot, Jim Elliot's wife, not knowing at the time that she (Linda Goble, A/G U.S. missionary), would have to go through suffering herself. To reach the Waorani language speakers (#6710) required Jim Elliot's suffering and Elizabeth Elliot going into the Ecuadorean Rain Forest Jungle and sitting with the naked savages that killed her husband and having them help her translate the Bible into their Waorani language. In Romans 3:9 Shaul says "all," with no exception for the tzaddikim at the tish or for the "innocent" in the forest! Because the power named in Romans 3:9 did not begin with any one of them. Two chapters later he names its door: through one man chet entered the world, and mavet through chet, and so mavet passed to all bnei Adam (Ro 5:12). That is Chet Kadmon, the primordial sin of Adam HaRishon, the reason the Bride of Revelation 19:7 would be under sin and wrath if the Elizabeth Elliot's and the Linda Goble's did not "endure hardship and do the work of a mevaser" 2Tim 4:5.

The Tanakh had already confessed the universality of chet long before Shaul wrote:

כִּי אָדָם אֵין צַדִּיק בָּאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂה טּוֹב וְלֹא יֶחֱטָא

For there is not a tzaddik upon earth that does good and sins not.

Kohelet 7:20

הֵן בְּעָווֹן חוֹלָלְתִּי וּבְחֵטְא יֶחֱמַתְנִי אִמִּי

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in chet did my mother conceive me.

Tehillim 51:7 (Eng. 51:5)

כִּי אֵין אָדָם אֲשֶׁר לֹא יֶחֱטָא

For there is no man that sins not.

Melachim Alef 8:46

The Sages knew the problem as well. In Talmud Bavli Shabbat 146a, the nachash in Gan Eden is said to have cast a zuhamah, a defilement, into Chavah. The Gemara then teaches that Israel's zuhamah ceased when they stood at Har Sinai, while the zuhamah of the nations did not cease. Romans 3:9 answers that tradition directly. Shaul, himself a talmid of the Tanna Rabban Gamliel, says Sinai gave Israel the Torah, but the Torah did not lift the yoke of chet. In 3:20 he adds that through the Torah, that "worketh ketzef/za'am" (Ro 1:18; 4:15), comes the knowledge of chet. The Jew at the Rebbe's table and the savage warrior in the forest carry the same inheritance of lostness and peril from Adam.

IVThe Tish and the War Band

Reading the two photographs

The two images at the head of this exhibit stand as far apart as the human family allows. Shaul chose his words to cover exactly that distance.

Yehudim

Thousands of Hasidim crowd the Rebbe's table on Sukkot in Yerushalayim. They are heirs of the covenant, the avot, the Torah and the avodah (Ro 9:4). Every advantage of Romans 3:2 is present at this table.

Yevanim

Men of a tribe far from Sinai advance through a forest with bows and spears. They have no Torah scroll, only the witness of creation and of conscience (Ro 1:20; 2:14–15).

One verdict over both: ὑφ’ ἁμαρτίαν

The second pair of images shows what that power does when the besorah comes near. Waorani spears killed Jim Elliot in the jungle. A religious court, guardians of the faith of their day, condemned William Tyndale for putting the Scriptures into the tongue of the people. Chet ruled the warriors and the churchmen alike. Yet in the years after 1956 many Waorani came to emunah, among them men who had held the spears.

Neither photograph is an accusation against the people in it. Shaul's point is that his own people's piety does not exempt them, and the nations' distance does not excuse them. Romans 3:22–23 says it plainly: there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the kavod of G-d.

VThe Catena

Romans 3:10–18 · the Tanakh testifies

Shaul does not rest the charge of 3:9 on his own word. He calls witnesses from the Tanakh, stringing together a chain of texts in the manner of a rabbinic charuz. They move from the heart to the throat, tongue, lips, mouth, feet and eyes, until the whole person stands accused.

Romans	Charge	Witness
3:10–12	No one is righteous, no one seeks Hashem, all have turned aside	Tehillim 14:1–3; 53:2–4
3:13a	Their throat is an open grave	Tehillim 5:10 (Eng. 5:9)
3:13b	The venom of asps is under their lips	Tehillim 140:4 (Eng. 140:3)
3:14	Their mouth is full of curse and bitterness	Tehillim 10:7
3:15–17	Feet swift to shed blood; they do not know the way of shalom	Yeshayah 59:7–8; Mishlei 1:16
3:18	No fear of Elohim before their eyes	Tehillim 36:2 (Eng. 36:1)

Then comes the closing argument of 3:19. Whatever the Torah says, it says to those under the Torah, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world held accountable to G-d. If Israel's own Scriptures pronounce this verdict over Israel, then the nations cannot escape it either.

VIFrom Chet to Geulah

Romans 3:21–26 · the door opens

The verdict of 3:9 is the dark ground for the light of 3:21. "But now," apart from the Torah, the tzedakah of G-d has been revealed, witnessed by the Torah and the Nevi'im. It comes through emunah in Moshiach Yeshua, to all who believe. The same "all" who stood under chet in 3:9 are offered geulah in 3:24. Hashem set forth Moshiach as the kapporah, the ἱλαστήριον, the mercy seat of 3:25.

Reading Key

Read Romans 3:9 and 10:12 together. In 3:9 there is no distinction because both are under chet. In 10:12 there is no distinction because the same Adon is Lord of all, rich toward all who call on Him. Shaul levels the ground in judgment so that he can level it again in mercy. The Hasid at the tish and the warrior in the forest meet at the same kapporah.

VIIContinue in the Interlinear

Romans chapters cited in this exhibit

Romans 1 Romans 2 Romans 3 Romans 5 Romans 7 Romans 10