Romans 3:9-20

sums up the impeachment of mankind.

Romans 3:9. Paul has beaten down Jewish counter-pleas; he and his fellow-believers (we) might be supposed to have some apology in reserve: What then? do we make any defence? (mg.). Not in the least! for we have already charged Jews and Greeks alike with being all under the power of sin.

Romans 3:10. The universal accusation is restated by a string of OT sentences (p. 805) gathered, with the exception of Romans 3:15 (Isaiah 59:7 f.), from the Psalter, which poignantly depict the sinfulness of mankind. Two things are conspicuous in this sad catena: the world's unrighteousness is traced to a want of understanding about God (Romans 3:11; Romans 3:18; cf. Romans 1:18); here cruelty, the wrong of man toward man, predominates, as foulness, the wrong of man toward himself, did in ch. 1.

Romans 3:19 f. resumes the thread of Romans 3:9: We know, moreover, that in whatsoever things the law pronounces, it speaks to those within its scope, that every mouth may be stopped (Jewish mouths particularly), and all the world may find itself obnoxious to God's judgment; because by works of law, etc. (Psalms 143:2). For through law comes the fuller knowledge of sin: this concluding sentence awaits explanation in ch. 7 (cf. p. 823).