Romans 3:2

every way For a comment see Romans 9:4-5; part of an argument of which this verse may be regarded as the germ or first suggestion.

chiefly Lit. first. Perhaps this is the first step in an enumeration which is not carried on. Cp. Romans 1:8. But the rendering "chiefly" is quite possible and natural.

unto them were committed Lit. they were trusted with; for their own benefit in the first place, and then as the "keepers of Holy Writ" for the world for enquirers and proselytes under the Old Covenant, and for the universal Church under the New.

the oracles the utterances. Same word as Acts 8:38; Hebrews 5:12; 1 Peter 4:11. The Gr. word is occasionally used in the LXX. for ordinary human utterances; e.g. Psalms 19 (LXX. 18):14: "the wordsof my mouth." The context of the passages of N. T. just quoted leaves no doubt that it refers here to the utterances of God through the prophets of the Old Covenant; in short, to the O. T. Scriptures. The Apostle's testimony to the unique dignity of the Scripture Revelation could not be stronger. And so when he elsewhere contrasts "letter" and "spirit," his meaning, whatever it is, is not to diminish the Divine authority of the written "oracles."