Romans 8:20

was made subject Apparently, at the Fall. Not that there was no animal suffering and death previously. God pronounced His creation "good;" but this "goodness" may mean only goodness in respect to its then work and purpose;and this may have included death and suffering, as in fact it seems to have done. (1 Corinthians 15:21 refers to human death, as that alone is in question there.) From Genesis 3:17-19 we find that somechange for the worse passed over man's abode when he fell; a change impossible now to define. But it may be that all distress and failure in creation are, in the sight of the Eternal, connected with the entrance of sin, whether or no they have followed the Fall in order of time.

vanity Same word as Eph 4:17; 2 Peter 2:18. The word means evil, whether physical or moral, regarded as (what all evil ultimately proves to be) delusion and failure.

not willingly See note just above on "The Creature." The word here implies merely the absence of personal wrong and demerit in the subject of the change.

by reason of him, &c. Who was this? It is very difficult to decide whether it is (a) the Tempter, who procured the Fall; (b) Man, who fell; or (c) the Judge who punished the Fall. But we incline to the latter, because the next words point to Hopein a way that suggests the connexion of a Promise with the subjugation. The sin-caused "vanity" was thus inflicted "by reason of" the righteous doom of God.

in hope These words form a brief clause by themselves.