Romans 3:1

f. τὸ περισσὸν τοῦ Ἰουδαίου is that which the Jew has “over and above” the Gentile. τίς ἡ ὠφέλεια τῆς περιτομῆς; = “What good does his circumcision do him?” πολὺ goes with τὸ περισσόν. κατὰ πάντα τρόπον : however you choose to view the position. πρῶτον μὲν suggests that such an enumeration of Jewish prerogatives might have been made here as is given at length in Romans 9:4 f. In point of fact, Paul mentions one only, in which the whole force of the Jewish objection to the arguments of chap. 2 is contained, and after disposing of it feels that he has settled the question, and passes on. The first, most weighty, and most far-reaching advantage of the Jews, is that “they were entrusted with the oracles of God”. They were made in His grace the depositaries and guardians of revelation. τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ must be regarded as the contents of revelation, having God as their author, and at the time when Paul wrote, identical with the O.T. Scriptures. In the LXX the word λόγιον occurs mainly as the equivalent of אִמְרָה, which in various passages (e.g., Psalms 119:38) has the sense of “promise”; in ordinary Greek it means “oracle,” the Divine word given at a shrine, and usually referring to the future; hence it would be natural in using it to think of the prophetic rather than the statutory element in the O.T., and this is what is required here. The O.T. as a whole, and as a revelation of God, has a forward look; it anticipates completion and excites hope; and it is not too much to say that this is suggested by describing it as τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ. The sum of it was that God had promised to His people “a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11 : see margin, R.V.), and this promise seemed threatened by the argument of the last chapter.