Romans 3:10-12

“ As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become useless; there is none that doeth good, no, not even one. ”

These six sentences are taken from Psalms 14:1-3. At the first glance, this psalm seems to be depicting the wickedness of the Gentiles only; comp. Romans 3:4: “They eat up my people, as if they were eating bread.” But on looking at it more closely, it is clear that the term my people denotes the true people of Jehovah, “the afflicted” (Romans 3:6), in opposition to the proud and violent as well within as without the theocracy. This delineation therefore applies to the moral character of man, so long as he remains beyond the influence of divine action.

Ver. 10 contains the most general statement. Instead of the word righteous, there is in the Hebrew: the man that doeth good, which comes to the same thing.

The two terms which follow in Romans 3:11 have a more particular sense. The first is related to the understanding: the knowledge of the Creator in His works; the second to the will: the aspiration after union with this perfect being. The Sinaït., like most of the Mjj., reads the article ὁ before the two participles. This article is in keeping with the meaning of the psalm. God is represented as seeking that one man and not finding him. We may accentuate συνιῶν as an unusual participle of συνιέω, or συνίων, from the verb συνίω, which sometimes takes the place of the verb συνίημι.

In the case where positive good is not produced (seeking after God), the heart immediately falls under the dominion of evil; this state is described in general terms, Romans 3:12.

᾿Εκκλίνειν, to deviate, to go in a bad way, because one has voluntarily fled from the good (Romans 3:11). ᾿Αχρειοῦσθαι, to become useless, unfit for good, corresponds to the Hebrew alach, to become sour, to be spoiled.

The sixth proposition reproduces, by way of resumé, the idea of the first. Mankind resembles a caravan which has strayed, and is moving in the direction opposite to the right one, and whose members can do nothing to help one another in their common misery (do good).

Here begins a second and more particular description, that of human wickedness manifesting itself in the form of speech.