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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 September 2013
Although Romans has been heavily mined for scriptural allusions in recent years, the influence of Isaiah 49–50 on Rom 7.14-25 has gone largely unnoticed. Building on Philonenko's work on the allusion to Isa 50.1 in the phrase ‘sold under sin’ (Rom 7.14), this study seeks to identify additional echoes from LXX Isa 49.24–50.2 in Rom 7.14-25 and to interpret Paul's discourse in the light of the sin–exile–restoration paradigm implied by both the source's original context and Paul's own strategic use of Isaiah in his portrayal of the plight of ἐγώ. The identification of these echoes, it is suggested, aids in interpreting the story of ἐγώ by connecting the allusions to Israel's early history in Rom 7.7-13 to images of the nation's later history in 7.14-25, thus showing the speaker's plight under sin to be analogous to Israel's own experiences of deception, death, and exile.
I wish to thank Ben Blackwell, Jason Maston, John Barclay, and the anonymous NTS reviewer for their helpful comments on this article.
1 For these topics in recent debate, see, e.g., Wilder, Terry L., ed., Perspectives on Our Struggle with Sin: Three Views of Romans 7 (Nashville: B&H, 2011)Google Scholar. This text and these topics were also quite important in Stendahl, Krister's seminal essay, ‘The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West’, HTR 56 (1963) 199–215CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 While some interpreters maintain a strict distinction between allusions and echoes, in this essay these terms are used interchangeably to refer to ‘the nonformal invocation by an author of a text (or person, event, etc.) that the author could reasonably have been expected to know’ (Porter, Stanley E., ‘The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament: A Brief Comment on Method and Terminology’, Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel: Investigations and Proposals [ed. Evans, C. A. and Sanders, J. A.; JSNTSup 148; SSEJC 5; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997] 79–96, at 95Google Scholar).
3 On the importance of Scripture in Rom 7, see Watson, Francis, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (London: T&T Clark, 2004) 357–8Google Scholar: ‘If scriptural interpretation is of secondary importance elsewhere in Romans 5–8, this cannot be said of chapter 7. Many of the well-known problems of this chapter are resolved when it is understood as a highly distinctive reading of scriptural texts.’
4 Several scholars consider ‘sold under sin’ to be the thesis of Rom 7.14-25. Cf. Bornkamm, Günter, ‘Sin, Law and Death (Romans 7)’, Early Christian Experience (trans. Hammer, P.L.; New York: Harper & Row, 1969) 87–104Google Scholar, at 97; Käsemann, Ernst, Commentary on Romans (trans. Bromiley, G. W.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981) 204Google Scholar; Räisänen, Heikki, Paul and the Law (WUNT 29; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2d ed. 1987) 112Google Scholar.
5 Stuhlmacher, Peter, Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Commentary (trans. Hafemann, S. J.; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994) 115Google Scholar. Cf. Aletti, Jean-Noël, ‘Rm 7.7–25 encore une fois: enjeux et propositions’, NTS 48 (2002) 358–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 361; Burgland, Lane A., ‘Eschatological Tension and Existential Angst: “Now” and “Not Yet” in Romans 7:14–25 and 1QS11 (Community Rule, Manual of Discipline)’, CTQ 61 (1997) 163–76Google Scholar, at 166; Chang, Hae-Kyung, ‘The Christian Life in a Dialectical Tension? Romans 7:7-25 Reconsidered’, NovT 49 (2007) 257–80Google Scholar, at 273–274.
6 Moo, Douglas J., The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996) 454Google Scholar.
7 Jewett, Robert, Romans (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) 461Google Scholar.
8 Schlatter, Adolf, Romans: The Righteousness of God (trans. Schatzmann, S. S.; Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995) 164Google Scholar; Dunn, James D. G., Romans 1–8 (WBC 38a; Dallas: Word, 1988) 388Google Scholar; Shogren, Gary S., ‘The “Wretched Man” of Romans 7:14–25 as Reductio ad absurdum’, EvQ 72 (2000) 119–34Google Scholar, at 125; Kruse, Colin G., Paul's Letter to the Romans (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012) 306Google Scholar.
9 Michel, Otto, Der Brief an die Römer (KEK 4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 11. Aufl. 1957)Google Scholar 150 n. 4.
10 Grappe, Christian, ‘Qui me délivrera de ce corps de mort? L'Esprit de vie! Romains 7,24 et 8,2 comme éléments de typologie adamique’, Biblica 83 (2002) 472–92Google Scholar, at 488 n. 71; Wright, N. T., ‘The Letter to the Romans: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections’, NIB (ed. Keck, L. E. et al. ; 12 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon, 2002) 10.393–770Google Scholar, at 566, 571.
11 Against the allusion to 3 Kgdms 20.20 et al., see Murray, John, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968) 261Google Scholar; Morris, Leon, The Epistle to the Romans (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988) 291Google Scholar.
12 Philonenko, Marc, ‘Sur l'expression “vendu au péché” dans l’ “Epître aux Romains”,’ Revue de l'histoire des religions 103 (1986) 41–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; followed by Fitzmyer, Joseph A., Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AYBC 33; New York: Doubleday, 1993) 474Google Scholar; Goldingay, John, The Message of Isaiah 40–55: A Literary-Theological Commentary (London: T&T Clark, 2005) 396Google Scholar. Mark A. Seifrid, who shows no awareness of Philonenko's work, agrees that the phrase ‘reflects the language of Isa. 50:1’ (‘Romans’, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament [ed. Beale, G. K. and Carson, D. A.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007] 607–94Google Scholar, at 615; cf. 612-13); cf. Seifrid, Mark A., ‘The Subject of Rom 7:14-25’, NovT 34 (1992) 313–33Google Scholar, at 326 n. 42.
13 Hays, Richard B., ‘“Who Has Believed Our Message”: Paul's Reading of Isaiah’, The Conversion of the Imagination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) 25–49Google Scholar, at 41. Cf. Hays, Richard B., Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University, 1989) 30–1Google Scholar.
14 DSS texts and translations are from Martínez, Florentino García and Tigchelaar, Eibert J. C., eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1998)Google Scholar.
15 Philonenko, ‘vendu au péché’, 47.
16 Cf. Davila, James R., Liturgical Works (Eerdmans Commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001) 256Google Scholar; Reymond, Eric D., New Idioms within Old: Poetry and Parallelism in the Non-Masoretic Poems of 11Q5 (=11QPsa) (Early Judaism and its Literature 31; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011)Google Scholar 159, 167, 190 (Reymond's latter two references mistakenly cite Isa 50.11).
17 Käsemann, Romans, 200. Cf. Garlington, Don B., ‘Romans 7:14-25 and the Creation Theology of Paul’, TJ 11 (1990) 197–235, at 215Google Scholar.
18 Jewett, Romans, 461; Byron, John, Slavery Metaphors in Early Judaism and Pauline Christianity (WUNT 2/162; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003) 223Google Scholar.
19 Wilckens, Ulrich, Der Brief an die Römer (EKK 6/2; Zürich: Benziger; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1980)Google Scholar 86 n. 352; Byron, Slavery Metaphors, 223–6; Jewett, Romans, 462, 471; Harrill, J. Albert, Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006) 17–33Google Scholar, esp. 28–30; Maston, Jason, Divine and Human Agency in Second Temple Judaism and Paul: A Comparative Study (WUNT 2/297; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010) 144Google Scholar. Emma Wasserman reads the participles, and most of Rom 7, in light of Platonic moral psychology (The Death of the Soul in Romans 7: Sin, Death, and the Law in Light of Hellenistic Moral Psychology [WUNT 2/256; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008] 83, 96, 145Google Scholar).
20 For opposition to the author-centered approach, see Stanley, Christopher D., Arguing with Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of Paul (London: T&T Clark, 2004)Google Scholar; Moyise, Steve, Evoking Scripture: Seeing the Old Testament in the New (London: T&T Clark, 2008)Google Scholar. Stanley Porter supports an author-oriented approach, but has considerable reservations about Hays's criteria (‘Use of the Old Testament’, 83–4). Cf. Wilk, Florian, ‘Paul as User, Interpreter, and Reader of the Book of Isaiah’, Reading the Bible Intertextually (ed. Hays, R. B. et al. ; Waco: Baylor University, 2009) 83–99, at 86Google Scholar.
21 Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 30.
22 Hays, ‘Who Has Believed’, 37.
23 Hays refers to Deutero-Isaiah as Paul's ‘parade example’ of recurrence (‘Who Has Believed’, 37). Relying on the NA 27 list of OT allusions, Hays remarks, ‘[O]ut of the 50 allusions to Isaiah in the seven-letter [Pauline] corpus, 21 point to Isaiah 49–55’ (26). Cf. Shum, Shiu-Lun, Paul's Use of Isaiah in Romans: A Comparative Study of Paul's Letter to the Romans and the Sibylline and Qumran Sectarian Texts (WUNT 2/156; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002Google Scholar); Wilk, Florian, Die Bedeutung des Jesajabuches für Paulus (FRLANT 179; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wagner, J. Ross, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul ‘in Concert’ in the Letter to the Romans (NovTSup 101; Leiden: Brill, 2002)Google Scholar. For elsewhere in Paul, see, e.g., Gignilliat, Mark, Paul and Isaiah's Servants: Paul's Theological Reading of Isaiah 40–66 in 2 Corinthians 5:14–6:10 (LNTS 330; London: T&T Clark, 2007)Google Scholar; Harmon, Matthew S., She Must and Shall Go Free: Paul's Isaianic Gospel in Galatians (BZNW 168; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 Wagner, J. Ross, ‘Isaiah in Romans and Galatians’, Isaiah in the New Testament (ed. Moyise, S. and Menken, M. J. J.; The New Testament and the Scriptures of Israel; London: T&T Clark, 2005) 117–32Google Scholar, at 117.
25 Wagner, J. Ross, ‘The Heralds of Isaiah and the Mission of Paul: An Investigation of Paul's Use of Isaiah 51–55 in Romans’, The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources (ed. Stuhlmacher, P. and Janowski, B.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) 193–222Google Scholar, at 221. Citations include Isa 52.5 (Rom 2.24); Isa 52.7 (Rom 10.15); Isa 52.15 (Rom 15.21); Isa 53.1 (Rom 10.16); cf. Isa 52.11 (2 Cor 6.17). Allusions include Isa 51.1 (Rom 9.30-31); Isa 53.6, 11-12 (Rom 4.25; 8.32).
26 Isa 52.5 (Rom 2.24); Isa 10.22-23/28.22/1.9 (Rom 9.27-29); Isa 28.16 (Rom 10.11); Isa 65.2 (Rom 10.21); Isa 59.20-21/27.9 (Rom 11.26-27).
27 Wagner, Heralds of the Good News, 353.
28 For Paul's allusions to Isa 49–50, see Wilk, Die Bedeutung des Jesajabuches, 444; Wagner, Heralds of the Good News, 349; Harmon, She Must and Shall Go Free, 265.
29 Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 30.
30 Hays, ‘Who Has Believed’, 36 (original emphasis).
31 Translation from Pietsersma, Albert and Wright, Benjamin G., eds., A New English Translation of the Septuagint (Oxford: Oxford University, 2007)Google Scholar.
32 Note, however, the collective use of πιπράσκω, αἰχμαλωτίζω, and ῥύομαι in LXX Isa 52.2-9, where the sin–exile–restoration paradigm is also present.
33 For the inclusio, see, e.g., Thompson, James W., Moral Formation according to Paul: The Context and Coherence of Pauline Ethics (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011) 147Google Scholar: ‘The inclusio of 7:14, 23-25 frames the bleak assessment of the human situation’. Note also how Rom 7.14 and 23-25 stand apart from the intervening verses by their use of these Isaianic terms and their absence of the key verbs repeated in verses 15–22 (θέλω [6×]; ποιέω [5×]; κατɛργάζομαι [4×]).
34 Cf. 2 Tim 3.6; αἰχμαλωτɛύω αἰχμαλωσίαν, Eph 4.8. Andronicus and Junia (Rom 16.7), Epaphras (Philm 23), and Aristarchus (Col 4.10) are described as Paul's συναιχμάλωτοι, though these are probably non-metaphorical.
35 Cf. Col 1.13; 2 Thess 3.2; 2 Tim 3.11; 4.17, 18.
36 Admittedly, Paul's servile imagery begins at Rom 6.6, escalates at 6.16-23, and resurfaces at 7.6 and 25. Paul, therefore, hardly needed to draw on Isaiah to be supplied with captivity language in 7.14-25. But, as discussed above, the specific terms used in 7.14 and 23–25 are rare in Paul. This, together with the deployment of fresh scriptural imagery (Eden and Sinai) beginning at 7.7-13, strongly suggests that the captivity language of 7.14-25 builds mostly on the storyline of 7.7-13, rather than on the servile imagery climaxing at 6.16-23.
37 Hays, ‘Who Has Believed’, 38.
38 For this scheme in Jewish eschatology, see Wagner, Heralds of the Good News, 29–31.
39 The verb αἰχμαλωτίζω and its cognates are used widely in Jewish literature for exile (e.g. LXX Deut 28.41; 4 Kgdms 24.14; Ezra 2.1; Neh. 1.2-3; Esth 2.6; Isa 45.13; 52.2; 61.1; Jer 1.3; 20.6; Ezek 1.1-2; Bar 4.10, 14; 1 Esd 2.11; 5.7, 54, 64; Ep Jer 1.1; Jdt 4.3; Tob 1.2, 10).
40 Cranfield, C. E. B., Romans 1–8 (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975) 357, 365Google Scholar; Dunn, James D. G., ‘Rom. 7,14-25 in the Theology of Paul’, TZ 31 (1975) 257–73Google Scholar, at 268; Schreiner, Thomas R., Romans (BECNT; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998) 390Google Scholar. For πιπράσκω implying exile, see, e.g., Deut 28.68; Isa 48.10; 52.3; Bar 4.6; Jdt 7.25.
41 For sin as a power in Romans, see Gathercole, Simon, ‘Sin in God's Economy: Agencies in Romans 1 and 7’, Divine and Human Agency in Paul and his Cultural Environment (ed. Barclay, J. M. G. and Gathercole, S. J.; LNTS 335; ECC; London: T&T Clark, 2007) 158–72Google Scholar; Dodson, Joseph R., The ‘Powers’ of Personification: Rhetorical Purpose in the Book of Wisdom and the Letter to the Romans (BZNW 161; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Röhser, Günter, ‘Paulus und die Herrschaft der Sünde’, ZNW 103 (2012) 84–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
42 Although sin is cast in Romans 5–8 as a power that comes to life, deceives, kills, and enslaves, it retains an ethical component throughout (cf. 5.12-13, 16, 20; 6.15; 7.7, 13).
43 Here Zion serves as ‘an embodiment or symbol for Yhwh's people’ (Goldingay, The Message of Isaiah 40–55, 385).
44 Oswalt, John N., The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40–66 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 313Google Scholar. Cf. Goldingay, The Message of Isaiah 40–55, 392.
45 For the identification of the ‘mighty one’ as Babylon, see Goldingay, John and Payne, David, Isaiah 40–55 (ICC; London: T&T Clark, 2006) 195–9Google Scholar. The LXX departs from the MT at a few places here, supplying, e.g., ἀδίκως in v. 24 where the MT has צדיק (referring to Babylon). Baltzer, Klaus explains, ‘“Righteousness” [in the MT] is being viewed ironically, as the equivalent of violence’ (Deutero-Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 40–55 [trans. Kohl, M.; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001] 331Google Scholar). See also Seeligmann, Isaac Leo, The Septuagint Version of Isaiah and Cognate Studies (FAT 40; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004) 281Google Scholar.
46 The implied subjects of λήμψɛται and σωθήσɛται (LXX Isa 49.24-25 [2 × ]) are clearly different: it is Yahweh who will take spoils/sons (i.e. captive Zion); therefore it is Zion who will be saved. Cf. Oswalt, Isaiah 40–66, 314; Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah, 331–2; Goldingay and Payne, Isaiah 40–55, 198–9.
47 Hays, ‘Who Has Believed’, 41.
48 Jewett, Romans, 461.
49 On these Pauline allusions to Eve, see Busch, Austin, ‘The Figure of Eve in Romans 7:5-25’, BibInt 12 (2004) 1–36Google Scholar; Krauter, Stefan, ‘Eva in Röm 7’, ZNW 99 (2008) 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
50 While ἁμαρτία does not appear in the LXX Genesis account, Paul clearly understood the Edenic transgression as ἁμαρτία (cf. Rom 5.12-21). Compare also Wis 2.24 (where death is caused by the devil) with Rom 5.12 (where death is credited to sin).
51 ἁμαρτία (sg.) = 45× in Romans; 7× in the remaining Pauline letters; ἁμαρτίαι (pl.) = 3× in Romans; 9× in the remaining Pauline letters. Cf. Dunn, James D. G., The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) 111–14Google Scholar.
52 Boer, Martinus C. de, Galatians: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011) 30Google Scholar. Käsemann, Ernst, ‘The Saving Significance of the Death of Jesus in Paul’, Perspectives on Paul (trans. Kohl, M.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971) 32–59Google Scholar, at 44: ‘[F]or Paul, salvation does not primarily mean the end of past disaster and the forgiving cancellation of former guilt. It is…freedom from the power of sin, death and the divine wrath.’
53 For ἐγώ as Adam, see, e.g., Käsemann, Commentary on Romans, 196; Hofius, Otfried, ‘Der Mensch im Schatten Adams: Römer 7,7-25a’, Paulusstudien II (WUNT 143; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002) 104–54Google Scholar; Lichtenberger, Herman, Das Ich Adams und das Ich der Menschheit: Studien zum Menschenbild in Römer 7 (WUNT 164; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004)Google Scholar. For Eve, see Busch, ‘The Figure of Eve in Romans 7:5-25’; Krauter, ‘Eva in Röm 7’.
54 For ἐγώ as Israel, see Moo, Douglas J., ‘Israel and Paul in Romans 7.7-12’, NTS 32 (1986) 122–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Karlberg, Mark W., ‘Israel's History Personified: Romans 7:7-13 in Relation to Paul's Teaching on the “Old Man”,’ TJ 7 (1986) 65–74Google Scholar; Lambrecht, Jan, The Wretched ‘I’ and its Liberation: Paul in Romans 7 and 8 (LTPM 14; Louvain: Peeters, 1992) 84–5Google Scholar; Napier, Daniel, ‘Paul's Analysis of Sin and Torah in Romans 7:7-25’, ResQ 44 (2002) 15–32Google Scholar.
55 For the autobiographical view, see Theissen, Gerd, Psychological Aspects of Pauline Theology (trans. Galvin, J. P.; Philadelphia: Fortress) 201Google Scholar; Seifrid, ‘The Subject of Rom 7:14-25’, 314; Chester, Stephen J., Conversion at Corinth: Perspectives on Conversion in Paul's Theology and the Corinthian Church (SNTW; London: T&T Clark, 2003) 184Google Scholar.
56 If Paul's reference to the commandment is a ‘representative summation of the Mosaic law’, as suggested by Moo, then ‘[i]t is this commandment in its generic significance…to which ἐντολή in vv. 8–11 refers, not to any specific commandment as such’ (‘Israel and Paul’, 123). Contra Ziesler, John A., ‘The Role of the Tenth Commandment in Romans 7’, JSNT 33 (1988) 41–56Google Scholar.
57 Note that elsewhere Paul considers Israelites to be those specifically in receipt of the law (Rom 2.17; 3.2; 9.4), while gentiles do not have the law (Rom 2.14; cf. 2.12; 1 Cor 9.20-21). Indeed, possession of the law is that which distinguishes Jews from gentiles (Eph 2.14-15; cf. Rom 3.27-31); cf. Moo, ‘Israel and Paul’, 124.
58 Lichtenberger, Das Ich Adams, 134.
59 Chester, Stephen J., ‘The Retrospective View of Romans 7: Paul's Past in Present Perspective’, Perspectives on Our Struggle with Sin: Three Views of Romans 7 (ed. Wilder, T. L.; Nashville: B&H, 2011) 57–103Google Scholar, at 73.
60 Moo, ‘Israel and Paul’, 124.
61 Moo, ‘Israel and Paul’, 124: ‘That Paul viewed Adam as, in some sense, a “prototype” of man under the law is suggested by Rom 5.14, but the similarity consists in the situation of confrontation with the divine demand; nothing indicates that the analogy must be extended to include possession of the same body of demands’.
62 Moo, ‘Israel and Paul’, 124-5; ‘Paul's clear tendency to view νόμος as a special gift to Israel stands against any “universalistic” interpretation of Rom 7.7-12’ (124).
63 Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, 359–60. Napier, though missing the autobiographical nature of the passage, recognizes the priority of the allusion to Sinai over that to Eden (‘Paul's Analysis of Sin’, 20). For the typological relationship between Adam and Israel, including their sin and exile, see Postell, Seth D., Adam as Israel: Genesis 1–3 as the Introduction to the Torah and Tanakh (Eugene: Pickwick, 2011)Google Scholar.
64 Paul's use of past tense verbs, together with the context, indicates that Rom 7.7-13 refers to the past. His then abrupt change to the present tense, together with the context, indicates that the events in vv. 14–25 took place following those in vv. 7–13. These later events occur, from the perspective of ἐγώ the narrator, in the present—even though, from the perspective of Paul the author, they are in the past.
65 Wright, N. T., Paul: In Fresh Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005) 139Google Scholar.
66 Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, 318–19; Sprinkle, Preston M., Law and Life: The Interpretation of Leviticus 18:5 in Early Judaism and in Paul (WUNT 2/241; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 27–34Google Scholar; Levenson, Jon D., Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (New Haven: Yale University, 2006) 156–65Google Scholar.
67 Karlberg also notices similarities in Rom 7 to the Babylonian exile (‘Israel's History Personified’, 69). Frank Thielman observes resonances between Rom 7.13-25 and the disobedience and resultant anguish of Israel apparent in various Jewish texts (Ezra 9.5-15; Neh 9.6-37; Dan 9.4-19; Bar 1.15–3.8), though he concedes that ‘[t]he similarity between Rom 7:13-25 and these passages does not reach to the level of specific details’ (‘The Story of Israel and the Theology of Romans 5–8’, Pauline Theology, vol. 3 [ed. Hay, D. M. and Johnson, E. E.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995] 169–95Google Scholar, at 194).
68 The verb δουλɛύω (Rom 7.25) does not occur in LXX Isa 49.24–50.2, though see δοῦλος in 49.3, 5, 8. Further, since slavery is conceptually related to exile/captivity, and being ‘sold to a creditor’ (Isa 50.1) implies debt slavery (Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah, 334), δουλɛύω is an extension of πιπράσκω and αἰχμαλωτίζω in one way or another. Together the three verbs contrast ἐλɛυθɛρόω in Rom 8.2. Neither does the verb ἀντιστρατɛύω (Rom 7.23) occur elsewhere in the LXX or NT. But it is notable that two of its cognate forms occur in Isa 29.7-8 (στρατɛύω, ἐπιστρατɛύω [2 × ]) referring to the military opposition Israel faced leading up to the Babylonian exile. For the importance of Isa 28–29 in Romans and elsewhere in Paul, see Wagner, Heralds of the Good News, 341–4.
69 Chester argues that in vv. 14–25 Paul describes not a battle to withstand temptation, but his inability to resist committing unrecognized sin (Conversion at Corinth, 193). Cf. Gathercole, ‘Sin in God's Economy’, 167.
70 For Paul's anthropological language here, see Betz, Hans Dieter, ‘The Concept of the “Inner Human Being” (ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος) in the Anthropology of Paul’, NTS 46 (2000) 315–41Google Scholar, at 335–9.
71 The meaning of νόμος in 8.2 is that of ‘power’, as it is in 7.23 and 25; cf. Moo, Romans, 473–7. So, while union with Christ releases believers from the Mosaic Law in 7.4-6, the powers of sin and death are those from which believers are liberated in 8.2.
72 Gathercole, ‘Sin in God's Economy’, 171: ‘God gives the Law so that as Sin surges with all its energy, it is shown up in all its horror’.
73 Paul did not reject all forms of law observance (Rom 3.31; 14.1–15.6; 1 Cor 9.20); cf. Barclay, John M. G., ‘“Do We Undermine the Law?” A Study of Romans 14.1–15.6’, Paul and the Mosaic Law (ed. Dunn, J. D. G.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) 287–308Google Scholar.
74 Wright, N. T., The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 137–56Google Scholar; Scott, James M., ‘“For as Many as Are of Works of the Law are Under a Curse” (Galatians 3.10)’, Paul and the Scriptures of Israel (ed. Evans, C. A. and Sanders, J. A.; Sheffield: JSOT, 1993) 187–221Google Scholar.
75 Morales, Rodrigo J., The Spirit and the Restoration of Israel: New Exodus and New Creation Motifs in Galatians (WUNT 2/282; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010) 107Google Scholar: ‘By speaking of death rather than exile as the curse, Paul has in a sense taken a metaphor that once referred to exile and made it the true referent of the curse’.
76 See also David I. Starling's thematically related study, Not My People: Gentiles as Exiles in Pauline Hermeneutics (BZNW 184; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011)Google Scholar.
