Romans 7:9

For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) I was alive.—The state of unconscious morality, uninstructed but as yet uncondemned, may, compared with that state of condemnation, be regarded as a state of “life.”

Revived.—The English version well represents the meaning of the original, which is not that sin “came to life,” but that it “came to life again.” Sin is lurking in the heart from the first, but it is dormant until the Commandment comes; then it “revives.”

I died.—Became subject to the doom of eternal death.

Benson Commentary

Romans 7:9-11. For I was alive — In my own conceit; without the law — Without the proper knowledge of its spirituality, extent, and obligation. I apprehended myself to be righteous, and in the way to life eternal; but when the commandment came — That is, the law; (a part being put for the whole;) but this expression particularly intimates its compulsive force, which restrains, enjoins, urges, forbids, threatens; — when, in its spiritual meaning, it came to my heart: or, when the spiritual meaning and full extent of the law, condemning desires of evil, was brought home, and closely applied to my conscience by the Spirit of God; sin revived — My conscience was awakened and convinced, and I found myself guilty of many sins, which before I perceived not, and a lively sense of the guilt of them was imprinted on my soul; and I died — My virtue and strength died away, and my former persuasions vanished: for I saw myself to be dead in sin, in a state of condemnation, and liable to death eternal. And the commandment — The law; which was ordained to life — Which promised life to them that kept it, saying, The man that doeth these things shall live in, or by them; and which, if rightly used, would have been a means of increasing spiritual life, and leading to life everlasting. “The law of nature, and its transcript in the moral precepts of the law of Moses, were intended for life; because the threatening of death for every offence, is virtually a promise of life to those who obey perfectly. This appears from the law given to Adam in paradise.” I found to be unto death — To be attended with deadly consequences, both as it consigned me over to destruction for past sin, and occasionally, though not intentionally, proved productive of new guilt and misery. Perfect obedience being impossible, according to the present state of human nature, the law, which threatens death for every offence, necessarily ends in death to the sinner, although it was originally intended to give life to the obedient. For sin, as I said before, (see on Romans 7:8,) taking occasion by the commandment — Prohibiting it under the severest penalties, but affording me no help against it; deceived me — Came upon me unawares, while I was expecting life by the law; and by it slew me — Slew all my hopes, by bringing me under guilt, condemnation, and wrath. In other words, Satan, the grand enemy of mankind, and author of sin, finding a law which threatened death to the transgression of it, takes occasion thence more earnestly to tempt and allure us to the violation of it, that so he may more effectually subject us to condemnation and death upon that account. Thus, when God had forbidden, under the pain of death, the eating of the forbidden fruit, Satan thence took occasion to tempt our first parents to the breach of it, and so slew them, or made them subject to death. Dr. Doddridge paraphrases the verse rather differently, thus: “Sin, taking occasion by the terror and curse of the violated commandment, and representing the great Lawgiver as now become my irreconcileable enemy, deceived me into a persuasion that I could be no worse than I was, and thereby it slew me; it multiplied my mortal wounds, and rendered my case still more desperate.” Instead of sin taking occasion, Dr. Macknight renders αφορμην λαβουσα, taking the opportunity, an expression which he thinks less likely to countenance the idea, that men’s evil desires are owing to the prohibitions of the law; to suppose which, would be to make God the author of sin by his law. “The apostle’s meaning,” says he, “is, that sin took the opportunity of men being under the commandment, first to deceive, and then to kill them.” According to Bengelius, the most approved copies read, not, sin taking occasion or opportunity by the commandment, but, by the commandment deceived and slew me; connecting the commandment, not with the former, but with the latter clause of the verse. In the words, deceived me, there seems to be an allusion to the excuse which Eve made for eating the forbidden fruit. The serpent deceived me, by assuring me that I should not die. “The apostle speaks of a two-fold opportunity taken by sin, while men are under the commandment. The first is, sinful dispositions, deceiving men into the belief that the prohibitions of the law are unreasonable, that the thing forbidden is pleasant or profitable, and that it will not be followed with punishment, persuade them to do it. This was the serpent’s discourse to Eve; and it is what men’s sinful inclinations always suggest to them. The second opportunity which sin takes under the commandment, is that of killing the sinner by the curse annexed to the commandment which he hath broken.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:7-13 There is no way of coming to that knowledge of sin, which is necessary to repentance, and therefore to peace and pardon, but by trying our hearts and lives by the law. In his own case the apostle would not have known the sinfulness of his thoughts, motives, and actions, but by the law. That perfect standard showed how wrong his heart and life were, proving his sins to be more numerous than he had before thought, but it did not contain any provision of mercy or grace for his relief. He is ignorant of human nature and the perverseness of his own heart, who does not perceive in himself a readiness to fancy there is something desirable in what is out of reach. We may perceive this in our children, though self-love makes us blind to it in ourselves. The more humble and spiritual any Christian is, the more clearly will he perceive that the apostle describes the true believer, from his first convictions of sin to his greatest progress in grace, during this present imperfect state. St. Paul was once a Pharisee, ignorant of the spirituality of the law, having some correctness of character, without knowing his inward depravity. When the commandment came to his conscience by the convictions of the Holy Spirit, and he saw what it demanded, he found his sinful mind rise against it. He felt at the same time the evil of sin, his own sinful state, that he was unable to fulfil the law, and was like a criminal when condemned. But though the evil principle in the human heart produces sinful motions, and the more by taking occasion of the commandment; yet the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good. It is not favourable to sin, which it pursues into the heart, and discovers and reproves in the inward motions thereof. Nothing is so good but a corrupt and vicious nature will pervert it. The same heat that softens wax, hardens clay. Food or medicine when taken wrong, may cause death, though its nature is to nourish or to heal. The law may cause death through man's depravity, but sin is the poison that brings death. Not the law, but sin discovered by the law, was made death to the apostle. The ruinous nature of sin, and the sinfulness of the human heart, are here clearly shown.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For I-- There seems to be no doubt that the apostle here refers to his own past experience. Yet in this he speaks the sentiment of all who are unconverted, and who are depending on their own righteousness.

Was alive - This is opposed to what he immediately adds respecting another state, in which he was when he died. It must mean, therefore, that he had a certain kind of peace; he deemed himself secure; he was free from the convictions of conscience and the agitations of alarm. The state to which he refers here must be doubtless that to which he himself alludes elsewhere, when he deemed himself to be righteous, depending on his own works, and esteeming himself to be blameless, Philippians 3:4-6; Acts 23:1; Acts 26:4-5. It means that he was then free from those agitations and alarms which he afterward experienced when he was brought under conviction for sin. At that time, though he had the Law, and was attempting to obey it, yet he was unacquainted with its spiritual and holy nature. He aimed at external conformity. Its claims on the heart were unfelt. This is the condition of every self-confident sinner, and of everyone who is unawakened.

Without the law - Not that Paul was ever really without the Law, that is, without the Law of Moses; but he means before the Law was applied to his heart in its spiritual meaning, and with power.

But when the commandment came - When it was applied to the heart and conscience. This is the only intelligible sense of the expression; for it cannot refer to the time when the Law was given. When this was, the apostle does not say. But the expression denotes whenever it was so applied; when it was urged with power and efficacy on his conscience, to control, restrain, and threaten him, it produced this effect. We are unacquainted with the early operations of his mind, and with his struggles against conscience and duty. We know enough of him before conversion, however, to be assured that he was proud, impetuous, and unwilling to be restrained; see Acts 8; 9. In the state of his self-confident righteousness and impetuosity of feeling, we may easily suppose that the holy Law of God, which is designed to restrain the passions, to humble the heart, and to rebuke pride, would produce only irritation, and impatience of restraint, and revolt.

Sin revived - Lived again. This means that it was before dormant Romans 7:8, but was now quickened into new life. The word is usually applied to a renewal of life, Romans 14:19; Luke 15:24, Luke 15:32, but here it means substantially the same as the expression in Romans 7:8, "Sin ...wrought in me all manner of concupiscence." The power of sin, which was before dormant, became quickened and active.

I died - That is, I was by it involved in additional guilt and misery. It stands opposed to "I was alive," and must mean the opposite of that; and evidently denotes that the effect of the commandment was to bring him under what he calls death, (compare Romans 5:12, Romans 5:14-15;) that is, sin reigned, and raged, and produced its withering and condemning effects; it led to aggravated guilt and misery. It may also include this idea, that before, he was self-confident and secure, but that by the commandment he was stricken down and humbled, his self-confidence was blasted, and his hopes were prostrated in the dust. Perhaps no words would better express the humble, subdued, melancholy, and helpless state of a converted sinner than the expressive phrase "I died." The essential idea here is, that the Law did not answer the purpose which the Jew would claim for it, to sanctify the soul and to give comfort, but that all its influence on the heart was to produce aggravated, unpardoned guilt and woe.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. For I was alive without the law once—"In the days of my ignorance, when, in this sense, a stranger to the law, I deemed myself a righteous man, and, as such, entitled to life at the hand of God."

but when the commandment came—forbidding all irregular desire; for the apostle sees in this the spirit of the whole law.

sin revived—"came to life"; in its malignity and strength it unexpectedly revealed itself, as if sprung from the dead.

and I died—"saw myself, in the eye of a law never kept and not to be kept, a dead man."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

For I was alive without the law once: q.d. Take me, if you please, for an instance. Before I knew the law aright, and understood the Divine and spiritual meaning of it, or whilst the law stood afar off, and was not brought home to my conscience, I was alive, that is, in my own conceit; I thought myself in as good condition as any man living; my conscience never gave me any trouble. So it was with me once, or heretofore, when I was a Pharisee, or in an unregenerate state.

But when the commandment came; i.e. when it came nearer to my conscience; when I came to know and understand the spiritual meaning and extent of it, that it condemned sinful lusts, affections, and inclinations.

Sin revived; i.e. its sinfulness and guilt appeared, and I had a lively sense thereof imprinted upon my soul; or my corruptions began to gather head, and seemed, as it were, to receive new vigour and life.

And I died; i.e. in my own opinion and feeling. I felt my conscience deadly wounded. I was convinced I was in a state of death and damnation. I lost the confidence I formerly had of my good estate.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For I was alive without the law once,.... The apostle says this, not in the person of Adam, as some have thought; who lived indeed, in a state of innocence, a perfectly holy and righteous life, but not without the law, which was the rule of his actions, and the measure of his obedience; he had the law of nature written upon his heart, and a positive law respecting the forbidden fruit given him, as a trial of his obedience; and though when he transgressed he became mortal, yet sin could not be said to revive in him, which never lived before; nor does the apostle speak in the person of a Jew, or the whole body of the people of Israel before the law was given on Mount Sinai; before that time the sons of Abraham did not live without a law; for besides the law of nature, which they had in common with others, they were acquainted with other laws of God, as the laws of circumcision, sacrifices, and the several duties of religion; see Genesis 18:19; and when the law did come from Mount Sinai, it had not such effects upon them as are here expressed: but the apostle is speaking of himself, and that not as in his state of infancy before he could discern between good and evil, but when grown up, and whilst a Pharisee; who, though he was born under the law, was brought up and more perfectly instructed in it than the common people were, and was a strict observer of it, yet was without the knowledge of the spirituality of it; he, as the rest of the Pharisees, thought it only regarded the outward actions, and did not reach to the spirits or souls of men, the inward thoughts and affections of the mind; the law was as it were at a distance from him, it had not as yet entered into his heart and conscience; and whilst this was his case he was "alive", he did not know that he "was dead in trespasses and sins", Ephesians 2:1, a truth he afterwards was acquainted with; nor that he was so much as disordered by sin; he thought himself healthful, sound, and whole, when he was diseased and full of wounds, bruises, and sores, from head to foot; he lived in the utmost peace and tranquillity, without the least ruffle and uneasiness, free from any terror or despondency, and in perfect security, being in sure and certain hope of eternal life; and concluded if ever any man went to heaven he certainly should, since, as he imagined, he lived a holy and righteous life, free of all blame, and even to perfection;

but when the commandment came; not to Adam in the garden of Eden; nor to the Israelites on Mount Sinai; but into the heart and conscience of the apostle, with power and light from above:

sin revived; it lift up its monstrous head, and appeared in its ugly shape, exceeding sinful indeed; it grew strong and exerted itself; its strugglings and opposition, its rebellion and corruption were seen and felt, which show that it was not dead before, only seemed to be so; it was in being, and it lived and acted before as now; the difference was not in that, but in the apostle's sense and apprehension of it, who upon sight of it died away:

and I died; he now saw himself a dead man, dead in sin, dead in law, under a sentence of death which he now had within himself; he saw he was deserving of eternal death, and all his hopes of eternal life by his obedience to the law of works died at once; he now experimentally learnt that doctrine he so much insisted afterwards in his ministry, and to the last maintained, that there can be no justification of a sinner by the deeds of the law, since by it is the knowledge of sin.

Geneva Study Bible

{5} For I was alive without the {q} law once: but when the commandment {r} came, sin revived, and I {s} died.

(5) He sets himself before us as an example, in whom all men may behold, first what they are by nature before they earnestly think upon the law of God: that is, stupid, and prone to sin and wickedness, without any true sense and feeling of sin, and second what manner of persons they become, when their conscience is reproved by the testimony of the Law, that is, stubborn and more inflamed with the desire for sin than they ever were before.

(q) When I did not know the law, then I thought that I indeed lived: for my conscience never troubled me, because it was not aware of my disease.

(r) When I began to understand the commandment.

(s) In sin, or by sin.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Romans 7:9. But I was once alive without the law. ἐγὼ δὲ, the antithesis of ἁμαρτία; ἔζων, antithesis of νεκρά; νόμου, just as in Romans 7:8.

ἔζων] The sense is, on account of the foregoing (νεκρά) and the following (ἀπέθανον, Romans 7:10) contrast, necessarily (in opposition to Reiche and van Hengel) to be taken as pregnant; but not with the arbitrary alteration, videbar mihi vivere (Augustine, Erasmus, Pareus, Estius), or securus eram, (Luther, Melancthon, Beza, Calvin, Piscator, Calovius, Bengel, and others, including Krummacher), thus representing Paul as glancing at his Pharisaic state, in which the law had not yet alarmed him,—a view which is at variance with the words themselves and with the antitheses, and which is certainly quite inadmissible historically in the case of a character like Paul (Galatians 1:14; Galatians 3:23; Php 3:6), who could testify so truly and vividly of the power of sin and of the curse of the law. No, Paul means the death-free (Romans 7:10) life of childlike innocence (comp. Winzer, p. 11; de Wette and Ewald in loc.; Umbreit in the Stud. u. Krit. 1851, p. 637 f.; Ernesti, Urspr. d. Sünde, I. p. 101; Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 287; also Delitzsch), where—as this state of life, resembling the condition of our first parents in Paradise, was the bright spot of his own earliest recollection—the law has not yet come to conscious knowledge, the moral self-determination in respect to it has not yet taken place, and therefore the sin-principle is still lying in the slumber of death. Rightly explained already by Origen: πᾶς γὰρ ἄνθρωπος ἔζη χωρὶς νόμου ποτὲ, ὅτε παιδίον ἦν, and by Augustine, c. duas ep. Pelag. i. 9. This is certainly a status securitatis, but one morally indifferent, not immoral, and not extending beyond the childhood unconscious of the ἐντολή. Hence, in the apostle’s case, it is neither to be extended till the time of his conversion (Luther, Melancthon, etc.), nor even only till the time of his having perceived that the law demands not merely the outward act, but also the inward inclination (Philippi and Tholuck)—which is neither in harmony with the unlimited χωρὶς νόμου (Paul must at least have written χωρὶς τῆς ἐντολῆς), nor psychologically correct, since sin is not dead up to this stage of the moral development. From this very circumstance, it is clear also that the explanation of those is erroneous, who, making Paul speak in the name of his nation, are compelled to think of the purer and more blameless life of the patriarchs and Israelites before the giving of the law (so Grotius, Turretin, Locke, Wetstein, following several Fathers, and recently Reiche; comp. Fritzsche.)

The pregnant import of the ἔζων lies in the fact that, while the sin-principle is dead, man has not yet incurred eternal death (physical death has been incurred by every one through Adam’s sin, Romans 5:12); this being alive is therefore an analogue—though still unconscious and weak, yet pleasingly presenting itself in the subsequent retrospect—of the true and eternal ζωή (comp. Matthew 18:3) which Christ (comp. Romans 7:24 f.) has procured through His atoning work. The theory of a pre-mundane life of the pre-existent soul (Hilgenfeld in his Zeitschr. 1871, p. 190 f.) is a Platonism forced on the apostle (comp. Wis 8:20, and Grimm in loc.) in opposition to the entire N. T.

ἐλθούσης δὲ τῆς ἐντολ.] but when the command, namely, the οὐκ ἐπιθυμήσεις of the Mosaic law, had come, i.e. had become present to my consciousness. To the person living still in childlike innocence the ἐντολή was absent; for him it was not yet issued; it had not yet presented itself. Comp. on Galatians 3:23. Reiche, consistently with his view of the entire section, explains it, as does also Fritzsche, of the historical Mosaic legislation.

ἀνέζησεν] is by most modern commentators rendered came to life. So Tholuck, Rückert, Fritzsche, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette, Maier, and Hofmann. But quite contrary to the usus loquendi (Luke 15:24; Luke 15:32; Romans 14:9; Revelation 20:5), in accordance with which it means: came again to life. See also Nonnus, Joh. v. 25: αὖτις ἀναζήσωσιν, where (in opposition to the view of Fritzsche) αὖτις is added according to a well-known pleonasm; comp. ἐπαναζώσει, reviviscet, Dial. Herm. de astrol. i. 10, 42; respecting the case of ἀναβλέπω, usually cited as analogous, see on John 9:11. So, too, ἈΝΑΖΩΌΩ in Aquila and Symmachus means reviviscere facio. See Schleusner, Thes. I. p. 219. And also the frequent classical ἀναβιῶ and ἈΝΑΒΙΏΣΚΟΜΑΙ, always mean to come to life again; Plat. Rep. p. 614 B; Polit. p. 272; Lucian, Q. hist. 40: ἀνεβίουν ἀποθανών, Gall. 18. Comp. ἀναβίωσις, 2Ma 7:9. It is therefore linguistically correct to explain it, with the ancients, Bengel, and Philippi: sin lived again (revixit, Vulgate); but this is not to be interpreted, with Bengel, following Augustine and others: “sicut vixerat, cum per Adamum intrasset in mundum” (comp. Philippi), because that is foreign to the context, inasmuch as Paul sets forth his experience as the expression of the experience of every individual in his relation to the law, not speaking of humanity as a whole. The ἀνέζησεν, which is not to be misinterpreted as pointing to a pre-mundane sin (Hilgenfeld), finds its true explanation, analogously to the ἀναβλέπω in John 9:11, in the view that the ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑ, that potentiality of sin in man, is originally and in its nature a living power, but is, before the ἐντολή comes, without expression for its life, ΝΕΚΡΆ; thereupon it resumes its proper living nature, and thus becomes alive again. Comp. van Hengel: “e sopore vigorem recuperavit.”

Expositor's Greek Testament

Romans 7:9. ἐγὼ δὲ ἔζων χωρὶς νόμου ποτέ: this is ideal biography. There is not really a period in life to which one can look back as the happy time when he had no conscience; the lost paradise in the infancy of men or nations only serves as a foil to the moral conflicts and disorder of maturer years, of which we are clearly conscious. ἐλθούσης δὲ τῆς ἐντολῆς κ.τ.λ. In these words, on the other hand, the most intensely real experience is vividly reproduced. When the commandment came, sin “came to life again”: its dormant energies woke, and “I died”. “There is a deep tragic pathos in the brief and simple statement; it seems to point to some definite period full of painful recollections” (Gifford). To say that “death” here means the loss of immortality (bodily death without the hope of resurrection), as Lipsius, or that it means only “spiritual” death, is to lose touch with the Apostle’s mode of thought. It is an indivisible thing, all doom and despair, too simply felt to be a subject for analysis.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. For I] The “I” is emphatic. Through this section, as often elsewhere, Sin is quasi-personified, and distinguished from the Self which nevertheless it fatally infects. It is an alien thing, an invasion, which (at the Fall) broke in on Man’s nature created upright. In this representation of Sin, no extenuation of personal guilt is meant: with St Paul “every soul that doeth evil” incurs for itself the Divine wrath. But the separability in thought of Sin and the Self is not only true in fact, but suggests the gracious coming deliverance of the Self from Sin.—We are not to view the Self as a good principle opposed to the evil principle; it is the subject on and in which the evil principle works; but it is not therefore identical with it, and is capable of being worked on and in by the Divine Principle.

was alive] Here the context explains again. Subjectively he was “alive;” unconscious of resistance to God, and alienation from Him, and condemnation. See note on Romans 6:13, (“as those that are alive, &c.,”) where the true “life” (of acceptance) is remarked on. The state here referred to was, as it were, the phantom of that. In this, he took for granted his acceptance before God, or at least did not realize the opposite.

the commandment came] Came home to conscience and will, in the midst of this fancied “life” to God.

revived] Sin is viewed as (1) invading the soul (ideally, in the Fall); then as (2) dormant till the Law crosses it; and now as (3) roused to direct energy.

I died] i.e., “my previous state of consciousness was reversed.” I became subjectively dead; I “found myself” alienated and doomed. Evidently the ideas of “death” and “life” here vary, as applied to Sin and Self. The “death” of sin before its “revival” was torpidity. The “death” of self on that revival of sin was sense of doom.

Bengel's Gnomen

Romans 7:9. Ἔζων, I was alive) ζῇν here does not merely signify to pass one’s life, but it is put in direct antithesis to death. This is the pharisaic tone, comp. the following verse. [I seemed to myself indeed to be extremely well, V. g.]—χωρὶς νόμου, without the law) the law being taken out of the way, being kept at a distance, as if it did not exist.—ἐλθούσης) The antithesis to χερὶς—ἐντολῆς, the commandment) ἐντολὴ, a commandment is part of the law, with the addition of a more express idea in it of compulsory power, which restrains, enjoins, urges, prohibits, threatens.—ἀνέζησεν, revived) just as [even as] it had been alive, when it had entered into the world by Adam.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 9-11. - For I was alive without (or, apart from) law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived (or, sprang into life), and I died. And the commandment, which was unto life, this I found to be unto death, For sin, taking occasion, through the commandment deceived me, and through it slew me. If, in saying, "I was alive once," the writer is at all remembering his own experience, the reference may be to the time of the innocence of childhood, before he had any distinct consciousness of the behests of law. Or it may be that he is only imagining a possible state without any consciousness of law, so as to bring out more forcibly the operation of law. On the general drift of ver. 9, Calvin says tersely, "Mors peccati vita est hominis: rursum vita peccati mors hominis." In ver. 11 the conception of sin's action is the same as in ver. 8; but the verb now used is ἐξηπάτησε, with obvious reference to Eve's temptation, which is regarded as representing ours (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:3). The view of the origin of human sin presented to us in Genesis is that man at first lived at peace with God; but that the commandment," Thou shalt not eat of it, lest thou die," was taken advantage of by the "serpent" (answering to personified ἁμαρτία in the passage before us), inspiring sinful lust; and that so the commandment (i.e. law), though in itself holy, became the occasion of sin, and of death as its consequence; and further, that all this came about through delusion (ἐξηπάτησε). The thing desired was not really good for man; but the ἐπιθυμία inspired by the tempter caused it to seem so. One great purpose of regenerating grace is to dispel this delusion; to bring us back to the true view of things as they are, and so to peace with God. Thus, in part, does the apostle teach us to regard the inscrutable mystery of sin, and the remedy for it in Christ. Romans 7:9

Vincent's Word Studies

I was alive - once (ἔζων ποτέ)

Referring to the time of childlike innocence previous to the stimulus imparted to the inactive principle of sin by the coming of the law; when the moral self-determination with respect to the law had not taken place, and the sin-principle was therefore practically dead.

The commandment (ἐντολῆς)

The specific injunction "thou shalt not covet." See on James 2:8; see John 13:34.

Revived (ἀνέζησεν)

Not came to life, but lived again. See Luke 15:24, Luke 15:32. The power of sin is originally and in its nature living; but before the coming of the commandment its life is not expressed. When the commandment comes, it becomes alive again. It lies dormant, like the beast at the door (Genesis 4:7), until the law stirs it up.

The tendency of prohibitory law to provoke the will to resistance is frequently recognized in the classics. Thus, Horace: "The human race, presumptuous to endure all things, rushes on through forbidden wickedness" (Ode, i., 3, 25). Ovid: "The permitted is unpleasing; the forbidden consumes us fiercely" ("Amores," i., 19, 3). "We strive against the forbidden and ever desire what is denied" (Id., i., 4, 17). Seneca: "Parricides began with the law, and the punishment showed them the crime" ("De Clementia," i., 23). Cato, in his speech on the Oppian law; says: "It is safer that a wicked man should even never be accused than that he should be acquitted; and luxury, if it had never been meddled with, would he more tolerable than it will be now, like a wild beast, irritated by having been chained and then let loose" (Livy, xxxiv., 4).

I found to be unto death

The A.V. omits the significant αὕτη this. This very commandment, the aim of which was life, I found unto death. Meyer remarks: "It has tragic emphasis." So Rev., this I found. The surprise at such an unexpected result is expressed by I found, literally, was found (ἑυρέθη)