2:25 For circumcision 1 has its value if you practice the law, but 2 if you break the law, 3 your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
6:5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection. 4
“If the Lord of armies 6 had not left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
and we would have resembled Gomorrah.” 7
1 sn Circumcision refers to male circumcision as prescribed in the OT, which was given as a covenant to Abraham in Gen 17:10-14. Its importance for Judaism can hardly be overstated: According to J. D. G. Dunn (Romans [WBC], 1:120) it was the “single clearest distinguishing feature of the covenant people.” J. Marcus has suggested that the terms used for circumcision (περιτομή, peritomh) and uncircumcision (ἀκροβυστία, akrobustia) were probably derogatory slogans used by Jews and Gentiles to describe their opponents (“The Circumcision and the Uncircumcision in Rome,” NTS 35 [1989]: 77-80).
2 tn This contrast is clearer and stronger in Greek than can be easily expressed in English.
3 tn Grk “if you should be a transgressor of the law.”
4 tn Grk “we will certainly also of his resurrection.”
5 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
6 tn Traditionally, “Lord of hosts”; Grk “Lord Sabaoth,” which means “Lord of the [heavenly] armies,” sometimes translated more generally as “Lord Almighty.”
7 sn A quotation from Isa 1:9.
8 tn Grk “of the circumcision”; that is, the Jews.
9 tn Or “to the patriarchs.”