7:1 Or do you not know, brothers and sisters 1 (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person 2 as long as he lives? 7:2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her 3 husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage. 4 7:3 So then, 5 if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress. But if her 6 husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she is joined to another man, she is not an adulteress.
1 tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.
2 sn Here person refers to a human being.
3 tn Grk “the,” with the article used as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).
4 tn Grk “husband.”
sn Paul’s example of the married woman and the law of the marriage illustrates that death frees a person from obligation to the law. Thus, in spiritual terms, a person who has died to what controlled us (v. 6) has been released from the law to serve God in the new life produced by the Spirit.
5 tn There is a double connective here that cannot be easily preserved in English: “consequently therefore,” emphasizing the conclusion of what he has been arguing.
6 tn Grk “the,” with the article used as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).