Romans 3:23 Husterountai

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Mar 2 07:47:02 EST 1999


Bielby: "Strictly on the word husterountai's meaning, does the assertion it
contains the idea that you could have had God's glory as a treasure, but
you don't.....does this assertion mix theology into the meaning of the
word or is it legitimately included in the meaning of this term in this
verse?"

If I understand the word and its usage rightly, I think this is one wherein
the etymology is really helpful: hUSTEREW derives from hUSTEROS which is
correlative with PROTEROS as a comparative adjective, hUSTEROS meaning
relatively behind or later, PROTEROS relatively ahead or earlier--as in a
race or in any other competitive relationship of one party to another (and
competition, it must be understood, is the cornerstone of traditional
Hellenic self-understanding and morality). hUSTEREW means "be behind,"
"come up short" in relationship to another party with whom one is in
competition, that other party being indicated by an ablatival genitive. By
metaphoric extension hUSTEREW can mean "come up short" in the effort to
achieve a goal or "be without something one needs." This extended
metaphoric sense of "be without something one needs" is not, I think, quite
the sense called for here in Rom 3:23, although I can understand how some
might want to take it that way. I rather think myself, however, that the
sense "come up short in the effort to achieve one's goal" is precisely the
sense called for in Rom 3:23, the more so in that we have a middle voice
form indicating that there's an implicit endeavor to achieve that
objective. So, in

	PANTES GAR hHMARTON KAI hUSTEROUNTAI THS DOXHS TOU QEOU

I don't think that theology is implicit in the meaning of the verb
hUSTEROUNTAI, I think rather that the verb here is used in a metaphor of
failure to gain a goal striven for. If I could paraphrase the verse, I'd
make it something like: "Everybody, after all, has missed the boat and
comes up short of the goal of God's glory." In the context, I'd say that
"catching the boat" and "reaching the goal" depend upon unwavering
obedience to the Law.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad at yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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