Romans 3:1,2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

What advantage then hath the Jew? The foregoing reasonings being contrary to the prejudices of the Jews, one of that nation is here introduced objecting, If our being the children of Abraham, members of the church of God, and heirs of the promises, will procure us no favour at the judgment, and if the want of these privileges will not preclude the heathen from salvation; or, If it be so that God looks only at the heart, and does not regard persons for their external privileges, what is the pre-eminence of a Jew above a Gentile, and, (for there are two questions here asked,) what profit is there of circumcision And of the other ritual services which are enjoined in the law? To the first of these questions the apostle answers in this chapter, and to the second in chap. 4., beginning at Romans 3:11. Much every way Or in every respect. The respects in which the Jews were superior to the Gentiles are enumerated Romans 9:4-5, where see the notes. Chiefly, because unto them were committed the oracles of God The Scriptures, in which are contained great and important truths, precepts, and promises. This prerogative Paul here singles out, by which, after removing the objection, he convicts them so much the more. “The Greeks used the word λογια, oracles, to denote the responses which their deities, or rather their priests, made to those who consulted them, especially if they were delivered in prose: for, as Beza observes, they gave a different name, χρησμοι, to such responses as were uttered in verse. Here oracles denote the whole of the divine revelations; and, among the rest, the law of Moses, which Stephen calls λογια ζωντα, living oracles, Acts 7:18, because God spake that law in person. All the revelations of God to mankind, from the beginning of the world to his own times, Moses, by the inspiration of God, committed to writing; and what further revelations God was pleased to make to mankind during the subsistence of the Jewish Church, he made by prophets, who recorded them in books; and the whole was intrusted to the Jews, to be kept for their own benefit and for the benefit of the world. Now, this being the chief of all their advantages, as Jews, it alone is mentioned here by the apostle. In like manner, the psalmist has mentioned the word of God as the distinguishing privilege of the Israelites, Psalms 147:19, He hath showed his word unto Jacob, &c. He hath not dealt so with any nation. The benefits which the Jews derived from the oracles of God, the apostle had no occasion to explain here, because they were all introduced in the boasting of the Jew, described Romans 2:17-23.” Macknight.