Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
In such a state of things as existed at Rome when the apostle wrote, the Christians there must often have been perplexed as to the estimate they were to form, and the duties they owed to "the power" that so tyrannically and degradingly ruled there; especially as the whole fabric of Roman society heaved with the elements of insubordination and insurrection, and as the Jews in particular had, in the days of Claudius, been banished the capital for their restless and insurrectionary tendencies (Acts 18:2). It was natural, therefore, to pass from the social to the political duties of believers; and this accordingly occupies the chief portico of the present chapter.
The Relation and Duties of the Christian to the Civil Magistrate (Romans 13:1-6)
Let every soul (every man of you) be subject unto the higher powers, х exousiais (G1849) huperechousais (G5242)] - rather, 'submit himself to the authorities that are over him.'
For there is no power ('authority') but of God: the powers that be - `the existing authorities,' whatever they are,
Are ('have been') ordained of God - х exousiai (G1849) seems not genuine. In this case the translation is 'those that be have been ordained,' etc.]