Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
Nevertheless - q.d., 'Yet, though according to this sound principle it might have been supposed that mankind, from Adam to Moses, being under no law expressly and outwardly revealed, could not be held liable to death as breakers of law-even then,' Death reigned, х ebasileusen (G936)] - that is, 'held unresisted and universal sway,'
From Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's trangression.
But who are they? Infants (say some) who, being guiltless of actual sin, yet subject to death, must be sinners in a very different sense from Adam. (So Origen, Augustine, Melancthon, Beza, Edwards, Haldane, and others. But why should Infants be specially connected with the period "from Adam to Moses," since they die alike in every period? And if the apostle meant to express here the death of infants, why has he done it so enigmatically? Besides, the death of infants is comprehended in the universal mortality, on account of the first sin, so emphatically expressed in Romans 5:12: what need, then, to specify it here? and why, if not necessary, should we presume it to be meant here, unless the language unmistakeably point to it-which it certainly does not? The meaning, then, must be, that 'death reigned from Adam to Moses, oven over those that had not, like Adam, transgressed against a positive commandment, threatening death to the disobedient.' (So most interpreters.) In this case, the particle "even," instead of specifying one particular class of those who lived "from Adam to Moses" (as the other view supposes), merely explains what it was that made the ease of those who died from Adam to Moses worthy of special notice-namely, that 'though unlike Adam, and all since Moses, those who lived between the two had no positive threatening of death for transgression, "nevertheless, death reigned even over them."
Who is the figure, [ tupos (G5179 )] (or 'type') of him [that was] to come, х tou (G3588) mellontos (G3195)] - 'of the future one,' Christ. The phrase is taken in a neuter sense-`the type of that which was to be,' or 'of the then future state of things'-by Erasmus, Bengel, Green, etc. But the mention twice in this same verse of Adam by name, and the thoroughly Pauline idea of a "second Adam" (as Meyer remarks) puts it beyond reasonable doubt that our version gives the true sense of the phrase here - "Him that was to come." The clause itself is inserted (as Alford says) on the first mention of the name "Adam," as the one man of whom he is speaking, to recall the purpose for which he is treating of him-as the figure of Christ. The point of analogy intended here is plainly the public character which both sustained, neither of the two being regarded in the divine procedure toward mankind as mere individual men, but both alike as representative men. Some take the proper supplement here to be, 'Him [that is] to come,' understanding the apostle speak from his own time, and to refer to Christ's Second Coming. (So Fritzsche, DeWette, Alford.) But this is unnatural, since the whole analogy here contemplated between the Second Adam and the First has been in full development ever since "God exalted Him to be a Prince and a Saviour," and it will only remain to be consummated at His Second Coming. The simple meaning is-as nearly all interpreters agree-that Adam is a type of Him who was to come after him in the same public character, and so to be the Second Adam."
Third: The Cases of Adam and Christ Present Points of Contrast as well as of Resemblance (Romans 5:15-17)