For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
For scarcely for a righteous man, [ huper (G5228 ) dikaiou (G1342 )] will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die, х huper (G5228) gar (G1063) tou (G3588) agathou (G18) tacha (G5029) tis (G5100) kai (G2532) tolma (G5111) apothanein (G599)] - 'for, for the good man one perhaps does dare to die.' On the precise sense of this verse there has been much and (as we think) needless diversity of opinion. Everything depends on the sense in which the words "righteous" and "good" are to be taken. Luther and Erasmus, taking them in a neuter sense-not of persons, but of abstract qualities-make the apostle to mean, 'Scarcely will one die for that which is right and good.' But this is at variance with the whole strain of the passage; and the notion of dying for an abstract idea is entirely foreign (as Jowett well observes) to the language both of the New Testament and of the age in which it was written.
Again, Meyer (observing that the article, which is wanting before "righteous," placed before "good') understand the former clause of a righteous man, but takes the latter clause in a neuter sense, of that which is good. But besides that this is unnatural, it is liable to the same objection as before, of making the apostle speak of dying for an idea. Finally, Calvin, Beza, Fritzsche, etc., take both words as used synonymously-in this sense: 'To die even for a worthy character is a thing scarcely known among men, though such a case perhaps may occur.' But if this is what the apostle meant, it could surely have been expressed less baldly than by repeating the same thing in two successive clauses; not to say that the idea itself seems somewhat flat. It remains, then, that with the majority of good interpreters we take the sense to be as in our own version, as far the simplest and most natural. In this case, "a righteous man" is one simply of unexceptionable character, while "the good man" (emphatically so called) is one who, besides being unexceptionable, is distinguished for goodness, a benefactor to society. This distinction is familiar in classic literature; and as it cannot but have existed in fact among the Jews, there is no need to search for any definite expressions of it in the Old Testament. It only remains to notice the repetition of the "for" at the beginning of both clauses, which is to be explained thus: 'For scarcely is an instance to be found among men of one dying even for a righteous character; [I say, scarcely] for in behalf of a benefactor to society one does, perhaps, meet with such a case.' (So Bengel, Olshausen, Tholuck, Alford, Philippi, Hodge.) Beyond this, then, men's love for men, even in the rarest cases, will not go. Behold, now, the contrast between this and God's love to us in the gift of His Son.