Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
The law is not made for a righteous man - There is a moral law as well as a ceremonial law: as the object of the latter is to lead us to Christ; the object of the former is to restrain crimes, and inflict punishment on those that commit them. It was, therefore, not made for the righteous as a restrainer of crimes, and an inflicter of punishments; for the righteous avoid sin, and by living to the glory of God expose not themselves to its censures. This seems to be the mind of the apostle; he does not say that the law was not Made for a righteous man, but , it does not Lie against a righteous man; because he does not transgress it: but it lies against the wicked; for such as the apostle mentions have broken it, and grievously too, and are condemned by it. The word , lies, refers to the custom of writing laws on boards, and hanging them up in public places within reach of every man, that they might be read by all; thus all would see against whom the law lay.
The lawless - · Those who will not be bound by a law, and acknowledge none, therefore have no rule of moral conduct.
Disobedient - · Those who acknowledge no authority; from , negative, and ̔ , to subject; they neither acknowledge law, nor executive authority, and consequently endeavor to live as they list; and from such dispositions all the crimes in the following catalogue may naturally spring.
For the ungodly - · The irreligious - those who do not worship God, or have no true worship; from , negative, and , to worship. For sinners, ̔ those who transgress the laws; from , negative, and , to hit the mark. This has been elsewhere explained.
For unholy - · Persons totally polluted - unclean within, and unclean without; from , negative, and ̔, holy.
And profane - · Such who are so unholy and abominable as not to be fit to attend any public worship; from , denoting privation or separation, and , a threshold or pavement, particularly of a temple. Our word profane comes from procul a fano , "far from the temple." When the ancients, even heathens, were about to perform some very sacred rites, they were accustomed to command the irreligious to keep at a distance; hence that saying in a fragment of Orpheus: -
\ri720 ̔ · ' ̔ .
\ri720 \cf1 "I will speak to whom it is lawful; but these doors, O, shut against the profane."
And that of Virgil, Aen. vi. ver. 258.
\ri720 Procul! O procul! este profani .
\ri720 \cf1 Far! ye profane! get hence.
Murderers of fathers - ͅ . The murderer of a father or a mother, notwithstanding the deep fall of man, and the general profligacy of the world, has been so rare, and is a crime so totally opposite to nature, that few civilized nations have found it necessary to make laws against it. Yet, such monsters, like the most awful and infrequent portents, have sometimes terrified the world with their appearance. But I think the original does not necessarily imply the murder of a father or of a mother; ͅ comes from , a father, and , to strike, and may mean simply beating or striking a father or mother: this is horrible enough; but to murder a parent out-herods Herod.
Manslayers - · Murderers simply; all who take away the life of a human being contrary to law. For no crime, unless it be murder, should any man lose his life. If the law did not speak differently, I should not scruple to say that he whose life is taken away, except for murder, is murdered.
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