That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
| Word | Greek | Strong’s | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| That | ὅτι hoti | G3754 | demonstrative · conjunction |
| I | μοί moí | G3427 | to me |
| have | ἐστί estí | G2076 | he (she or it) is |
| great | μεγάλη megalē | G3173 | big (literally or figuratively · adjective — nominative singular feminine |
| heaviness | λύπη lupē | G3077 | sadness · noun — nominative singular feminine |
| and | καὶ kai | G2532 | and · conjunction |
| continual | ἀδιάλειπτος adialeiptos | G88 | unintermitted · adjective — nominative singular feminine |
| sorrow | ὀδύνη odunē | G3601 | grief (as dejecting) · noun — nominative singular feminine |
| in | καρδίᾳ kardia | G2588 | the heart · noun — dative singular feminine |
| my | μοῦ moû | G3450 | of me |
| heart | καρδία kardía | G2588 | the heart |
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
That I have, &c.--"That I have great grief (or, sorrow) and unceasing anguish in my heart"--the bitter hostility of his nation to the glorious Gospel, and the awful consequences of their unbelief, weighing heavily and incessantly upon his spirit.
I say the truth in Christ, I lie not - This is one of the most solemn oaths any man can possibly take. He appeals to Christ as the searcher of hearts that he tells the truth; asserts that his conscience was free from all guile in this matter, and that the Holy Ghost bore him testimony that what he said was true. Hence we find that the testimony of a man's own conscience, and the testimony of the Holy Ghost, are two distinct things, and that the apostle had both at the same time. As the apostle had still remaining a very awful part of his commission to execute, namely, to declare to the Jews not only that God had chosen the Gentiles, but had rejected them because they had rejected Christ and…
Read the whole note in the consoleThat I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. This is the thing he appeals to Christ for the truth of, and calls in his conscience and the Holy Ghost to bear witness to. These two words, "heaviness" and "sorrow", the one signifies grief, which had brought on heaviness on his spirits; and the other such pain as a woman in travail feels: and the trouble of his mind expressed by both, is described by its quantity, "great", it was not a little, but much; by its quality it was internal, it was in his "heart", it did not lie merely in outward show, in a few words or tears, but was in his heart, it was a heart sorrow; and by its duration, "continual", it was not a sudden emotion or…
Read the whole note in the consoleRomans 9:1-5 1. I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 1. Veritatem dico in Christo, non mentior, testimonium simul mihi reddente mea conscientia eum Spiri-tu sancto, 2. That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 2. Quod dolor sit mihi magnus, et assiduus cruciatus cordi meo: 3. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 3. Optarim enim ego ipse anathema esse a Christo pro fratribus meis, cognatis inquam meis secundum car-nem; 4. Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and t…
The construction here is incomplete. Paul should have added that his unceasing anguish was due to the rejection or unbelief of the Jews.
Since it appears that earlier he was speaking against the Jews, who thought that they were justified by the law, Paul now shows his desire and love for them and says that his conscience bears witness in Christ Jesus and in the Holy Spirit.
Because Paul intends to proceed against the Jews, he first assures them that he does not speak out of hatred for them, but out of love, for it pains him that they do not believe in Christ, who had come to save them as soon as possible.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Paul does not explicitly say why he has such bitter sorrow for his Jewish brothers and sisters. Yet his willingness to become cursed on their behalf if that would save them makes clear that the failure of most Jews to respond to Jesus and be saved stimulated his agony (see also 10:1).
Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
