5 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
For they know not to do right, saith the LORD, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces.
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts.
But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him:
Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass;
He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.
Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the LORD God of Israel.
Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the LORD, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified for ever: and serve the LORD your God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you.
For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the LORD commanded Moses.
But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him: for the LORD thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into thy hand, as appeareth this day.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Romans 2
Commentary on Romans 2 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 2
The scope of the first two chapters of this epistle may be gathered from ch. 3:9, "We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin.' This we have proved upon the Gentiles (ch. 1), now in this chapter he proves it upon the Jews, as appears by v. 17, "thou art called a Jew.'
Rom 2:1-16
In the former chapter the apostle had represented the state of the Gentile world to be as bad and black as the Jews were ready enough to pronounce it. And now, designing to show that the state of the Jews was very bad too, and their sin in many respects more aggravated, to prepare his way he sets himself in this part of the chapter to show that God would proceed upon equal terms of justice with Jews and Gentiles; and now with such a partial hand as the Jews were apt to think he would use in their favour.
Rom 2:17-29
In the latter part of the chapter the apostle directs his discourse more closely to the Jews, and shows what sins they were guilty of, notwithstanding their profession and vain pretensions. He had said (v. 13) that not the hearers but the doers of the law are justified; and he here applies that great truth to the Jews. Observe,