Daniel's Literal Translation and Commentary
The Torah Judges All Sin
"Now we know that what ever things the law says, it says to those with the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may under justice before God" (DLT: torahtimes.org, Rom. 3:19).
with the law: The texts are mistranslated "under the law". The texts have εν τω νομῳ. The word for "under" is υπο. This text is anti-Semitic in the usual translation "under the law" since it de-legitimizes Israel as the teacher of the Torah and intimates an especially bad status for Israel in a positional sense separated from other parties supposedly more fortunate. The Greek word εν is used in the sense of the Hebrew ב, and means "in connection with" in an abstract sense (cf. NET Bible footnote (bible.org). The idea that Paul gives here is that the Torah will go forth from Zion to judge the whole world under the rule of Yeshua in the age to come.
The insistence of Catholic and Protestant translations of the phrase "under the law" in this verse is a particularly obvious and egregious case of ignoring the plain Greek for the sake of a tradition which finds it necessary to assign the Jews a negative function with regard to their custodianship of the Torah. Paul writes about Israel: "Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;" (Rom. 9:4). So to Israel, which us us (Gal. 6:16) is given possession of the Torah. "With the Law" in Rom. 3:19, therefore, means "having the law" in the sense that God has appointed Israel to maintain and teach the Torah. What ever the Torah says to us, it also says to the whole world, so that the whole world may be brought under the justice of the Torah before God.
Where the word "under" does occur in the text, it is glossed over or ignored in most translations. The Greek word υποδικος is really a compound word of υπο + δικος. It means "under justice" or "under judgment". Paul is saying that the whole world is under the justice of the Torah. Whatever it says to Israel (as God's appointed custodian having, or "with" the Torah) it says so that all the world may be judged.
What makes the mistranslation of εν as 'under' all the more unforgivable is that it causes the reader to think in a semantic category that the law does not apply to them but only to the Jews. It was wholly, and originally motivated by hatred of the Jews, and hatred of the Torah. However, Paul is saying the judgment of the Law applies universally in the next clause. And Israel possesses the Law which brings the whole world under judgment. That is the sense of the words εν τω νομω here. It is a precondition of the gospel that the sinner needs to understand that they are a transgressor of the Torah. Without this admission, "repent and faithfully trust the good news" (Mark 1:15) has no context. (DLC: torahtimes.org)
Daniel's Literal Translation and Commentary: (http://www.torahtimes.org/translation/rom0319.html)
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