#32. Romans 1:28-31 – The Hebrew Crash Course Concerning Unrighteousness, Part 1

 Part II: The Conduct of Humanity

And according as they do not test God, to have Him in recognition, God gives them over to a disqualified mind, to do that which is not befitting, filled with all injustice, wickedness, evil, greed, distended with envy, murder, strife, guile, depravity, whisperers, vilifiers, detesters of God, outragers, proud, ostentatious, inventors of evil things, stubborn to parents, unintelligent, perfidious, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful…   

When I first read this passage, I thought to myself, Man, there’s a lot of adjectives, here. I understand what all of these mean, so I’ll just summarize them in my study and move forward. It was an easy decision – the point is evident, and any addition or consideration I could make would only feel condescending, intellectually (like, you guys know the definition of “murder.” Why do I feel the need to cover it?)

Well, the answer slapped my dumb face: it’s a study. Da doy! By definition, we are studying two different languages, and there have already been a wealth of considerations in the Greek that have highlighted the meaning of passages in ways that English simply couldn’t accomplish.

Not only that, but the number of actions Paul lists – being twenty-two – stood out to me as strange. Why twenty-two, specifically? Why not 21 (7x3?) Or 24 (12x2?) All of these numbers have necessary motifs and themes attached to them, which we derive from their use in the text. But twenty-two is a bit of an oddball. Further consideration of scripture’s use of the number highlights a disorganization, or disintegration, of righteousness itself. Referring back to “21,” which is a complete (3) set of perfection (7,) it follows that 22 is an overextension of the righteousness. We see this in Israel’s worst kings, Jeroboam (1 Kings 14:20,) and Ahab (1 Kings 16:29,) both of whom reigned for 22 years, and took a steaming crap all over the righteousness of God.

Twenty-two has two factors: 11, and 2. 11 itself is another oddball number, referencing both an addition to divine order (10+1,) as well as a subtraction from divine rule (12-1.) When the number is doubled, and we get twenty-two, we see a divine alteration of the status quo.

We find this best in the Hebrew alphabet, which has 22 letters. Yes, the Hebrew language is perfect and holy and just, but, because it is a human language, it has been subject to additions, subtractions, and alterations – all of which detract from the main point of the Hebrew scriptures, obscuring their declarations.

This takes me to the subject of this paper, a mini challenge that will both push our understanding of the contrast that God is setting up here, and an interesting creative project here at the end of the chapter. What if we contrast the 22 letters of the beautiful Hebrew alphabet, and the hidden meanings and symbols within their letters, with the antithetical 22 actions which Paul presents here?

It’s a strange premise, I know, but as I proceeded, I found interesting and rich connections which properly juxtapose Christ and His journey of life, light, and grace, with man’s journey of death, darkness, and decay. I believe you will find this to be a fun detour, and an entertaining way to consider the 22 adjectives above, as opposed to writing them down in a list.

I must stress, before we begin, that this is not a “required” piece of theology, and you could safely skip this entire section if you’re uninterested. For starters, I will be considering this from a modern context. The extrapolations I’ll make are derived from literary considerations, reading into the Hebrew alphabet and its themes, in connection with Christ, Who did not walk the earth until after the Old Testament had been completed. While the definitions of the Greek words in Romans and their contextual use are verifiable, as well as the broader meanings of the Hebrew letters, the connections I draw between these two concepts are speculative. My aim is not to present a definitive theology or claim that the Hebrew alphabet conveys only one specific message. I’m weaving a narrative around the applicable themes in regards to Christ found in each letter – not asserting definitive facts that all believers must accept.

I am using the alphabet primarily to hint at future topics we will be considering throughout Paul’s letters, and dwell on the beautiful aspects of our Lord, while providing a mnemonic device by which we can slow down and meditate on each word. The Hebrew alphabet is not proven to correlate with Romans 1, but it provides a thematic framework to contrast the righteous qualities of the Son of God with the unrighteous sin in man. Through this study, we will have a clearer conception of human irreverence, and find a further appreciation for the plan and nature of our God and our Lord. The Greek words, their meanings, and their contextual connection to Romans 1 will remain academic, while our broad consideration of the Hebrew letters are more a devotional/thematic exercise.

Without further ado, these are Paul’s twenty-two anti-types of the Hebrew alphabet.

Aleph/Injustice

The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is “aleph.” This letter is considered to be silent, and has no sound, other than a guttural “a” sound from the back of the throat (I’m terrible at describing these sorts of things, so you’re best off looking at a YouTube video if you’re unfamiliar.)

The letter “aleph,” in Paleo-Hebrew, is pictured as an ox’s head. This is to symbolize power and leadership. Of course, the leader is number-one. He is pre-eminent. There are many terms in scripture which employ the aleph at the beginning of the noun – indicating its power. The word “God,” in Hebrew, is actually “El,” and “Elohim,” both of which begin with the Aleph. The terms “father,” “light,” “truth,” “love,” and many more begin with this letter.

Now for the fun stuff. Each Hebrew letter points directly back to Christ, and the alphabet, in proper sequence, give us a picture of “The Christ” and His purpose, accomplishment, and goal throughout God’s story – and, of course, this will directly tie in with Paul’s evangel as presented in Romans. This letter evidently points to Christ as the number one Creature in the universe. He is pre-eminent. He is the Firstborn of all creation (Col. 1:15,) and the Firstborn of all believers in Paul’s evangel – His body (Col. 1:18.)

In contrast, the first adjective that Paul presents is found at the beginning of Rom. 1:29. “Injustice” is akidia in Greek, and its elements are “UN-JUST-NESS,” otherwise known as “unrighteousness.” We’ve seen this word twice before, in Rom. 1:18. The third use of this term in this verse highlights a roundabout centralization of the theme; legally, Paul is saying, we are guilty. These actions highlight our many faults. Every word we see after “injustice” is simply an expansion of the concept (i.e. “murder” is an aspect of “injustice,” as is “depravity,” and “envy,” etc.) With this, God clarifies where His indignation is being revealed, that is, against the following 21 adjectives.

This, of course, makes injustice the power, the leader, of the human flesh. Injustice, in man, is pre-eminent. That is to say: in the mind of God, as indicated in the Hebrew alphabet, Christ is first. Yet in the mind of man, as indicated in our lives and experience, not to mention many honest considerations of the race as a whole, injustice is pre-eminent. This makes Christ second in the mind of man, which is backwards. Until Christ (all that He is) becomes front and center in our minds and hearts, this injustice – this desire to self-will – will remain in His stead.

One more thing – do not fear, for Paul’s evangel beautifully resolves this issue of “injustice.” There will be no offer – simply a declaration which rights these issues. You will not have to give anything. It will be as simple as hearing a message. Paul, again, simply must list this injustice first and foremost, to highlight the severity of the issue, and the condemnation that follows (Rom. 1:32.)

Bet/Wickedness

The second letter of the Hebrew alphabet is “bet.” This letter is the ‘b’ sound in Hebrew. The letter “bet,” in Paleo-Hebrew, is pictured as a tent, or house. You can even see this clearly in the shape of the letter itself; a solid ground, with the wall, roof, and entrance.

The meaning of “bet,” then, is self-evident. A couple of examples include Bethlehem – baby Jesus’ home town (“Bethlehem” means “House of Bread,” translated literally,) and Bethel (“Bet,” “El,” meaning “House of God,” Gen. 28:19.) We can, most of all, recognize that this letter is the first letter of all of scripture – signifying the preposition “In,” for “In a beginning,” Genesis 1:1. This is significant, as Genesis 1:1 documents the creation of the heavens and the earth, which will, at the end of this story, become the dwelling place, or house, of God (1 Cor. 15:27-28.) Yes – the very first letter of the Bible not only tells, but shows you a practical justification, or need, for God to write the Bible.

The first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet can be paired together (they operate in twos.) “Christ,” the Aleph, is the “Dwelling,” the Bet, of God. Christ is God’s Emblem. His Image. His Instrument. He uses Christ to accomplish His desires. All came into being through Him (Col. 1:15-17, John 1:1-3.) I stress: through Him. He is the Manner, the Method by which God tells the story. This is the true beginning of all matter – with the Son. This beginning shows us God’s main character, His theme, His agenda, and His goal. The following letters walk us through to its consummation with the final letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

This “dwelling” finds its antitype in the second word Paul presents concerning man’s unrighteousness: wickedness. This is a much misinterpreted and abused Greek word, poneria. I typically receive from various Christians a loosely-formed definition of this word (and they do this through an assumption in Matt. 22:18,) as “evil,” or “moral corruption.” However, we can see from this very chapter that “wickedness” and “evil” are not the same in meaning, because the next word that we will consider is “evil!” That these two words appear side by side should show us that they are expressing different aspects of the overarching topic, which is itself injustice, which is itself lawlessness.

(That was a lot, but you’re smart, and you’re following, so let’s go.)

It follows that, since the passage is considering the actions resulting from moral degeneration, that “wickedness,” while certainly morally reprehensible, does not itself mean “moral corruption,” nor can we safely or practically assert such a claim on God’s word alone.

It is only in the elements here that we receive a practical application of the word. The Greek elements of the word do not immediately indicate a moral state, but an emotional one: “MISERY-GUSH.” A fervent act out of misery? Some of my most hypocritical moments stem from such an attitude. A lapse of judgment typically stems from frustration, yes? Woe? Hurt?

This is what God speaks of. A miserable, irrational emotional choice, rooted in a dying gut – which we are all guilty of committing at one point or another.

When we pair the “aleph” and the “bet,” we receive a picture of Authority and His perpetual role/goal. We can similarly pair the first two words Paul presents concerning man’s degenerate acts. “Man,” in injustice, is “Housing” the gushing misery, of Sin.

Gimel/Evil

The third letter of the Hebrew alphabet is “gimel.” This letter is the ‘g’ sound in Hebrew. The letter “gimel,” in Paleo-Hebrew, is pictured as either a camel (the word “gml” in Hebrew is, literally, camel,) or a foot, indicating the concept of “traveling.”

If we line up the entire Hebrew alphabet (which reads from right to left,) we will see the “bet,” or “tent,” and then a “gimel,” or, a foot travelling away from that tent. This speaks to various themes among the Israelites themselves (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s perpetual travel, for example, or the Hebrews as a whole traveling out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and into Canaan,) but for the sake of brevity and simplicity, I will stick to the core theme of Christ, here. Christ, in Philippians 2:5-8, is stated to leave His dwelling place, that is, His home in the celestials, and empty Himself. This is, indeed, the beginning of the ultimate journey – one which carries the greatest loss, produces the greatest lesson, and ensures the greatest conclusion.

The critical theme of this descent is humility (Phil. 2:3,) representing a great work on Christ’s part, to ultimately build up a new humanity (Rom. 6:3-4, 2 Cor. 5:14-17,) saving us at our lowest point. Christ accomplishes the greatest work which could ever be conceived, and He effects it solely because it is the will of His Father (John 5:19.)

Now, we may contrast this great, accomplished journey from Jesus with the third act of man: evil.

“Evil,” kakon, is simply: destruction. No, it does not always mean “wicked,” because “wicked” is the previous word. God put two different Greek words, here, so He’s not mindlessly repeating Himself. These two are distinct.

God has committed evil. Yes, can you believe it?

*sigh* You don’t?

Okay. Well, I know you wouldn’t believe me if I tapped away at my keyboard for twenty minutes at an argument you won’t care about, so instead I’ll share five verses where God explicitly says He is committing or causing evil (Hebrew: ra) in the Old Testament. Amos 3:6–

Shall a trumpet be blown in a city, and the people not tremble? Shall there be evil (ra) in a city, and Yahweh has not done it?

Lamentations 3:38–

From the mouth of the Supreme, does there not go forth both evil (ra) and good?

Isaiah 45:7–

Forming light and creating darkness, Making peace and creating evil (ra); I, Yahweh, am doing all these things.

Ezekiel 6:10–

And they will know that I am Yahweh; not in vain have I spoken to do this evil (ra) to them.

1 Kings 9:9–

Because they forsook Yahweh their Elohim, Who brought their fathers forth from the land of Egypt, and they took hold of other elohim and bowed themselves to them and served them. That is why Yahweh has brought all this evil (ra) upon them.

There are many more examples, but I think this sends the message pretty well. Haters will tell me that this word means twenty-five different things, but until I am shown a reason that this must be the case, I believe the foundational, standard definition should suffice. God is very much creating, causing, bringing forth, and even speaking evil upon people. This is the reality: God gives people over. He is consistent with this across thousands of years – what would it take to believe Him?

The “evil” spoken of here in Romans 1:28, however, is indeed given under a moral and intellectual context, so we are speaking of a self-destruction. Man is self-destructive by nature – always joining factions, engaging in conflict, for war or sport. While God can intelligently and precisely employ evil without sacrificing His moral compass, character, or forgetting His intent (because He is able in all,) mankind, alas, cannot comprehend a comparison. Degredation is what we know – the passage of time. We are trapped within an onslaught of hunger pangs and joint cramps and headaches and nausea and sore feet and back problems and doctor’s visits to make. Every day, our body fights mortality with no luck; the new cells multiply, and we age. Green paper runs our lives, drives our decisions. We cannot help but judge others by appearance. We are subject, as a whole, to vain concepts. We are driven by looks. By prettiness. By appeal. We are, literally, destroying ourselves as we refuse to perceive anything more than this.

This is our walk. This is our journey. The walk ages and tires us, produces sin, and ensures death. This is not, of course, to ignore the beauty of life, but it is to face the facts, and present the reality of the dire state humanity is in. We are not walking a righteous walk, to empty ourselves of the aforementioned injustice and wickedness, nor are we able to empty of our own volition. This is a distinctly righteous quality, which man, in injustice, cannot effect.

I believe you are able to see the inversion, at this point. A pattern has been clearly established – for each word, there is an inverse of Christ and His journey. A misinterpretation or ignorance toward the qualities of righteousness, and the heart of God that they represent. This One has unique, proper attributes, and He is proving it, actively. In this case, He is accurately and concisely conveying that man, when dominated by sin, must by force stand against righteousness and everything it stands for in our every day lives. Whether or not it is intentional is irrelevant, here; it does occur. We are unrighteous. We do experience misery. We do destroy with malintent. To project these qualities onto God is just that: projection. A forced misdirect to compensate for one’s own shortcomings. This is, I suspect, because we believe that if God perceived us personally as flawed – the One that created us – we would inadvertently inflict an unimaginable guilt and shame upon ourselves.

It is good, then, that we take a moment to remember that this is chapter one of Romans. At this point, there are only 52 more verses where this backdrop for Paul’s evangel may be considered. When we do get to Paul’s evangel, we will see the resolution to this seemingly-hopeless issue.

Dalet/Greed

One more, and then we’ll pause. The dalet is fourth in the Hebrew alphabet, and makes the ‘d’ sound in Hebrew. The letter “dalet,” in Paleo-Hebrew, is pictured as a door. The word delet in Hebrew, is spelled the same way as dalet, and means “door.”

This word connects to Christ clearly and definitively, as Christ Himself is figured as a Door. Observe John 10:9–

I am the Door. Through Me if anyone should be entering, he shall be saved, and shall be entering and coming out and will be finding pasture.

This is most notably figured, to Israel, in the Passover, where the enslaved Hebrews were to paint an innocent lamb’s blood around the lintel of each house (literally, around the door) so that Yahweh would not enter their homes and take their firstborn.

He is a Door – a Means of getting from one place to another. Our own apostle later calls Jesus a Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5.) A mediator is one who establishes peace between two opposing parties. This fits well with the third letter, the gimel, for Christ is said to be the Way. Not one can access the Father except through Him.

This is contrasted directly and negatively with our next Greek word: pleonexia. This is, literally, “MORE-HAVING,” or greed. Instead of Christ being the Door into salvation, greed is the door into destruction.

It would be a slight simplification to claim that greed is simply the “desire for more.” This definition is shortsighted, and does not accurately convey the term, for Christ desires more than any other – He is desiring all men, all life (Rom. 1:16, 5:18, Col. 1:20.) Moreover, He has purchased all, and is giving all to the believers of Paul’s evangel today (1 Cor. 3:21-23.) It would be odd for Him to claim that desiring more is bad, while calling out more believers through His evangel, and gaining more than any other.

The definition makes far more sense if we include the word perpetual – a perpetual desire for more would indicate that one will never be content, and considers the pleasurable things and works of life to be the measure of a man. This is far more in line with the contextual use of greed. Take Jesus’ warning in Luke 12:15, for example–

Now He said to them, “See and guard against all greed, for one’s life is not in the superfluity of his possessions.”

It is, then, to equate these possessions with self-worth which necessitates the “greedy” label. It is the notion that you continually need more – to climb to the heights of the social stratosphere, to need more profit, to want more things – to achieve contentedness.

This door is a doorway to negligence. One of my favorite examples of this is the ancient line of Egyptian kings. Starting with the third-dynasty king Netjerikhet Djoser (don’t ask me how to pronounce his first name,) architects would be hired to make large sepulchers (which have come to be known as “pyramids”) in order to glorify the reign of the strongest Egyptian kings of the eon. This practice led to some of the greatest structures of all time – the Great Pyramids, among many others. These big-ass triangles were placed on the border of the Saharan desert and Memphis, Egypt, which was the capital of Egypt at the time. They were built here to indicate the passage of the Egyptian kings from life (in Memphis) to death (the wastelands.)

Surprisingly, however, many of these big-ass triangles never came to be. Many kings would come and go before the completion of their pyramids, and the Egyptians would desert the project to begin constructing another pyramid for the current king. As the construction of these pyramids could take anywhere between 25-30 years, it became a(n expensive) race against time to construct a worthy burial place for their majesty.

This is a great example of greed. Those of the “upper class” were not fully content with providing comforts for the “lower class” of the era. Their religious customs led them to build large, self-entitled shrines to death. Yes, they then spent the vast majority of their lives (and others’ lives, sometimes slaves) commanding the preparation of their death. And they worshipped this.

Of course, idolatry is key in this role, but greed is the doorway to this; workers were often incentivized to lay more stones than the others. The external appeal of having your pyramid stand out among the others was a major life goal, and would show all visitors and citizens who the greatest, and longest-living, rulers truly were. This is, literally, the idea that your burial site defines your character, and that one must have more for their structure than any other.

This is sin’s door. Its effect is not mediatorial. Its effect is the opposite of peace. This greed creates hierarchy, division and strife. This ties perfectly with our destructive walk, to tear ourselves or those around us down into the very depths of injustice, which we will cover in the following actions from Paul.

(to be continued)

- GerudoKing