Freed from the Torah or Freed by the Torah?
By
James Scott Trimm
In the KJV Romans 7:1-4 reads:
1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
(Rom. 7:1-4 KJV)
By contrast the HRV translates the Aramaic:
1 Or do you not know, my brothers, (for I speak to learned ones of the Torah), that the Torah has authority over a man as long as he is alive,
2 As a woman who is bound by the Torah to her husband, as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is freed by the Torah from her husband.
3 And if, while her husband is alive, she has intercourse with another man, she becomes an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is freed by the Torah, and she is not an adulteress if she marries another.
4 And now, my brothers, you also are dead to the Torah, in the body of the Messiah: that you might be [married] to another who arose from among the dead; that you might bear fruit to Eloah.
(Rom. 7:1-4 HRV)
The key phrase here is “she is free from that law” in the KJV vs. “she is freed by the Torah” in the HRV.
The Aramaic reads:
אתחררת מן נמוסא
the word in question “from/by” is מן which can mean “from”, but can also mean “from” in the sense of “by way of” and thus it can also be translated “by” as we see in the Aramaic of Mark 1:9:
“And it was in those days, that Yeshua came from Natzaret of Galil,
and was immersed in the Yarden by Yochanan.”
The Aramaic for the phrase “was immersed in the Yarden by Yochanan” is:
ואתעמד ביורדן מן יוחנן
The word for “by” here is also מן not because they were immersed “from” (out of and away from) Yochanan, but because they were immersed “by” (by way of) Yochanan.
Likewise in Romans 7:1-4 the phrase is not “freed from (away from) the Torah” but “freed by (by way of) the Torah). As anyone knows, a woman if her husband dies, a woman is freed by the Torah from her husband. Likewise when the flesh, he so called “law of sin” within us dies, we are freed by the Torah from sin.
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