complete verse (Romans 7:15)

Following are a number of back-translations of Romans 7:15:

  • Uma: “I don’t understand the value/use of this character of mine. The good behavior that I want to do, I don’t end up doing. Behavior that I hate, that’s what I end up doing!” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “I don’t really understand my behavior. Because the good which I want to do I do not do. But that is what I do, the bad which I do not want/like/desire.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And I don’t understand why I do things like this, because the good which I want to do, I can’t do. And the bad things that really disgust me, that’s what I do.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “I am surprised at what I do, because what I want to do, that’s what I don’t do, and at-the-same-time what I don’t-want to do, that’s what I am doing.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “I do not understand how it is what I did, in that concerning the good I wanted to do, I didn’t do it. That which I didn’t look well upon is just what I did.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
  • Yatzachi Zapotec: “I do not do what I want to do. Instead, what I do not want to do is what I do. I am not aware of why I do that way.”
  • Central Tarahumara: “And I do not know why I do thus, because I do not do good as I desire to do good. I only do the kinds of deeds that I hate very much.”
  • Huehuetla Tepehua: “In my life I don’t understand what I do. The good that I want to do, that is not what I do. Rather, I do that which I detest.” (Source for this and two above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)

Translation commentary on Romans 7:15 – 7:16

In these verses Paul is illustrating that his conscience proved to him that the Law is good. Once again the question is whether Paul is referring to the Jewish Law in particular or to law in general; translators are divided in their conclusions. In verse 15 Paul uses two different words for do, but there is no essential distinction in meaning. Also the word rendered right (“good” in most translations; “admirable” in New English Bible) is not the same word as that translated good or that translated right in verse 12. However, it is unwise to insist on any distinction in meaning.

I do not understand may need to be expressed in a somewhat emphatic form: “I do not really understand.”

The clause I agree that the Law is right may be expressed as direct discourse in some languages: “I say, Yes, the Law is right” or “I answer, Yes, the Law is right.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .