The commentators point out that in this verse Paul is addressing the man who is weak in faith, but what he says also has application to the man who is strong in faith. Paul uses an analogy from the laws of slavery of his day, according to which the slave owner had absolute rights over his slave, and no one had the right to command another person’s slave.

It may be necessary in translating judge to employ a phrase such as “to decide whether the servant of someone else has done right or wrong.” However, within this context one may employ a word for judge which primarily signifies “condemn,” since this is obviously the inference of the context.

The rhetorical question at the beginning of verse 4 may be changed into a statement: “You should not judge someone else’s servant.” On the other hand, judgment may be expressed in some languages by quite a different type of expression—for example, “to measure a person.”

Succeeds or fails (so also An American Translation*) is literally “stands or falls.” What is meant is that the slave owner is the one who determines whether the slave’s service is satisfactory or unsatisfactory (see Phillips “it is to his own master that he gives, or fails to give, satisfactory service”). Succeeds or fails may be rendered in some languages as “has done well or not,” “has done what he should or not,” or “is approved or not.”

The word translated servant technically refers to a house slave or a domestic servant and appears elsewhere in Luke 16.13; Acts 10.7; and 1 Peter 2.18. If the receptor language distinguishes between servant and “slave,” then servant is the nearer equivalent. It is doubtful that any further distinction should be sought in this term.

He will succeed translates a verb that may be taken as passive (Revised Standard Version “he will be upheld”; so King James Version), but most translations understand it to have an active force as in the Good News Translation. This same verb form appears in Matthew 12.25, where it is given an active force by the Revised Standard Version (“no city or house divided against itself will stand”). If the verb is taken to be active, Paul is saying “he will stand” (Good News Translation he will succeed), but if the verb is passive, then Paul is saying “God will enable him to stand.”

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 .