Verses 26 and 27 are closely related to verse 23 and also have a relation to verse 16. These verses contain the third witness to the glorious future of God’s people (see vv. 19 and 22). In verse 22 Paul spoke of the groaning of the entire creation, and in verse 23 of the groaning of the believers; but now he speaks of the help which God’s Spirit gives, and of the way that the Spirit himself pleads with God for us, in groans that words cannot express. Although Paul literally says that “the Spirit comes to help our weakness” (see New English Bible “comes to the aid of our weakness”), it is much more natural in English to say, as in the Good News Translation, the Spirit also comes to help us, weak that we are (see Jerusalem Bible “comes to help us in our weakness”). It is not certain just what Paul means by “our weakness,” though one aspect of it is certainly that we do not know how we ought to pray. The New English Bible suggests “what it is right to pray for” as an alternative meaning of how we ought to pray, though no other translation goes in this direction. Although the final meaning of these two expressions (“what is right” and how we ought) is about the same, the structure of the Greek more nearly supports how we ought to pray.
In the same way may be equivalent in some languages to “also,” “at the same time,” or “in addition.”
Weak that we are may be related to the preceding as “to help us since we are so weak,” “to help us who are so weak,” or “to help us—we are very weak.” A literal translation of “weak” may imply mere physical disability, while an expression such as “not strong” may suggest some more spiritual failure; therefore “not strong” may be employed in the place of “weak.” If some expression must be employed to qualify weakness, probably “trust” or “confidence” would be the most satisfactory—for example, “since we are so weak in trusting God.”
Although the words with God are not in the Greek text, they are clearly implied and the Good News Translation makes this information explicit. The Spirit himself pleads with God for us may be translated as “the Spirit asks God on our behalf,” “the Spirit talks to God for us,” or even “the Spirit prays to God for us.”
The expression in groans that words cannot express (An American Translation* “with inexpressible yearnings”; Moffatt “with sighs that are beyond words”) is difficult. It is possible to take that words cannot express in the sense of “unspoken words” (see New English Bible “through our inarticulate groans”). Paul uses a similar expression in 2 Corinthians 12.4, things which cannot be put into words, and it is quite likely that both expressions have essentially the same meaning. Although the majority of translations evidently take these groanings as coming from the Spirit, the New English Bible and Barclay explicitly identify them as the groanings of men. The context would seem to favor the former—that is, the Spirit stands in immediate communion with the Father and so needs no spoken words to express his thoughts. The clause that words cannot express is translated in a number of different ways—for example, “that no person can speak,” “with groanings we cannot say how,” “with groanings for which there are no words,” or “with groanings that surpass what words can say.”
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 .