2:16a

Gentiles: Gentiles were all people who were not Jews.

2:16b

As a result, they continue to heap up their sins to full capacity: The grammatical construction in Greek in this part of the verse can be understood in two ways:

(1) It indicates the result of the Jews’ actions. This means that they had tried hard to stop Paul. That resulted in them adding to their previous sins of killing the prophets and Jesus, which they had done thinking (mistakenly) that they were pleasing God.

(Berean Standard Bible, New International Version (2011 Revision), Good News Translation, NET Bible, God’s Word, New Jerusalem Bible, New Revised Standard Version, New Century Version, New Living Translation (2004 Revision))

(2) It indicates the purpose of their actions. Some translations suggest that the Jews knew that they were sinning.

(King James Version, Revised Standard Version, The Jerusalem Bible)

It is recommended that you follow the first option (1), along with the majority of English versions.

heap up their sins: This is a metaphor. Paul was comparing the way that they sinned more and more to someone adding to a pile of rubbish. This illustrated how God had been patient from even Old Testament times. He had figuratively allowed the pile of sins to grow high. But finally, Paul said, God had become very angry and would soon punish them. See the note on 2:16c.

2:16c

the…wrath: Here Paul implies that the wrath is God’s wrath. Many English versions have made this explicit in the text. For example:

The wrath of God (New International Version (2011 Revision))

utmost: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as utmost is more literally “in/to the end.” This phrase can have several meanings. There are two primary possibilities:

(1) The phrase goes with “has come upon them” and indicates that these people are experiencing wrath “finally” or “in the end.”

(Revised Standard Version, English Standard Version, New International Version (2011 Revision), Contemporary English Version, New Century Version, Good News Translation, God’s Word, New Jerusalem Bible)

(2) The phrase goes with “wrath” and indicates that this “wrath” is extreme or complete.

(Berean Standard Bible, King James Version, Revised English Bible, NET Bible)

It is recommended that you follow the first option (1), along with the majority of English versions.

has come upon them: Commentators do not agree about the timing of this. The tense of the verb in Greek would seem to indicate that the judgment had already taken place before Paul wrote the letter. However, Paul may have used the past tense here to show that this was something certain to happen.

Many English versions simply follow the Greek past tense, though the The Jerusalem Bible and God’s Word use a present tense verb. Here is another way to translate this phrase:

Now God has finally become angry and will punish them. (Contemporary English Version)

You need to choose the tense in your language which most clearly conveys that God’s judgment was something that was going to happen very soon and therefore was as certain as if it had already happened.

© 2002 by SIL International®

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All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.