Romans 8:22. For we know. Here, as in chaps. Romans 2:2; Romans 3:19; Romans 7:14, and Romans 8:26; Romans 8:28, the Apostle appeals to the consciousness of Christians, rather than to the consciousness of all men. If Romans 8:21 be taken as the purport of the hope, then this is a proof of the existence of the hope, and not of ‘the bondage of corruption.' ‘For if that hope of glorious deliverance had not been left to it, all nature would not have united its groaning and travailing until now. This phenomenon, so universal and so unbroken, cannot be conduct without an aim; on the contrary, it presupposes as the motive of the painful travail that very hope, toward the final fulfilment of which it is directed' (Meyer).

Groaneth together. The word ‘together' must be repeated to bring out the sense. It refers to the common groaning of the whole creation, and should not be explained as ‘together with us'; this idea is first brought out in Romans 8:23.

Travaileth in pain together. The reference to birth-pangs suggests a new form of nature, to which this pain is the necessary preliminary.

Until now, i.e., the present moment; the idea of unbroken duration is the prominent one. There is no reference to some point of time in the future.

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Old Testament