What Does Romans 3:10 Mean?
As it is written, There is none aligned, not even one.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:THE KEY
“Not one” closes the door on the idea that anyone can claim alignment as a private distinction.
THE MEANING
No person stands apart from the shared human condition by possessing an unbroken record of alignment. The verse meets you now by removing the imagined exception: “no, not one.”
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that your own record makes you the one person exempt from this shared condition.
THE ROOT
δίκαιος
dikaios
GROWS FROM
δικ-
dik-
Right, just; what accords with what is due.
English can make “righteous” sound like a moral badge, while δίκαιος (dikaios) belongs to a word family about what is right or aligned. The phrase “not even one” removes the claim that anyone possesses this alignment as a private distinction.
ALSO GROWS
dikaiosynē: Righteousness; alignment.
δικαιοσύνη
The related noun names the quality or state that no one here can claim as an exception.
dikaioō: To justify or declare right.
δικαιόω
This verb from the same family shows the language also turns toward being set right, beyond claiming to already stand right.
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly refuses the claim that any person possesses complete alignment on their own.
They all turn aside; together they are soiled. There is none doing good, not even one.For there is no aligned human upon the earth who does good and does not miss the mark.For all have missed the mark, and fall short of the weight of God.THE THREAD
Flourishing are those who hunger and thirst for alignment, for they are filled.“Righteousness” here is δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē), from the same δικ- (dik-) family as δίκαιος (dikaios), “righteous,” in Romans. Romans removes the claim of private alignment; Matthew shows alignment as something one can hunger for and be filled with.
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