γλώσσαις (glossais) in Romans 3:13: Noun Dative Plural Feminine
γλώσσαις (glossais) in Romans 3:13
Textual Witness
The witness reads ταῖς γλώσσαις αὐτῶν ἐδολιοῦσαν in Romans 3:13, placing the form inside a line about corrupt speech.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The form supports a reading of deceitful speech as the focus, with the tongues serving as the means by which falsehood is spoken.
How To Communicate It
In communication, this form can be paraphrased to show that their words and speech practice were deceitful, while preserving the verse's vivid body imagery.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- Dative case suggests relationship or means here, but the clause and its imagery set the meaning.
- Grammatical gender is a formal class marker and does not by itself create a gendered theological claim.
What Does The Label Mean?
Noun: the word names the tongue as an organ of speech, and in other settings it can also refer to a language.
Dative: the form usually marks an indirect or instrumental relation, and here it fits the phrase that describes how speech was used.
Plural: the form is grammatically plural in this occurrence, pointing to more than one tongue in the wording of the verse.
Feminine: the noun belongs to the feminine grammatical class, which is a formal feature of the word and not a theological claim.
What The Form Does In This Verse
ταῖς γλώσσαις αὐτῶν
The dative plural is shaped by the verb ἐδολιοῦσαν and the surrounding clause, and it presents the tongues as the means or sphere in which deceit was carried out.
It functions as part of the phrase describing deceitful speech, so the focus stays on corrupt use of speech rather than on a standalone subject or direct object.
It is not the main subject of the clause, and the form itself does not require a special technical sense such as a separate language list.
How Much The Form Matters Here
Moderate: The dative noun participates in Paul's Scripture chain about corrupt speech under sin.
Noun dative plural feminine. marks tongues as the means or sphere through which deceitful speech is portrayed. Attached to the deceitful speech clause in Romans 3:13. Governed by the verb describing deceit. The dative keeps attention on the instrument of speech within the indictment rather than creating a separate subject.
By what means is deceit described in the clause? The tongues are named as the means or sphere of deceitful speech.
Supporting: The dative supports a phrase such as with their tongues or by their tongues.
Dative case can mark several relations, so the verb and clause determine the best nuance here. Plural tongues should not be read as a separate list of human languages in this verse. The body-part language serves Paul's moral indictment of speech.
Dative always means instrument: The instrumental sense is contextually likely here, but dative case should be checked against the clause. tongues means languages in every context: Here the phrase concerns deceitful speech, not a technical discussion of languages.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
The witness reads ταῖς γλώσσαις αὐτῶν ἐδολιοῦσαν in Romans 3:13, placing the form inside a line about corrupt speech.
The lemma γλῶσσα can mean tongue or language, but here the immediate context of throat, lips, and deceit points to the organ of speech.
The plural dative works naturally with the verb and the possessive pronoun to describe the manner or sphere of their deception, without forcing a broader semantic shift.
The verse says their speech was deceitful, and this form helps present that deception as expressed through their tongues.
This fits the wider biblical pattern of speech imagery that uses body terms for moral description, while staying anchored in the verse itself.
For teaching or translation, it may be rendered as through their tongues or with their tongues, depending on the target language and syntax.
Do not derive a separate doctrine from the feminine gender, and do not treat plural form alone as proof of a distinct theological category.