πίστεως (pisteos) in Romans 3:22: Noun Genitive Singular Feminine
πίστεως (pisteos) in Romans 3:22
Textual Witness
The witness reads πίστεως in Romans 3:22 within the phrase διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The form gently supports reading faith as the means or relational link in the clause, while leaving the broader sense dependent on the full sentence.
How To Communicate It
For readers, the grammar clarifies that faith is presented as a key relational term in the verse, so the translation should keep that dependence visible and restrained.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- A genitive noun can indicate relationship, but it does not by itself settle every interpretive question.
- Feminine grammatical gender is a form feature, not a theological gender statement.
What Does The Label Mean?
Noun: the word names faith or trust as a real concept, not a verb action in this slot.
Genitive: the form usually marks a relation, such as source, association, or reference, and here it works within the prepositional phrase.
Singular: the form is grammatically singular in this occurrence, presenting faith as one conceptual reality.
Feminine: the noun belongs to the feminine grammatical class, which is a language feature and does not by itself make a theological gender claim.
What The Form Does In This Verse
διὰ
The preposition dia governs the genitive here, so pistews stands as the object of that preposition in the phrase.
It helps express the means or channel named by the surrounding phrase, namely righteousness of God through faith in the stated context.
It is not the main subject of the sentence, and its genitive form by itself does not settle every theological relation in the phrase.
How Much The Form Matters Here
High: The genitive faith phrase sits in a major justification text and affects how the righteousness-of-God clause is heard.
Genitive noun governed by dia. presents faith as the means or relational link named in the clause. Attached to the phrase about God's righteousness through faith. Governed by the preposition dia. The following Christ phrase should be interpreted from the whole sentence and argument, not from the genitive ending alone.
What role does faith play in the righteousness statement? The form marks faith as the relational means named in the phrase, while the sentence controls how that relation is explained.
Direct: The form directly supports through faith language, with care around the following Christ phrase.
The phrase's relation to Jesus Christ should not be settled by the case ending alone. The genitive marks relation, but the verse and wider Romans argument decide the theological nuance.
Genitive relation settles every faith-in-Christ nuance: The form supports the relation, but the phrase must be read from syntax, context, and Paul's argument.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
The witness reads πίστεως in Romans 3:22 within the phrase διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.
The lemma πίστις has the sense of faith, belief, trust, or confidence, so the form points to that concept rather than another word.
Because it follows dia and sits before Jesus Christ, the grammar supports a relational phrase about faith as the stated means, while the exact linkage to the following genitives should be read cautiously from context.
The verse presents God's righteousness as reaching people in a way connected with faith, in contrast to any distinction among those who believe.
This fits the passage's larger emphasis on divine righteousness received without partiality and by faith, not by human distinction.
In teaching and translation, the form invites careful attention to how the phrase is built, but the sentence should still be read as a whole.
Do not make the genitive ending alone decide every theological nuance, and do not treat grammatical gender as a claim about persons.