Paul’s Anguish Over Israel
9 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised![Or Messiah, who is overall. God be forever praised! Or the Messiah. God who is over all be forever praised!] Amen.
God’s Sovereign Choice
6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”[Gen. 21:12 ] 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. 9 For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”[Gen. 18:10,14 ]
10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”[Gen. 25:23] 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”[Mal. 1:2,3]
14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”[Exodus 33:19]
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”[Exodus 9:16] 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”[Isaiah 29:16; 45:9] 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? 25 As he says in Hosea:
“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”[Hosea 2:23 ]
26 and,
“In the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”[Hosea 1:10 ]
27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.
28 For the Lord will carry out
his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”[Isaiah 10:22,23 (see Septuagint)]
29 It is just as Isaiah said previously:
“Unless the Lord Almighty
had left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah.”[Isaiah 1:9]
Israel’s Unbelief
30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. 33 As it is written:
“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall,
and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”[Isaiah 8:14; 28:16]
NOTES:
9:1–11:36 Israel’s unbelief and its rejection of Jesus as
savior astonished and puzzled Christians. It constituted a serious problem for
them in view of God’s specific preparation of Israel for the advent of the
Messiah. Paul addresses himself here to the essential question of how the
divine plan could be frustrated by Israel’s unbelief. At the same time, he
discourages both complacency and anxiety on the part of Gentiles. To those who
might boast of their superior advantage over Jews, he warns that their
enjoyment of the blessings assigned to Israel can be terminated. To those who
might anxiously ask, “How can we be sure that Israel’s fate will not be ours?”
he replies that only unbelief can deprive one of salvation.
9:1–5 The apostle speaks in strong terms of the depth of his
grief over the unbelief of his own people. He would willingly undergo a curse
himself for the sake of their coming to the knowledge of Christ (Rom 9:3; cf.
Lv 27:28–29). His love for them derives from God’s continuing choice of them
and from the spiritual benefits that God bestows on them and through them on
all of humanity (Rom 9:4–5).
9:5 Some editors punctuate this verse differently and prefer
the translation, “Of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over
all.” However, Paul’s point is that God who is over all aimed to use Israel,
which had been entrusted with every privilege, in outreach to the entire world
through the Messiah.
9:10 Children by one husband, our father Isaac: Abraham had
two children, Ishmael and Isaac, by two wives, Hagar and Sarah, respectively.
In that instance Isaac, although born later than Ishmael, became the bearer of
the messianic promise. In the case of twins born to Rebecca, God’s elective
procedure is seen even more dramatically, and again the younger, contrary to
Semitic custom is given the preference.
9:13 The literal rendering, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I
hated,” suggests an attitude of divine hostility that is not implied in Paul’s
statement. In Semitic usage “hate” means to love less; cf. Lk 14:26 with Mt
10:37. Israel’s unbelief reflects the mystery of the divine election that is
always operative within it. Mere natural descent from Abraham does not ensure
the full possession of the divine gifts; it is God’s sovereign prerogative to
bestow this fullness upon, or to withhold it from, whomsoever he wishes; cf. Mt
3:9; Jn 8:39. The choice of Jacob over Esau is a case in point.
9:14–18 The principle of divine election does not invite
Christians to theoretical inquiry concerning the nonelected, nor does this
principle mean that God is unfair in his dealings with humanity. The
instruction concerning divine election is a part of the gospel and reveals that
the gift of faith is the enactment of God’s mercy (Rom 9:16). God raised up
Moses to display that mercy, and Pharaoh to display divine severity in
punishing those who obstinately oppose their Creator.
9:18 The basic biblical principle is: those who will not see
or hear shall not see or hear. On the other hand, the same God who thus makes
stubborn or hardens the heart can reconstruct it through the work of the holy
Spirit.
9:19–29 The apostle responds to the objection that if God
rules over faith through the principle of divine election, God cannot then
accuse unbelievers of sin (Rom 9:19). For Paul, this objection is in the last
analysis a manifestation of human insolence, and his “answer” is less an
explanation of God’s ways than the rejection of an argument that places
humanity on a level with God. At the same time, Paul shows that God is far less
arbitrary than appearances suggest, for God endures with much patience (Rom
9:22) a person like the Pharaoh of the Exodus.
9:25 Beloved: in Semitic discourse means “preferred” or
“favorite” (cf. Rom 9:13). See Hos 2:1.
9:30–33 In the conversion of the Gentiles and, by contrast,
of relatively few Jews, the Old Testament prophecies are seen to be fulfilled;
cf. Rom 9:25–29. Israel feared that the doctrine of justification through faith
would jeopardize the validity of the Mosaic law, and so they never reached
their goal of righteousness that they had sought to attain through meticulous
observance of the law (Rom 9:31). Since Gentiles, including especially Greeks
and Romans, had a great regard for righteousness, Paul’s statement concerning
Gentiles in Rom 9:30 is to be understood from a Jewish perspective: quite
evidently they had not been interested in “God’s” righteousness, for it had not
been revealed to them; but now in response to the proclamation of the gospel
they respond in faith.
9:32 Paul discusses Israel as a whole from the perspective
of contemporary Jewish rejection of Jesus as Messiah. The Old Testament and
much of Jewish noncanonical literature in fact reflect a fervent faith in
divine mercy.
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