Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 11:31
Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
31. have these also now not believed ] Better, did these disobey.
through your mercy ] Connect these words with “have these not obeyed.” The verse will then read; Thus these also now disobeyed through your mercy, that they also, &c. The “mercy of the Gentiles” is the mercy of God in Christ to them, not any mercy of theirs to the Jews. The statement of this verse is the almost exact converse of that of Rom 11:30. Jewish unbelief was, in a certain sense, the instrumental cause of Gentile salvation; so, in a certain sense, Gentile salvation was the final cause of Jewish unbelief. In the Divine Plan the call of the Gentiles was to hinge upon the unbelief of the Jews when they should reject Messiah; and thus the grand act of Jewish unbelief was, in a guarded sense, “ caused ” by the promise of the call of the Gentiles.
that they also may obtain mercy ] Q. d., “that their reception again (in single cases, and at length in a mass,) may be as remarkably an act of sovereign compassion as your own call was.” The emphatic idea throughout this section is mercy.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Even so have these … – That is, the Jews.
That through your mercy … – The immediate effect of the unbelief of the Jews was to confer salvation on the Gentiles, or to open the way for the preaching of the gospel to them. But its remote effect would be to secure the preaching of the gospel again to the Jews. Through the mercy, that is, the compassion or deep feeling of the converted Gentiles; through the deep and tender pity which they would feel for the blinded and degraded Jews: the gospel should be again carried to them, and they should be recalled to the long lost favor of God. Each party should thus cause salvation to come to the other – the Jews to the Gentiles by their unbelief; but the Gentiles, in their turn, to the Jews by their belief. We may here learn,
- That the Jews are to be converted by the instrumentality of the Gentiles. It is not to be by miracle, but by the regular and common way in which God blesses people.
(2)That this is to be done by the mercy, or compassion of the Gentiles; by their taking pity on the lost and wretched condition of the Jewish people.
(3)It is to be when the abundance of the Gentiles – that is, when great numbers of the Gentiles – shall be called in.
It may be asked here whether the time is not approaching for the Gentiles to make efforts to bring the Jews to the knowledge of the Messiah. Hitherto those efforts have been unsuccessful; but it will not always be so; the time is coming when the promises of God in regard to them shall be fulfilled. Christians shall be moved with deep compassion for the degraded and forsaken Jews, and they shall be called into the kingdom of God, and made efficient agents in extending the gospel through the whole world. May the time soon come when they shall feel as they should, for the rejected and forsaken children of Abraham, and when their labors for their conversion shall be attended with success.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 31. Even so have these also] In like manner the Jews are, through their infidelity, shut out of the kingdom of God:-
That through your mercy] But this exclusion will not be everlasting; but this will serve to open a new scene when, through farther displays of mercy to you Gentiles, they also may obtain mercy – shall be received into the kingdom of God again; and this shall take place whenever they shall consent to acknowledge the Lord Jesus, and see it their privilege to be fellow heirs with the Gentiles of the grace of life.
As sure, therefore, as the Jews were once in the kingdom, and the Gentiles were not; as sure as the Gentiles are now in the kingdom, and the Jews are not; so surely will the Jews be brought back into that kingdom.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
31. Even so have thesetheJews.
now not believedor,”now been disobedient”
that through your mercythemercy shown to you.
they also may obtainmercyHere is an entirely new idea. The apostle has hithertodwelt upon the unbelief of the Jews as making way for the faith ofthe Gentilesthe exclusion of the one occasioning the reception ofthe other; a truth yielding to generous, believing Gentiles butmingled satisfaction. Now, opening a more cheering prospect, hespeaks of the mercy shown to the Gentiles as a means of Israel’srecovery; which seems to mean that it will be by the instrumentalityof believing Gentiles that Israel as a nation is at length to “lookon Him whom they have pierced and mourn for Him,” and so to”obtain mercy.” (See 2Co 3:15;2Co 3:16).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Even so have these also now not believed,…. Now is the time of the Jews’ unbelief, blindness has happened to them, the vail is over their hearts; as the Gentiles formerly did not believe God, so the Jews do not now; though they believe there is a God, and that there is but one God, yet they do not believe God in Christ; nor that he is the Father of Christ; or that Christ is the Son of God, the true Messiah, and Saviour of the world: they do not believe, as some read the words, connecting them with the next clause, and so they stand in the original text, “in your mercy”; meaning either Christ, in whom the Gentiles obtained mercy; or the Gospel, the means of it; or the sense is, that they do not believe that mercy belongs to the Gentiles, having entertained a notion, treat the Messiah, and the blessings of mercy and goodness by him, are peculiar to Israel: but our version after Beza, who follows Theophylact, connects the clause with the following,
that through your mercy they may obtain mercy; not through the mercy the Gentiles show to others, but which they have received of God; and principally intends faith, which springs from the mercy of God, and is a gift of his pure, free, rich grace; and stands opposed to the unbelief of the Jews, through which the Gentiles are said to obtain mercy; and the meaning: is, that in time to come, the Jews, observing the mercy obtained and enjoyed by the Gentiles, will be provoked to jealousy, and stirred up to an emulation of them, to seek for the same mercy at the same hands, and in the same way, they have had it; see Ro 11:11; The apostle’s argument in favour of the call and conversion of the Jews, upon the whole is this, that since the unbelief of the Gentiles was no bar to their obtaining mercy, and that through the infidelity of the Jews; then it cannot be thought, that the present blindness, hardness of heart, enmity, and unbelief, which now attend the Jews, can be any obstacle to their obtaining mercy in the same way the Gentiles have; but as the one has been, the other also will be.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
By the mercy shown to you ( ). Objective sense of (possessive pronoun, your). Proleptic position also for the words go with (first aorist passive subjunctive of , from with , purpose clause). God’s purpose is for the Jews to receive a blessing yet.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “Even so have these also now not believed,” (houtos kai houtoi nun epeithesan) “Even so (just like this, or in like manner) these now have not believed,” or “have disobeyed,” have not believed or been persuaded, Rom 10:1-4.
2) “That through your mercy,” (to humetero eleei hina) “in order that by your mercy,” your bearing the mercy, grace, and redemption message, as the church at Rome, and members in particular, some may even now be saved among them, Tit 3:5; Mat 5:7; 2Co 4:1-2; Heb 4:16; La 3:22; Rom 12:1-2; Col 3:12.
3) “They also may obtain mercy,” (kai autoi nun eleethosan) “They also may obtain mercy”; True believers in general, and baptized members of the Lord’s church in particular, have a Divine charge to carry the message of mercy-redemption to all men. As Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost, which his Father had sent him to do, even so he said, “So send I you into the World,” Joh 20:21; Luk 10:10; Joh 3:17.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(31) Through your mercyi.e., through the mercy vouchsafed to you. The sight of the admission of the Gentiles is to act as a stimulus upon the Jews, and so lead to a renewal of their faith and obedience.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
31 Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
Ver. 31. That they also ] It noteth not the cause, but the event, as 1Co 11:19 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Rom 11:31. , they have disbelieved) They have been left to their unbelief.- , your [of you]) the Genitive of the object, [your mercy, i.e. the mercy, of which you are the objects,] as , the mercies of David, 2Ch 6:42, , the favour directed to thy people, Psa 106:4.-, through mercy) construed with , might obtain mercy; for , that, is often transposed; and in verse 30, the disbelief of the Jews precedes the mercy of the Gentiles; wherefore in verse 31 the mercy of the Gentiles does not [is not to be supposed to] precede the same disbelief of the Jews [as would be the case, if , owing to your partaking of mercy, were taken with ]. See Appendix. crit. Ed. ii. on this passage.-, might obtain mercy) that mercy, which goes before faith, and which is only acknowledged and received through faith, by which , disbelief is retracted.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Rom 11:31
Rom 11:31
even so have these also now been disobedient,-[The Jews were disobedient to God in not believing on his Son. Formerly they were obedient to God, and the Gentiles were disobedient; but now the case is reversed.]
that by the mercy shown to you they also may now obtain mercy.-[As the rejection of the gospel by the Jews proved a blessing to the Gentiles, so, in turn, its reception by the Gentiles is to prove a blessing to the Jews and induce them to obey it. At first the gospel came from the Jews to the Gentiles; now it must go from the Gentiles to the Jews. Thus the Jews are to obtain mercy through the mercy shown to the Gentiles.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
believed: or, obeyed, Rom 10:16, Rom 11:15, Rom 11:25
Reciprocal: Deu 30:3 – then the Isa 55:9 – General Hos 2:1 – Ruhamah Rom 11:11 – but rather Rom 11:30 – obtained Rom 12:1 – by the 1Ti 1:13 – but
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Rom 11:31. So also; the cases are parallel.
Have these (Jews) now, since the gospel of Christ was preached, been disobedient; lit., were disobedient, as in Rom 11:30, but now compels us to render have been disobedient.
That, in order that, by the mercy shown to you (lit. your mercy; in emphatic position in the original) they also may now obtain mercy. The leading thought of the section (Rom 11:11) is here repeated, in the final summing up. This view is so natural and accords so entirely with the parallelism as to forbid the explanations of the Vulgate, Luther, and others; they have not believed in the mercy shown to you, or, were disobedient through the mercy shown to you.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Vv. 31. The word , now, strongly contrasts the present period (since the coming of Christ) with the former, Rom 11:30. Now it is the Jews who are passing through their time of disobedience, while the Gentiles enjoy the sun of grace. But to what end? That by the grace which is now granted to the latter, grace may also one day be accorded to the Jews. This time, then, it will not be the disobedience of the one which shall produce the conversion of the others. A new discord in the kingdom of God will not be necessary to bring about the final barmony. In this last phase, the good of the one will not result from the evil of the other, but from their very blessedness. Israel went out that the Gentiles might enter. But the Gentiles shall not go out to make place for the Jews; they will open the door to them from within. Thus are explained at once the analogy and the contrast expressed by the conjunctions , as, and , even so, which begin and form a close connection between Rom 11:30-31. It cannot be doubted that the clause , by your mercy (that which has been shown to you), depends on the following verb , may obtain mercy, and not on the preceding proposition. The apostle places this clause before the conj. , that, to set it more in relief; for it expresses the essential idea of the proposition. Compare the similar inversions, Rom 12:3; 1Co 3:5; 1Co 9:15, etc.
For the form , these also, in the first proposition, there is substituted in the second the form , they, or they themselves also, to bring out the identity of the subject to which those two so opposite dispensations apply. It is impossible to admit the Greco-Latin reading, which has both times. We must also reject the reading of some Alex. and of some ancient translations, which in the second proposition repeat the , now. These last words refer evidently to the future.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
even so have these [the Jews] also now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they also may now obtain mercy. [How the Gentile received blessing by reason of the casting off of the Jew has already been explained at verse 15. As the Gentile went through a season of disobedience, from which he was saved by severity shown to the Jew, so the Jew was to have a like season of disobedience, from which he in turn is to be eventually saved by God’s mercy to the Gentiles. Some construe the “mercy” to mean that the Gentiles are to have a continuous, ever-increasing spiritual prosperity until finally the very excess of the flood of it sweeps Israel into belief, and therefore into the kingdom. But such a construction plainly denies the New Testament prophecies which speak of a “falling away” (2Th 2:3) in “the last days” (2Ti 3:1-9), and do not accord with the effects of gospel preaching as announced by Christ (Mat 24:14). The meaning is that God’s mercy to the Gentiles in Paul’s day preserved the gospel in the world for the ultimate blessing of the Jews, and God’s continued mercy to the Gentiles through the centuries, and even through the latter days of their acute apostasy, will still keep the gospel till the Jews are ready to accept it. God’s mercy to the evil, Gentile earthen vessel preserves the truth wherein lies salvation, and will continue to preserve it till the Jew drinks of the water of life which it conserves (2Co 4:7). In short, the cases are reversed. The Jewish dispensation ended in a breakdown, but not until the Gentiles became receptacles of the truth. Mercy was shown to the Jew till this Gentile belief was assured. So the Gentile dispensation shall likewise terminate in failure, but not until Jewish belief is assured. We are even now obtaining mercy waiting for the consummation of that part of God’s plan. As God once spared the Jew till his blessings were transferred without loss to the Gentiles, so will he now spare the Gentile till the truth now stored in him has time to pass safely to the Jew. And as surely as he shifted his Spirit and mercies from Jew to Gentile, just so surely will he in turn shift back and re-endow the Jew. The apostle is here giving, his whole attention to the acts of God, and omits for the time all reference to that human agency which paved the way for the divine action. However, it is indicated in the word “mercy.” The change in either case was in justice long overdue before it came.]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Verse 31
That is, the Jews reject the gospel now; but the course of divine providence, after bestowing mercy upon the Gentiles, will finally bestow it also upon them.