Romans 11:31

Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(31) Through your mercy—i.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.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

11:22-32 Of all judgments, spiritual judgments are the sorest; of these the apostle is here speaking. The restoration of the Jews is, in the course of things, far less improbable than the call of the Gentiles to be the children of Abraham; and though others now possess these privileges, it will not hinder their being admitted again. By rejecting the gospel, and by their indignation at its being preached to the Gentiles, the Jews were become enemies to God; yet they are still to be favoured for the sake of their pious fathers. Though at present they are enemies to the gospel, for their hatred to the Gentiles; yet, when God's time is come, that will no longer exist, and God's love to their fathers will be remembered. True grace seeks not to confine God's favour. Those who find mercy themselves, should endeavour that through their mercy others also may obtain mercy. Not that the Jews will be restored to have their priesthood, and temple, and ceremonies again; an end is put to all these; but they are to be brought to believe in Christ, the true become one sheep-fold with the Gentiles, under Christ the Great Shepherd. The captivities of Israel, their dispersion, and their being shut out from the church, are emblems of the believer's corrections for doing wrong; and the continued care of the Lord towards that people, and the final mercy and blessed restoration intended for them, show the patience and love of God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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,

(1) 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.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

31. Even so have these—the Jews.

now not believed—or, "now been disobedient"

that through your mercy—the mercy shown to you.

they also may obtain mercy—Here is an entirely new idea. The apostle has hitherto dwelt upon the unbelief of the Jews as making way for the faith of the Gentiles—the exclusion of the one occasioning the reception of the other; a truth yielding to generous, believing Gentiles but mingled satisfaction. Now, opening a more cheering prospect, he speaks of the mercy shown to the Gentiles as a means of Israel's recovery; which seems to mean that it will be by the instrumentality of believing Gentiles that Israel as a nation is at length to "look on Him whom they have pierced and mourn for Him," and so to "obtain mercy." (See 2Co 3:15, 16).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Romans 11:30"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire 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 Romans 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.

Geneva Study Bible

Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

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 Romans 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.

Bengel's Gnomen

Romans 11:31. Ἠπείθησαν, they have disbelieved) They have been left to their unbelief.—τῷ ὑμετέρῳ, your [of you]) the Genitive of the object, [your mercy, i.e. the mercy, of which you are the objects,] as τὰ ἐλέη Δαυίδ, the mercies of David, 2 Chronicles 6:42, רצון עמך, the favour directed to thy people, Psalm 106:4.—ἐλέει, through mercy) construed with ἐλεηθῶσι, might obtain mercy; for ἴνα, 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 ἐλέει, owing to your partaking of mercy, were taken with ἠπείθησαν]. See Appendix. crit. Ed. ii. on this passage.—ἐλεηθῶσι, might obtain mercy) that mercy, which goes before faith, and which is only acknowledged and received through faith, by which ἀπείθεια, disbelief is retracted.

Romans 11:31