Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans John Calvin
Commentary on Romans was nothing inconsistent in God in preferring the Gentiles to the Jews. The passage is taken from that celebrated song, in which God, upbraiding the Jews with their perfidiousness, declares, that he would execute vengeance on them, and provoke them to jealousy by taking the Gentiles into covenant with himself, because they had departed to fictitious gods. "Ye have," he says, "by despising and rejecting me, transferred my right and honor to idols: to avenge this wrong, I will also substitute the Gentiles in your place, and I will transfer to them what I have hitherto given to you." Now this could not have been without repudiating the Jewish nation: for the emulation, which Moses mentions, arose from this, — that God formed for himself a nation from that which was not a nation, and raised up from nothing a new people, who were to occupy the place from which the Jews had been driven away, inasmuch as they had forsaken the true God and prostituted themselves to idols. For though, at the coming of Christ, the Jews were not gone astray to gross and external idolatry, they had yet no excuse, since they had profaned the whole worship of God by their inventions; yea, they at length denied God the Father, as revealed in Christ, his only-begotten Son, which was an extreme kind of impiety.
Observe, that a foolish nation, and no nation, are the same; for without the hope of eternal life men have properly no existence. Besides, the beginning or origin of life is from the light of faith: hence spiritual existence flows from the new creation; and in this sense Paul calls the faithful the work of God, as they are regenerated by his Spirit, and renewed after his image. Now from the word foolish, we learn that all the wisdom of men, apart from the word of God, is mere vanity. 335
20. But Isaiah is bold, and says, etc. As this prophecy is somewhat clearer, that he might excite greater attention he says that it was expressed with great confidence; as though he had said, — "The Prophet did not speak in a figurative language, or with hesitation, but had in plain and clear words declared the calling of the Gentiles." But the things which Paul has here separated, by interposing a few words, are found connected together in the prophet Isaiah 65:1, where the Lord declares, that the time would come when he should turn his favor to the Gentiles; and he immediately subjoins this reason, — that he was wearied with the perverseness of Israel, which, through very long continuance, had become intolerable to him. He then speaks thus, — "They who inquired not of me before, and neglected my name, have now sought me, (the perfect tense for the future to denote the certainty of the prophecy.) 336
I know that this whole passage is changed by some Rabbins, as though God
335The quotation is from Deuteronomy 32:21, and it is literally the Hebrew as well as the Septuagint, except that "you" is put for "them." The contrast in Hebrew is very striking; the whole verse is this, — 21. They have made me jealous by a no-God, They have provoked me by their foolish idols; And I will make them jealous by a no-people, By a foolish nation will I provoke them. — Ed.
336Isaiah 65:1. The two sentences are reversed; the Septuagint and the Hebrew are the same. The reason for changing the order does not appear; but it may be observed, that it is an instance common in Hebrew, where essentially the same idea is expressed in two successive lines, so that it is immaterial which of them is put first. — Ed.