Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans John Calvin (continued)
Commentary on Romans
Seeing then that this imprecation remains for all the adversaries of Christ, — that their meat shall be converted into poison, (as we see that the gospel is to be the savor of death unto death,) let us embrace with humility and trembling the grace of God. We may add, that since David speaks of the Israelites, who descended according to the flesh from Abraham, Paul fitly applies his testimony to the subject in hand, that the blindness of the majority of the people might not appear new or unusual.
Romans 11:11-15
Romans 11:11-15
11. I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
11. Dico igitur, Num impegerunt ut corruerent? Absit: sed eorum lapsu salus contigit gentibus in hoc, ut ipsi ad aemulationem provocarentur.
12. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?
12. Si vero eorum lapsus divitiae sunt mundi, et imminutio eorum divitiae gentium, quanto magis complementum ipsorum?
13. For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:
13. Vobis enim dico gentibus, quatenus certe ego gentium sum Apostolus, ministerium meum illustror,
14. If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.
14. Si quomodo ad aemulationem provocavero carnem meam, et aliquos ex ea salvos fecero:
15. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
15. Si enim rejectio eorum, reconciliatio est mundi, quid assumptio nisi vita ex mortius?
11. Have they stumbled, etc. You will be greatly hindered in understanding this argument, except you take notice, that the Apostle speaks sometimes of the whole nation of the Jews, and sometimes of single individuals; for hence arises the diversity, that one while he speaks of the Jews as being banished from the kingdom of God, cut off from the tree and precipitated by God's judgment into destruction, and that at another he denies that they had fallen from grace, but that on the contrary they continued in the possession of the covenant, and had a place in the Church of God.
It is then in conformity with this difference that he now speaks; for since rendered "welfare," while it ought to be "recompenses," or, according to Tremelius and Bp. Horseley, "retributions," or "retribution." See Isaiah .34:8 The last clause of Romans ,11:10 though in meaning the same, is yet wholly different in words from the Hebrew, which is thus correctly rendered in our version, "and make their loins continually to shake." The idea in both instances is the taking away of vigor and strength. — Ed.