Fusing the Horizons: Boasting against Other Branches
ROMANS 11
ISRAEL’S ROLE AND SALVATION (9:1–11:36), cont.
A Remnant (11:1–10)
Paul has spent much of Romans establishing that God welcomes Gentile believers as equal members alongside Jewish believers without them having to observe the law in the traditional Jewish way. Here, however, he begins to urge Gentile believers (11:13) more explicitly to respect the Jewish people; he will soon warn them not to despise Jewish customs for which Gentiles in Rome often despised them (ch. 14).
While God’s covenant with Israel did not save individual Jewish persons who did not maintain the covenant (ultimately through obeying the prophet-king God had provided),1 it did guarantee a special favor toward this people in other respects (cf. 3:2; 9:4–5). Moreover, God retained a plan for the Jewish people as a whole. (Indeed, various Gentile observers through history have viewed the survival of the Jewish people as a clear mark of divine providence.)
If Israel has rebelled against their own salvation (10:3, 16–21), has God therefore rejected them (11:1)?2 Paul is adamant that God has not; his own faith as a Jewish believer is itself a testimony that God has left a remnant (11:1).3 God foreknew both the present disobedience and the future when he chose Israel (11:2). Scripture confirmed that there was a remnant even in Elijah’s day,4 one of the worst periods of national apostasy (11:2–4). Likewise, there certainly remained a remnant in Paul’s day (11:5).
Paul insists that the remnant is chosen by grace (11:5), not by works (11:6). Paul is building on his earlier argument: the “choice” (eklogē) refers back to 9:11 (where Jacob was the remnant; cf. believers in 8:33); the contrast between grace (cf. 3:24; 4:16) and works reflects the earlier contrast between faith (dependence on God) and works (3:27–28; 9:32), as well as the irrelevance of works to chosenness (9:11). He might also evoke his contrast between grace and works in 4:4. Far from merely asserting a claim based on his prior argument, however, Paul quickly cites biblical support.
How do we know that Israelites can serve God only by his generosity and not by their own works? Paul indicates that apart from those God chose, the rest were “hardened” (11:7)—just like Pharaoh the opponent of Moses (9:17–18)! Then Paul cites texts referring not to the remnant, as in 11:2–3, but instead proving that at some strategic times in Israel’s history many or most Israelites were hardened (11:8–10). In 11:8, Paul covers both law and prophets by conflating texts with similar warnings: in Isa 29:10 God gave them the “spirit of stupor,” closing their eyes (blinding them to the prophetic message); in Deut 29:4 God had not given them eyes to see nor ears to hear, “to this day.” Isaiah’s context involves judgment, God handing people over to the blindness they have chosen (Isa 29:9–14); Deuteronomy’s context involves failure to discern despite God’s many miraculous acts of grace (Deut 29:2–8). Paul is probably less concerned with the specific texts he has blended than the typical prophetic theme they represent, revealing the obduracy of God’s people (cf. Isa 6:10; 42:18–19; Jer 5:21; Ezek 12:2), though this was a human and not specifically Israelite problem.
In 11:9–10 Paul follows the common Greek version of Ps 69:22–23 (except that he may borrow thēra, “trap,” from Ps 34:8, which also speaks of a pagis, “snare”). Like some other early Christian writers, Paul applies Psalm 69 to Jesus (Rom 15:3; cf. Matt 27:34; John 2:17; 19:28), so he presumably applies this passage to those who oppose him, inviting judgment on them. Because their eyes are blinded (11:10), Paul could link this text with his previous citation (in 11:8): it was not only Gentiles who were “darkened” (1:21), but those who fancied themselves guides to the blind and lights to those in darkness (2:19)!5 Their “table” becoming a “stumbling block” (11:9) might anticipate the danger of stumbling over food customs in 14:13.
God’s Purposes for Jews and Gentiles (11:11–24)
No one can boast; Jew and Gentile alike fulfill roles in God’s plan, each supporting the other. Clearly Israel “stumbled” (11:11), as Paul has shown in biblical references to stumbling blocks (11:9; also 9:33)—ancient Jewish sources often used “stumbling” as a figure for apostasy.6 But Paul does not believe that they have “stumbled” in order that (for the divine purpose that) they should “fall” permanently; rather, God’s purpose is to let salvation come to Gentiles, in turn provoking Israel to repentance (11:11). That way, representatives from all peoples, Jewish and Gentile, could have the opportunity for salvation (11:30–33). Possibly Paul is thinking of how God’s promises to Israel would establish a new world once Israel fully turned to him (e.g., Hos 14:1–7; Jer 29:12–14);7 only if that general repentance were delayed could Gentiles have the opportunity to turn in large numbers as well.
Paul believes that the Gentile mission is part of God’s eschatological plan to provoke Israel to jealousy, hence repentance (11:11, 14),8 as he has already argued scripturally (10:19). He believes that his mission to Gentiles plays a role in this provocation (11:13–14).9 Perhaps he alludes to the line of Jewish eschatological expectation in which Gentiles would come to obey Israel’s God and king;10 the Christian success at converting Gentiles would show the rest of Israel that God’s eschatological blessing was with Jesus’s movement.11
Israel’s “transgression” (11:11–12) evokes that of the Gentile world in Adam (5:15–20), but as Paul’s discussion of Adam featured reversal and restoration, so does his discussion of Israel. In 11:12 Paul raises a point that he will return to in 11:15, after an important parenthetical digression in 11:13–14 (mentioned above). As Christ’s death produced reconciliation, so did Israel’s loss (5:10; 11:15). But just as Christ’s risen life will produce even greater benefits than his death (5:9; 8:32), so also Israel’s restoration will produce greater blessings than their failure (11:12).12 Ultimately it would bring about even the promised time of the resurrection of the righteous (11:15; cf. 8:11), because this would be the consummation of God’s plan (cf. Acts 3:19–21). Although Israel may not have cooperated with the plan deliberately, Israel’s role in God’s plan thus mirrors on a corporate level God’s activity for humanity in Christ.13 The turning of the requisite portion of Israel to Jesus (versus the current smaller remnant) is described as “fullness” (plērōma, 11:12), just as the conversion of the full measure of Gentles is in 11:25.14
One could be confident of God’s benevolent plan for Israel’s future based on its heritage (11:16). Offering the first fruits consecrated the entire batch of dough as acceptable; while “first fruits” could refer to first converts (1 Cor 16:15), here it probably refers to the patriarchs, as in the next illustration. Just as it was a commonplace that a tree was known by its fruit (cf. 7:4; Matt 7:17–18; 12:33; Luke 6:43–44; Jas 3:12), branches would be as holy as the root, which for a Jewish audience would typically point to the patriarchs.15 Gentiles could be grafted into the tree (11:17), but Jewish believers fit most naturally (11:18, 24), and Paul expects a large-scale turning of Jewish people to faith in Christ (11:23–27).
In 11:17 Paul affirms that Gentile believers are not just second-class (though saved) adherents, as synagogues considered God-fearing, righteous Gentiles. (Some of Paul’s detractors in Jerusalem may have shared this synagogue view; cf. the compromise position in Acts 15:20.) Rather, they are spiritual proselytes, grafted into Israel as full members.16 Thus, they are spiritual children of Abraham (4:12, 16) and spiritually circumcised (2:28–29). Such a status did not, however, give them the right to look down on Jews who had broken the covenant by rejecting the current prophetic message and ruler God appointed for them (11:18). Like the Qumran sectarians,17 Paul and apostolic Christianity viewed themselves as truly fulfilling God’s end-time purposes, and the rest of Israel as apostate.
But to look down on Jewish people as a whole was to despise the very people into which one had been grafted, people who fit that heritage most naturally if they embraced Christ (11:18, 23–24). Earlier Paul warned against “boasting,” envisioning Jewish boasting in possession and fulfillment of the law (2:17, 23; cf. 3:27; 4:2); here, however, Paul recognizes that Gentile Christians could be guilty of the same offense, boasting against Jewish members (11:18).18 (The Gentile boast in 11:19 might be a sort of predestinarian parallel to the exaggerated Jewish boast in 2:17–20.) The key issue was faith, which was why Gentiles as well as Jews could qualify (11:20, 23). Gentile anti-Judaism was common (including Roman contempt for circumcision and foreign customs in Rome), and Paul may seek to head off its presence among Gentiles in the church (perhaps especially threatening since churches formed without most of their Jewish element between 49 and 54 CE).19
God’s “kindness” (11:22) recalls his patient mercy bringing some to repentance (2:4), while his “severity” involves cutting off unbelieving branches (hence those unfaithful to the covenant). Essentially, Paul compares believing Gentile branches to vessels of mercy like Moses, and unbelieving Jewish branches to objects of wrath like Pharaoh (9:15–18, 22–23). The issue, however, is faith (faithfulness to the covenant, depending on God) rather than ethnicity, as Paul will make clear in 11:23–24. When he describes Israel as “natural” branches (11:21, 24; cf. 2:27) he is not demeaning such connections, though they matter less than spiritual connections (2:29). God also designed what accords with “nature” (1:26–27; 2:14).20
Perhaps thinking of cultural heritage, Paul contends that Jewish believers fit more naturally into the covenant than Gentile believers do (11:23–24). Plant images for Israel (e.g., Jer 24:6; Jub. 36:6) or the remnant (e.g., 1QS 8.5) were common,21 including as an olive tree (Jer 11:16, Hos 14:6).22 As current commentators note, sources from Paul’s day confirm that branches from wild olive trees could be grafted into cultivated trees; in the same way, foreigners to Israel’s covenant could become part of God’s covenant, while unfaithful Jews could be severed from it.23 But Jewish branches with faith could be grafted in more naturally than foreign branches, and Gentile believers who depended on their own ethnicity rather than on God’s kindness would also be severed.24
Fulfilling the Promise to Israel (11:25–32)
After arguing that Jewish believers fit in the covenant more readily than Gentile believers do, Paul articulates his expectation that the Jewish people as a whole will someday embrace Jesus as their deliverer, consummating his covenant with them (11:25–27). Paul’s use of “mystery” (11:25) fits one common Jewish use of the term, for end-time secrets revealed to God’s prophets (16:25–26; Dan 2:28–30).25 This end-time mystery that Paul reveals is that God had allowed Israel’s hardness for a time just to allow a massive influx of Gentiles into the covenant, but God would ultimately remove the hardness and restore Israel to faith (11:25–26; cf. 11:11–12).
Once the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, “all Israel” (Israel as a whole) will be saved. Some have argued that “Israel” here refers to the “fullness of the Gentiles,” i.e., the completed Gentile church from among all nations. But while Paul, like other early Christian writers, certainly regards all believers as part of Israel’s heritage (and has indicated as much in the grafting image in 11:17), he has been consistently contrasting “Israel” with Gentiles in the context (9:27, 31; 10:19, 21; 11:2, 7; and most importantly in 11:25). The context also suggests that God will remove Israel’s hardness when the full measure of Gentile believers (probably representatives from among the nations, as in Matt 24:14; Rev 5:9; cf. Rom 15:19) has come in (the likeliest sense of achri, “until,” in 11:25).
Paul thus shared the expectation of biblical prophets and his contemporaries that his people would ultimately turn to God, inaugurating the eschatological consummation.26 As commentators regularly point out, Jewish sources can speak of “all Israel,” or “Israel as a whole,” being saved without assuming that this applies to every individual Jewish person.27 Nor did expectations of God delivering his people from the nations at the end need to involve Jewish people from earlier generations who had died. Given Paul’s insistent emphasis (including arguments from the ot) in chapters 1–10 that salvation is only through faith in Christ, Paul can hardly mean that God would provide Jewish people spiritual salvation through a different means at the end, as some have argued.28 But does Paul refer here only to deliverance from the oppression of the nations, rather than spiritual salvation? The language in 11:26–27 could be so construed if it were isolated, but not in this context. Aside from Paul’s usage of the verb sōzō (“save”) in every other usage in Romans (5:9–10; 8:24; 10:9, 13), including with respect to Israel or Jewish persons in particular (9:27; 11:14), Paul expects a reversal of Israel’s hardening against Christ at this time.
This discussion leaves us with two primary options.29 First, when Jesus as the deliverer returns, Israel as a whole, on learning of his identity, will believe in him as their king truly appointed by God.30 The language could certainly be so construed: Paul’s citation sounds like Jesus’s return would precipitate their forgiveness (11:26–27). Although the Hebrew version of Isa 59:20–21, which Paul here adapts, speaks of the redeemer coming to Zion after Israel turns from transgression, Paul’s wording (probably based on blending the Greek version of the passage with Ps 14:7)31 seems to suggest the opposite.
Nevertheless, context again raises a likely problem with this approach. Paul expects the obedience of a number of Gentiles from all nations to the God of Israel to provoke Israel to jealousy, hence to turn to Jesus, bringing about the promised restoration (11:11–15). This observation suggests Paul’s expectation of the second option: the completion of the Gentile mission in 11:25 would in turn lead to the Jewish people trusting in Christ, precipitating his return (reading houtōs in 11:26 as “in this way,” “by this means”). On this reading, perhaps Paul uses Isa 59:20–21 to refer to a corporate deliverance and covenant renewal immediately following the turning (or even simply to confirm God’s plan to forgive Israel). In any case, the final line of Paul’s quotation in 11:27 is not from Isa 59:21, which says, “This is my covenant with them,” but lacks “when I take away their sins.” Here Paul may interpretively blend an allusion to the Greek version of some texts using this language in the context of end-time restoration (Isa 27:9 or Ezek 36:26).32
In 11:28 Paul contrasts two ways of looking at his people: the current demands of the promised good news (which Israel as a whole has not embraced), and the benefits of their heritage. From the first approach, they remain God’s “enemies” (like all humanity not in Christ, 5:10; 8:7) “on account of you” (which contextually means, “so that in God’s providence you Gentiles have opportunity to enter God’s covenant,” 11:11, 19, 25). From the second approach, they remain objects of God’s love33 “on account of the patriarchs” (11:28), one of their ancestral blessings (9:5), as Scripture declared (Deut 4:37; 7:7–8; 10:15; cf. Mal 1:2 in Rom 9:13). While some Jewish teachers later associated God’s favor on Israel with the patriarchs’ “merits,” Paul’s interest is not ancestral works (cf. 4:2; 9:11) but simply God’s grace. While this favor did not save individual Jewish persons, it guaranteed that God would not abandon his plan for Israel and that he would turn the Jewish people to himself in the planned time (11:25–27). Thus, in 11:29 God, who knows the future (cf. 8:29; 11:2), will not regret his “gifts” and “calling” to the Jewish people as a whole, though Gentile believers (individually) participate in these blessings as well.34
Paul concludes this section regarding God’s plan for the Jewish people as well as Gentile believers in 11:30–32. That Gentiles and Israel switched places of disobedience may allude back to Hos 1:10 and 2:23 in Rom 9:25–26; “mercy” alludes to 9:15–23; Israel’s “disobedience” suggests Isa 65:2 in Rom 10:21 (though cf. more generally 2:8). God locked up all under disobedience so that all might be objects of his mercy (cf. similarly Gal 3:22–23), each in their own time. Jewish disobedience afforded opportunity for Gentiles to join the covenant without God being seen as unfaithful to Israel, and someday, Paul says, Gentile obedience will also provoke Israel’s repentance.35 In this way, God will have saved and formed a covenant people comprised of both Jew and Gentile.
Praising God’s Wisdom in History (11:33–36)
Paul has offered briefer doxologies in 1:25 and (near this section’s beginning) 9:5, but here his treatment of God’s plan in history yields to praising God’s great wisdom in designing history in such a way. This doxology offers a rhetorically rousing conclusion to the section. As often in Romans, Paul echoes the language of Scripture (frequently Isaiah) that God’s ways are beyond human ways (Isa 55:8). In 11:34 Paul cites (making slightly more concise) the Greek version of Isa 40:13: “Who has known the Lord’s mind, and who has become his counselor that one should counsel him?”36 In 11:35 the closest echo is of God’s reproof about divine ways to Job, which can be translated: “Who has given something to me, so that I need to repay them?” (Job 41:11). In context, the Job text involves God’s sovereignty over creation; the Isaiah texts involve his sovereignty in history.
Paul has often spoke of God’s “riches” (2:4; 9:23; 10:12; cf. 11:12), but the language is particularly appropriate for wisdom and knowledge (cf. Col 2:2–3; Prov 8:10; 16:16; 20:15; Isa 33:6). Other Jewish people also recognized that one could not successfully search the depths of God’s mind (Jdt 8:14; cf. 1 Cor 2:10–11); or that God was inscrutable (anexichniastos, Job 5:9; 9:10; 34:34). The climax of Paul’s recitation of God’s sovereignty is that all things are “from,” “through,” and “to” or “for” him (cf. similarly 1 Cor 8:6). Philosophers tried to distinguish the use of these terms for various sorts of causes.37 Paul is saying something like that God authored all things, is the necessary agency through which they occur, and in the end all these things will fulfill his purposes. Rather than yielding to the temptation to doubt why only a minority of his people have responded to the gospel, Paul expresses full confidence that history will unfold according to God’s perfect purposes. Thus, God has everything under control, as his servants will recognize fully when it is complete.
Fusing the Horizons: Boasting against Other Branches
By “remnant” Paul meant less than Israel as a whole; he would have been shocked and distressed to discover that in much of subsequent history the remnant represented an even smaller proportion of his people than in his own day. For Paul, the massive Gentile church was intended at least in part to provoke Israel’s repentance (11:11–12). Paul’s own ministry to Gentiles was to push forward this phase of God’s plan that would precede the turning of his own people (11:13–14; cf. Matt 24:14; Luke 21:24; 2 Pet 3:9), yet it was the reverse that occurred. This massive Gentile church soon forgot Paul’s warnings against being arrogant against the people of their own spiritual heritage (11:18). Inverting an earlier Jewish church’s sense of spiritual superiority over Gentiles, they adopted a displacement theology (the Gentile church replacing Israel), and instead of provoking jealousy in Israel, provoked contempt. Centuries of anti–Semitism in the name of Christianity, all the while claiming to obey Israel’s God and king, polarized two “religions” and reduced the “remnant.” Paul, who saw himself as converting Gentiles to the true faith of Israel (proselytes without ethnic constraints), would have been horrified at the Gentile church despising its own roots and religious siblings. He would undoubtedly have been pleased, however, that in more recent times barriers have begun to break down, with interfaith dialogue and the growth of the Messianic Jewish movement.
Paul moves from the broad historical perspectives of chapter 11 to interpersonal relationships in chapter 12. Because he was concerned with applying this knowledge, we may also consider how some of his fundamental principles apply in other sorts of settings. In addition to his concern for God’s faithfulness expressed in his covenant with Israel, Paul’s concern about arrogance against Jewish branches (11:18) also offers relevant advice for any peoples who treat God’s favor as a permanent ethnic possession. Historically, Christianity itself shifted from especially north Africa and Anatolia to Europe and east Africa, and later elsewhere. In the past century its center has shifted from the West to the Global South. Paul’s concern is relevant even more generally to interactions between believers and nonbelievers: those who were saved by grace dare not look down on others, but should welcome them graciously as they have been welcomed.
1. Most Jews would have agreed with this premise based on Scripture; yet many also held that Israel as a whole would be saved, minus a minority of apostates (see comment on Rom 11:26).
2. The verb for “casting off” in 11:1–2 applies to Israel in the common Greek translation (e.g., Judg 6:13; Pss 44:9, 23; 60:1, 10; 74:1; 108:11), including with the title of “God’s people” as here (1 Sam 12:22; Ps 94:14; on connections with the latter’s context, see Hays 1989: 69–70). By exile, he did (temporarily) cast them off (2 Kgs 17:20; 21:14; 23:27; Jer 7:29; Hos 4:6; 9:17).
3. After treating Israel’s failure to embrace God’s way of righteousness (9:30—10:21), Paul returns to the “remnant” theme raised in 9:27–29 (Tobin 2004: 340; Anderson 1999: 235). For views concerning the biblical “remnant,” see e.g., Davies 1980: 77–79; Hasel 1980.
4. 1 Kgs 19:18. Perhaps relevant to Paul’s context (Rom 10:2, 19; 11:11, 14), Elijah’s own “zeal” (1 Kgs 19:10) was often emphasized (1 Macc 1:58; Mek. Pisha 1.9), but some later resented his “disloyal” condemnation of Israel (Mek. Pisha 1.94–100).
5. Against most translations, though, dia pantos in 11:10 should be rendered “continually” (as elsewhere in the nt, and with most current commentators) rather than “forever.” It does not exclude Israel’s future.
6. E.g., Ezek 14:3–7; Sir 9:5; other sources cited at 14:4. Paul normally uses skandalizō, ptaiō, and piptō interchangeably in this context (cf. 11:22; 14:4), despite 11:11 (where ptaiō is used to connect with paraptōma in 11:11–12).
7. In early Jewish sources, the timing of the kingdom was sometimes (though not always) held to be contingent on Israel’s repentance (Jub. 23:26–27; Sipre Deut. 43.16.3; see further Talbert 2002: 260–61; discussion of later rabbinic material in Moore 1971: 2:350–51).
8. Speakers could deliberately provoke hearers to jealousy of rivals to spur greater action (Rhet. Alex. 36, 1445a.12; Polybius 6.39.8).
9. Paul’s apostleship to Gentiles may echo Jeremiah as a prophet to the nations (Jer 1:5; a passage Paul elsewhere echoes concerning his call, Gal 1:15).
10. Prophets envisioned Gentile repentance (e.g., Isa 19:19–25; Zech 2:11), subjugation (Isa 60:12; Zeph 2:11), or destruction (Joel 3:19; Zeph 2:9–15); these diverse strands also appear in early Jewish eschatology (Donaldson 1997b: 52–74). Paul is apparently able to piece together an end-time scenario only in Christological retrospect. This may reverse some conventional expectations of Israel’s end-time repentance and restoration leading to an ingathering of Gentiles (Allison 1985: 23–30; Sanders 1985: 93), though Jewish sources lacked consensus as to whether these Gentiles were proselytes or merely righteous (Donaldson 1990).
11. See this argument in Nanos 1996: 249–50. The collection (15:26–27), perhaps evoking the eschatological offering of nations (Isa 60:5–16), may offer Jerusalem one strategic expression of that success (Donaldson 1997b: 252).
12. Paul reinforces the point rhetorically in 11:12 by key nouns ending in -tōma, -tēma, and -ōma, as well as four nouns beginning with p (paraptōma, ploutos [twice], and plērōma).
13. Cf. also God not “sparing” Jesus (8:32) or Jewish branches (11:21). The parallel is functional and limited: in context, Israel’s loss made reconciliation available for Gentiles (the contextual sense of “the world” here), whereas Christ cooperated in his vicarious sacrifice.
14. “Fullness” here and in 11:25 probably indicates the full measure in contrast to the “remnant” (or perhaps “first fruits”; cf. the “fullness” of the land in Jer 8:16; 47:2; Ezek 12:19; 19:7); cf. the idea in Rev 6:11.
15. E.g., 1 En. 93:5–8; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 15:5; other sources in Moo 1996: 699. That 15:12 employs the same term for “root” is probably coincidental, since the root there involves only David’s lineage (and the “branch” of the quotation’s context is messianic).
16. Donaldson 1993; idem 1997a: 81–82; idem 1997b: 230–47; also Hays 2005: 5.
17. See e.g., 1QS 8.9–10, 9.6; CD 3.12–19; 1QM 3.13.
18. Katakauchaomai means “boast against,” but hearers of the letter in Greek would not mistake the connection with kauchaomai earlier in the letter. In Pauline theology, “boasting” (possible in Jewish practice, Gal 6:13–14; Phil 3:3) is in no way a particularly Jewish offense (1 Cor 1:29–31; 3:21; 4:7; 2 Cor 11:12). Although Paul employs harsher terms for arrogance and boasting in Rom 1:30, the hearer might also recall these.
19. The temptation was present; as Grieb notes (Grieb 2002: 108), Marcion severed Christian beliefs completely from Judaism in Rome less than a century later.
20. Less flattering is Paul’s language of connections according to the “flesh” (2:28; 4:1; 9:3; 11:14; esp. 9:8), but this, too, need not be negative (1:3; 9:5; 15:27).
21. See also Tiller 1997.
22. A synagogue in Rome was apparently called the olive tree (though Leon 1960: 146–47 thinks the reason obscure); on tree symbolism generally, see Goodenough 1953–68: 7:87–134.
23. See here Baxter and Ziesler 1985; on grafting generally, see e.g., Virgil Georgics 2.73–82 (olives); Pliny Nat. 15.15.49; 15.17.57; 17.24.101–14; 17.26.118–22; m. Shevi’it 2:6; Sipra Qed. par. 3.202.1.5.
24. Expressions regarding “nature” were applied in a variety of ways in antiquity; use in the moral sphere (as in 1:26–27; Cicero Inv. 2.53.161; Musonius Rufus 17, p. 108.7) is predicated on the larger physical world, but not all physical claims need be intended morally (e.g., Cicero Tusc. 1.14.31; Aelian Nat. an. 11.26). Nevertheless, that Paul has employed such language earlier in such strong terms adds rhetorical shock value here, forcefully warning Gentiles against arrogance.
25. For 1 En., see Nock 1964: 30; Gibbard 1956: 109; Caragounis 1977: 126; for the Qumran scrolls, e.g., Brown 1958–59; idem 1968; Ramirez 1976.
26. See discussion above; cf. Acts 3:19–21.
27. m. Sanh. 10:1. Many would in fact be excluded (e.g., t. Sanh. 13:9–10).
28. For challenges to the popular, though minority, two-covenant view, see Das 2003: 96–106; Donaldson 1997b: 231–34.
29. Among others; and even here I am summarizing only briefly arguments in a discussion that includes far more details and arguments than I have space to address.
30. For a short window of end-time opportunity for repentance, see e.g., 1 En. 50:2–5. Justin Dial. 28 rejects this option for Israel.
31. In Greek, the deliverer will come “because of ” Zion, and (as Paul has it) turn away ungodliness from Jacob. From Ps 14:7 Paul has Israel’s “salvation” come “out of Zion.”
32. Paul might also think of another “covenant” passage, the “new covenant” (Jer 31:31–34), when God would forgive Israel’s sins (Jer 31:34).
33. Again like humanity (5:8), but with a special privilege.
34. For “gifts,” see 1:11; 12:6 (esp. for salvation, 5:15–16; 6:23); “calling” includes not only Jewish people (9:7) but all who believe (1:6–7; 8:28–30; 9:24–26). Perhaps Israel’s “gifts” include those in 9:4–5.
35. Paul employs here carefully crafted rhetorical antithesis. As many note (e.g., Hunter 1966: 54), Paul’s language here involves peoples, not the salvation of all individuals.
36. Others also compare similar biblical questions in Job 15:8; Jer 23:18. Cf. analogous early Jewish language in e.g., Wis 9:13–14; 1QS 11.18–19; 2 Bar. 75:2–4. For Jewish doxologies, see e.g., Aune 2003: 140–41.
37. Cf. discussion in Grant 2001: 72 (citing the later Marcus Aurelius Med. 4.23); Sterling 1997; Moo 1996: 743; Jewett 2007: 721.