fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to
provoke them to jealousy.
gentibus in hoc, ut ipsi ad aemulationem
provocarentur.
- Si vero eorum lapsus divitiae sunt mundi,
et imminutio eorum divitiae gentium, quanto
magis complementum ipsorum?
- 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?
- Vobis enim dico gentibus, quatenus certe
ego gentium sum Apostolus, ministerium meum
illustror,
- For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as
I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine
office:
- Si quomodo ad aemulationem
provocavero carnem meam, et aliquos ex ea
salvos fecero:
- If by any means I may provoke to
emulation them which are my flesh, and might
save some of them.
- Si enim rejectio eorum, reconciliatio est
mundi, quid assumptio nisi vita ex mortius?
- 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?
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 onewhile 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 the Jews for the most
part rejected Christ, so that perverseness had taken hold almost on the whole nation, and few among
them seemed to be of a sane mind, he asks the question, whether the Jewish nation had so stumbled
at Christ, that it was all over with them universally, and that no hope of repentance remained. Here
he justly denies that the salvation of the Jews was to be despaired of, or that they were so rejected
by God, that there was to be no future restoration, or that the covenant of grace, which he had once
made with them, was entirely abolished, since there had ever remained in that nation the seed of
blessing. That we are so to understand his meaning is evident from this, — that having before
connected a sure ruin with blindness, he now gives a hope of rising again; which two things are
wholly different. They then, who perversely stumbled at Christ, fell and fell into destruction; yet
the nation itself had not fallen, so that he who is a Jew must necessarily perish or be alienated from
God.
But by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, etc. The Apostle asserts two things in this
place, — that the fall of the Jews had turned out for salvation to the Gentiles; but to this end —
that they might be kindled by a sort of jealousy, and be thus led to repentance. He no doubt had an
eye to the testimony of Moses, which he had already quoted, where the Lord threatened Israel, —
that as he had been provoked by them to emulation through their false gods; so he also, according
to the law of retaliation, would provoke them by a foolish nation.
The word here used denotes the feeling of emulation or jealousy with which we are excited,
when we see another preferred before us. Since then it was the Lord’s purpose that Israel should
be provoked to emulation, they were not so fallen as to be precipitated into eternal ruin; but that
