- Quemadmodum scriptum est, Dedit illis
Deus spiritum compunctionis, oculos ut non - (According as it is written, God hath given
them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should
videant, et aures ut non audiant, usque ad
hodiernum diem.
not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto
this day.- Et David dicit, Fiat mensa eorum in
laqueum et in captionem et in offendiculum et in
retributionem ipsis: - And David saith, Let their table be made
a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a
recompence unto them: - Obscurentur oculi eorum ne videant, et
dorsum eorum semper incurva. - Let their eyes be darkened, that they may
not see, and bow down their back alway.
7.What then? What Israel seeks, etc. As he is here engaged on a difficult subject, he asks a
question, as though he was in doubt. He intended, however, by expressing this doubt, to render the
answer, which immediately follows, more evident; for he intimates, that no other can be given; and
the answer is, — that Israel in vain labored to seek salvation, because his attempt was absurd.
Though he mentions here no cause, yet as he had expressed it before, he certainly meant it to be
understood in this place. For his words are the same, as though he had said, — that it ought not to
seem strange, that Israel gained nothing in striving after righteousness. And hence is proved what
he presently subjoins concerning election, — For if Israel has obtained nothing by merit, what have
others obtained whose case or condition was not better? Whence has come so much difference
between equals? Who does not here see that it is election alone which makes the difference?
Now the meaning of the word election here is doubtful; for to some it seems that it ought to be
taken in a collective sense, for the elect themselves, that there may be a correspondence between
the two clauses. Of this opinion I do not disapprove, provided it be allowed that there is something
more in the word than if he had said, the elect, even this, that he intimates that there was no other
reason for obtaining their election, as though he said, — “They are not those who strive by relying
on merits, but those whose salvation depends on the gratuitous election of God.” For he distinctly
compares with the whole of Israel, or body of the people, the remnant which was to be saved by
God’s grace. It hence follows, that the cause of salvation exists not in men, but depends on the
good pleasure of God alone.
And the rest have been blinded^345 As the elect alone are delivered by God’s grace from
destruction, so all who are not elected must necessarily remain blinded. For what Paul means with
regard to the reprobate is, — that the beginning of their ruin and condemnation is from this — that
they are forsaken by God.
The quotations which he adduces, collected from various parts of Scripture, and not taken from
one passage, do seem, all of them, to be foreign to his purpose, when you closely examine them
according to their contexts; for you will find that in every passage, blindness and hardening are
mentioned as scourges, by which God punished crimes already committed by the ungodly; but Paul
labors to prove here, that not those were blinded, who so deserved by their wickedness, but who
were rejected by God before the foundation of the world.
(^345) “Excaecati fuerunt,” ; it means hardened, stupified, rendered callous or obdurate. Occalluerunt — “were hardened,”
Beza; both Macknight and Doddridge render it, “blinded.” It is applied to the heart in Mark 6:52; 8:17; John 12:40, — to the
mind in 2 Corinthians 3:14. — Ed.