Romans 10
LenskiCHAPTER X
God’s Righteousness, Coming through the Gospel-word, the Jews by Unbelief Failed to Obtain, the Gentiles by Faith Obtained, chapter 10
The Gospel-word
From the promise and the mercy Paul advances to the gospel-word, from the substance to the means of bestowal. Again the one correlative is faith. As the promise and the mercy can be received by faith alone, so also the gospel-word by which they are conveyed can be received only in the same way. Considering this angle of the Word, we once more see how because of its unbelief Israel failed, and how so many Gentiles gained. The key to the tragedy of Judaism is the righteousness of God which comes as promise, as mercy, by the gospel-word, and thus is ἐκπίστεως, “from faith” alone, the faith which the Jews refused to let the Word instill in them, the faith to which the Word opened the hearts of Gentiles.
Romans 10:1
1 Brethren, now the wish of my own heart and the petition to God in their behalf (is) for salvation. For I bear them testimony that they have zeal for God but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they were not subjected to the righteousness of God. For an end of law (is) Christ for righteousness to everyone believing.
As in chapter 9, there is no connective; and again, as in that chapter, there is a statement full of deep feeling for the Jews which is combined with a statement of what they have and what they lack. There is a close resemblance to 9:1–7 although the intensity is now lessened, hence the wording is also more terse. In 9:4, 5 we have the objective prerogative of Israel, the gifts from God’s hand; in 10:2 the subjective prerogative, “zeal for God.” Paul’s expression of concern would naturally be less intense than it was in 9:1, etc., and fewer words are required to discuss the mistaken Jewish zeal.
By being placed at the beginning of the paragraph “brethren” becomes emphatic and marks both the emotion with which Paul writes and a new turn in his thought. But we do not think that this emotion is manifested merely in order to have the Romans understand Paul’s real attitude toward his own Jewish people. We find no hint to the effect that the Romans had mistaken ideas on that subject. Paul is not setting himself right in the eyes of the Romans. The strength of his emotion might surprise them, but that emotion on the part of Paul is intended only to make this whole subject warm to his readers. It was a subject that no Christian of that time when the Jews repudiated Christ in mass, and Gentiles were won for him, could possibly pass by.
The righteousness of God by faith and not through works, through birth, or through anything else, clears up the whole subject as nothing else could. Not a cool, academic digest of it is offered but one that is surcharged with true apostolic love for Paul’s own nation and people.
Ἡεὐδοκία = what would give Paul the greatest pleasure and satisfaction. “The wish” is an inadequate translation and is used only because of the lack of a really adequate English word. Let us not overlook the fact that we have only μέν solitarium (R. 1151) which has nothing to do with δέ; the idea that an adversative thought is at least implied, is untenable; nothing more is indicated than a concessive or restrictive touch which is generally omitted in translation because of the lack of an English particle that conveys so delicate a touch. Paul embodies his eudokia in the pleading, petition, begging that is directed to God in behalf of the Jews, the substance and sum of which is expressed in the final phrase: “for salvation,” which is translated ad sensum in our version: “that they might (may) be saved.” Oh, if the Jewish people could only be saved!
This is Christian intercession but generalis like the intercessio generalis of Christ, a true expression of the Christian ἀγάπη for the unsaved. When Paul is pleading for the salvation of the Jews, a personal motivation enters as when a mother pleads for her children. Do not regard it as being entirely in vain. Christ’s intercession gained forty years of grace for Israel, and many were saved; this is also true with regard to our intercessions, for they win added opportunities for grace from God. On σωτηρία see 1:16.
Romans 10:2
2 The objective motivation (God’s own gifts to Israel) is stated in 9:4, 5, to which the subjective is now added: “I bear them testimony that (besides all the prerogatives God has showered upon them) they, too, have zeal for God,” objective genitive. Paul knew the Jews thoroughly and can testify at firsthand; he had been one of them, and we know (Acts 8:1, etc.) with what excessive zeal he had once burned. He refers to the Jewish hatred of idolatry, their fanatic reverence for the Temple, their outward obedience to the law and the rabbinical traditions, and, to crown all of these, their hatred of Christ and of Christianity. They intended to serve God by means of all that (John 16:2). They were not like Pilate who asked with skeptical indifference: “What is truth?” nor like Felix with his love of the world and the flesh who was indifferent to higher things.
But this Jewish zeal, Paul must testify, was “not according to knowledge,” ἐπίγνωσις, a knowledge that really comprehends, the word being stronger than the simple γνῶσις. The Jews were ignorant of the divine essentials, not because of any failure on God’s part to make them truly known, but because of guilty obduracy on their own part.
Here we have the answer to the statement that everything depends on a man’s religious sincerity, and nothing on the substance that his sincerity includes. Take poison ardently; the ardor will as little prevent the deadly effect of the poison as the lack of ardor would. “It is better to limp in the road than to run eagerly away from it.” Augustine. The greater the intensity of zeal devoid of true knowledge, the more damage it does to itself and to others. And this is true in all departments of life. Error, too, always tends to produce fanatical zeal, which we should not admire or offer as an example. No matter how great the zeal produced by truth and its true knowledge becomes, it always has the sanity and the balance that distinguish it from the morbidity of fanatic zeal.
Romans 10:3
3 Paul explains (γάρ) this Jewish zeal without due knowledge. Ignorant of the righteousness of God (see 1:17 at length; then 3:21, 22) and keen to set up a righteousness of their own, they were not made subject in faith to God’s righteousness. This was not vincible ignorance but invincible; not excusable but inexcusable; not merely not knowing but refusing to know when told (v. 16–21). The placing of τοῦΘεοῦ attributively between the article and the noun modified does not give it a sense that is different from that obtained by placing the genitive after its noun. God’s righteousness cannot be restricted to the righteousness won by Christ and its personal appropriation by faith be excluded. Not to know this righteousness does not mean to be entirely ignorant of it but to repudiate it, to refuse its acceptance; and to establish their own righteousness does not mean merely to know about this righteousness but to be engaged in creating it by works.
The one righteousness is “God’s,” wrought and bestowed by him, availing before him, all the glory being his, we being wholly dependent on him (see 9:32); it is justification by faith alone. The other, τὴνἰδίαν, “their own,” which they are “seeking,” pursuing but not catching up with (9:31), is one that, if it were attained, would emanate solely from themselves, count only in their sight, they being the ones who justify themselves (Luke 16:15), all the glory would be their own, they would be entirely independent of God, he would merely tell them what works they should do to establish this righteousness; this is the righteousness of works, “even that which is of the law” (Phil. 3:9).
The two are mutually exclusive. But the latter, as already stated in 9:31, is an ignis fatuus. The criminal may try to act as the judge in his own case and hand down a verdict of acquittal in regard to himself; but no one has yet believed him to be thereby acquitted. So the Jews “were not subjected to the righteousness of God.” Many of these late Koine second passive aorists, like ὑπετάγησαν, were used in place of aorist middles: “did not subject themselves” (our versions, R. 818), but we agree with R. 817 that more than likely we here have the passive with God as the agent. The thought may be stated in either way as we find it expressed in both ways in Jer. 31:18. The subjection referred to is that of faith, which is always wrought in us by God through his Word and is never wrought in us by our own selves.
To be subjected to the righteousness of God is to bow to it in faith as being the only real righteousness that acquits us before God’s judgment seat and to forsake all our own righteousness by which we would seek to acquit ourselves. This is the subjective counterpart to the objective thought expressed in 9:6b, etc. Here the obdurate, self-hardened will of the Jews is made to stand out with all clearness.
Romans 10:4
4 With γάρ Paul adds the summary explanation as to how through Christ alone and faith in him alone righteousness is obtained: “For an end of law (is) Christ for righteousness to everyone believing.” This is one of those invaluable concentrated statements, the very wording of which bears the stamp of Inspiration.
The emphasis is on the predicate which is placed forward, “an end of law,” both nouns are anarthrous: everything in the nature of law, including, of course, the Mosaic law, but also all use made of law by moralists of any kind for attaining righteousness before God, has been brought to an “end” by Christ, and it is folly for the Jews or for anyone else to pretend the contrary. Τέλος is not aim, object, or fulfillment; it is “end,” finish, windup. The statement is subjective as well as objective, for “to everyone believing” includes the personal realization. When Christ obtained the righteousness of God for us, which is made ours by faith, all law was cast aside as being in any sense able to win righteousness for us. Everything is concentrated in the one word “Christ,” all that he is and all that he did, his atoning death and his justifying resurrection, and whatever else we may wish to add.
But “Christ” does not mark a date in history as though from that date forward all law was ended while before that date law was the means for righteousness, or before that men were excusable for trying law. Heb. 13:8. Christ was “an end of law for righteousness” from the beginning, for Abraham as much as for us, by divine promise as well as by fulfillment. Abraham was justified by faith without works exactly as we are (4:2, etc.). In “an end for righteousness” εἰς need not be restricted to express purpose; let it be full result, for this preposition is often used in this sense: “for the actual righteousness” of divine acquittal conveyed “to everyone believing.”
Here there is complete universality as in John 3:16: “everyone,” not a single believer being excluded. This extends far beyond the Jews, in fact, must do so in order to include them. The singular stresses the fact that it is an individual matter, this believing; in 3:22 the plural “all those believing” binds all of them together with the bond of faith. As far as you and I are concerned, our securing the verdict and thus the status of righteousness does not depend on law and on effort, ability, achievement of ours, measuring up to some law; it is wholly a matter of believing, i.e., of trustfully receiving all that “Christ” contains.
Romans 10:5
5 In a striking, highly instructive way Paul now introduces the Word, the one correlative of which is faith, these two being the means for conveying the righteousness of God to us: the Word, the contents of which are the promise and the mercy (see chapter 9) as embodied in Christ, and this Word received by faith embracing Christ. First, the preliminary statement regarding law, which, as far as righteousness is concerned, Christ has so completely ended that no one ought ever again to think of it as a means for securing righteousness (v. 4).
The readings vary; consult all the details in Souter and in other critical texts. The reading followed by the A. V. is to be preferred to the one followed by the R. V. both as far as textual authority goes and as far as language and thought are concerned; also see the LXX. Paul would not write: “The man that did the righteousness.” For Moses writes on the righteousness, that (derived) from law, that the man who did the things shall live in them.
Γράφει with the accusative = “writes on,” not “describes” (A. V.). “For” to explain the sense in which Christ is end of all law in the matter of attaining righteousness “Moses” himself, through whom God gave the great Jewish code of law, “writes on the righteousness, on that (derived) from law,” law as such in its quality as law, “that (ὅτι belongs here) the man who did the things shall live in them,” the things thus done—this man and he alone shall live. The Hebrew might be translated ὁποιῶν, “doing,” instead of ὁποιήσας, “did” (LXX); but the durative “doing” and the completed “did” are only formally different since the doing would have to continue without a break and would thus reach perfect completion.
Yes, law is one way to righteousness, to securing God’s favorable verdict. Jesus, too, said this in Luke 10:28, and not only Moses in Lev. 18:5; Ezek. 20:11, 13, 21 said it even three successive times. Moses is quoted because he was the Jews’ own lawgiver. The only trouble with law as a means for attaining righteousness is that it requires complete doing on our part; the plural αὐτά, “them,” its antecedent being understood, quietly points to the many things that must be done as does also the final phrase: “shall live in (in connection with) them,” namely all of them completely done. A single break in the doing, or a single omission in the many things to be done, is fatal. Man is in a sinful condition from the start and thus could not hope to achieve righteousness by doing the law.
Only a man trained in Pharisaic blindness (John 9:40, 41) could dream of saying what the rich young ruler said in Matt. 19:20. The entire Jewish legal system with all its sacrifices for sin proclaimed that no man could do the law and thus gain righteousness and life. It ought not to escape us that righteousness and eternal life are again combined as they were already in the announcement of Paul’s great theme of this epistle in 1:17. What Paul quotes from Moses is an old doctrine; every Jew should know it, and certainly also every Christian.
The way to righteousness by means of law and our doing is forever closed to us because of our sin. Praise God that Christ opened another way by his doing and required no doing on our part!
Romans 10:6
6 But the righteousness (derived) from faith speaks thus, Do not say in thy heart, Who shall go up into the heaven? (that is, in order to bring down Christ); or, Who shall go down into the abyss? (that is, in order to bring up Christ from the dead). Rut what does it say? Nigh to thee is the utterance, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that is, the utterance concerning the faith, which [utterance] we are preaching.
Paul personifies “the righteousness (derived) from faith” (on both the noun and the phrase see 1:17,) and lets it speak. Already this is dramatic. He lets Moses speak for the law (v. 5) instead of letting the law speak for itself; but instead of letting someone speak for God’s righteousness, he so elevates it that it does its own speaking. “Thus” and “what” (in v. 8) go together, for the manner and the substance match.
Paul lets the righteousness from faith couch its message in language that was used by God in Deut. 30:11–14 with respect to the law. Quotation is neither indicated nor intended. The language appropriated is literal in part, in part it is only an equivalent. The views regarding it run in two directions. Mere verbal appropriation that is wholly disjoined from the original thought is evidently less than Paul has in mind; a making the original thought prophetic of the gospel or of Christ assumes more than is intended, likewise an attributing to Paul an allegorical-typical use of the original. Paul’s use is not “a sacred playing” with the words of Deuteronomy.
Such playing would not be sacred. It is not a mere dressing of thought in antique “garments”; nor, on the other hand, a forcing into Old Testament words something they neither contain nor connote.
It would never have occurred to Paul to use this Old Testament word as being language that is adaptable to what the righteousness from faith has to say if only the words and not also the thought were adaptable. The simple sense of the original is stated in Deut. 30:11: the commandment is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. This is amplified: one need not climb up to heaven to bring the commandment down, nor even as much as cross the sea to bring it hither; it is right here now in the Word and thus in thy mouth and heart. Paul lets the righteousness from faith say the same thing regarding itself in the same and in similar language.
The point to be noted is τὸῥῆμα. Both the law and the gospel come to us through the Word, and that Word we can take right into our mouth and into our heart. The point of this chapter is no longer the substance of the gospel, the righteousness itself, but the means for communicating it, the Word. On this score law and gospel do not differ although they are opposites in other respects, especially as regards our obtaining righteousness by them as a means. Although both are conveyed by the Word and are thus brought directly to us, their different nature makes the Word differ when it brings them: in the case of the law (commandment) the Word bringing it can only command “that thou mayest do it” (Deut. 30:14), just as the doing is the point stressed in v. 5; while in the case of the gospel the Word bringing the gospel righteousness is one that we are only to believe and to receive by faith without any doing on our part. For the language of this gospel righteousness Paul could thus not adopt or even adapt the last clause of Deut. 30:14; he wrote instead: “This is the utterance concerning the faith, which we are preaching” (v. 9), are heralding abroad for men to believe.
This does not imply that Moses could write only about the law as he does in v. 5 and not as yet about the gospel righteousness as Paul writes about it. Moses could write all but the announcement of the actual fulfillment. The Old Testament is just as full of the gospel righteousness as is the New Testament; we need point only to 1:17 with its Old Testament quotation in the statement of the very theme of this epistle, and to 9:31 and its repetition in 10:11, to say nothing about Abraham in chapter 4. It is incorrect to think that in the Old Testament the only way to righteousness was by way of the law. If that were true, no man living in Old Testament times could have been saved.
“To say in thy heart” is a Hebraism for “to think secretly” and is used especially regarding some unworthy thought which one fears to utter aloud. The supposition that these quotations about going up into heaven or going down into the abyss are voices of unbelief and equivalent to a denial of the incarnation and the resurrection of Christ, is answered by Paul’s appended parentheses which state that he is using these questions in the sense of the original, as voicing an earnest desire combined with despair of fulfillment. Paul is thinking of one who despairs of fulfilling the law and of thus obtaining righteousness and sorrowfully aks: “Who shall go up into the heaven?” namely to get righteousness there and to bring it down. The implication is that no one can, and that the man who has this question in his heart would be left helpless and hopeless.
Paul at once says that, without needing first to go up to heaven since he was in heaven, Christ came down from heaven and actually brought us righteousness, God’s own righteousness to be received from Christ by faith. And he lets this righteousness itself ask that old question about the commandment, which is taken from Deuteronomy but applied to Christ since both the commandment (law) and Christ are brought to us by means of the Word. God’s righteousness calls out to us, not to ask with discouraged hearts, who will ascend up to heaven, and Paul interprets the point of such a question by adding parenthetically: “that is, in order to bring down Christ,” as though righteousness had not yet been purchased and won for us by Christ. It is here for us in the Word and through the Word in every believer’s mouth and heart just as the commandment was but in a more blessed way, and does not ask us first to do the commandment in the Word but only to believe and to allow God to give us Christ’s blood and righteousness by our believing in him.
The infinitive denotes purpose: “in order to bring down.” It is not epexegetical: “That is the same as saying, who will bring Christ down?” or, “That would be to bring Christ down.” Vague ideas such as: “Do not attempt great actions, only believe”; “Do not ask whether Christ has really come, only believe,” are unacceptable. The point is neither an admonition to faith, nor proof of its necessity; everything focuses on the Word which is full of Christ and his righteousness and aims at, produces, fills faith. It was met with unbelief by the mass of the Jews to their own undoing; yet Christian Jews and Gentiles are justified by this Word as God’s means and thus are saved. Paul’s parenthesis is not a rabbinical midrash or commentary; neither in rabbinical nor in another fashion does it attempt to comment on the original question of Deuteronomy. The parenthesis pertains only to the use made of the question by Paul, which is to show that Christ and his righteousness are and ever have been in the Word.
Romans 10:7
7 “Or” is conjunctive (1:21), the second question being only alternative, its force and point the same as those of the first. The Hebrew speaks about crossing the sea to get the commandment in order to hear and to do it. Since this thought is unsuitable for Paul’s purpose, Paul writes a parallel to it: “Who shall go down into the abyss?” This is similar enough to the original to recall it and its idea of impossibility. By conserving no more of the original than a similarity Paul forestalls the idea that he is quoting or interpreting the original.
In his second parenthesis: “that is, in order to bring up Christ from the dead,” he states to whom he refers with his second question. With the first he refers to Christ’s coming from heaven on his mission of righteousness (his whole mission and not only the incarnation), and with the second he refers to the completion of this mission by his resurrection from the dead. Both show what God’s righteousness, which is now ours by faith, costs (5:15, etc.).
“Abyss” is the extreme opposite of “heaven.” Paul himself indicates in what sense he uses this term, namely as referring to Christ’s death and resurrection. It does not refer to “the realm of the dead,” a place that is neither heaven nor hell, where the souls of the dead are kept until the resurrection, this place having an upper section for the souls of the godly, and a lower section for those of the wicked. Some think that Christ’s soul descended to this place at death to stay there for the three days, and some regard this as his descent into hell. In the Old Testament it is called sheol. But this is catholicizing fiction—no such place exists. see Luke 16:23, etc.
Christ’s soul went into his Father’s hands in heaven, which is Paradise, whither also the justified malefactor’s soul went, where Jesus received Stephen’s soul (Acts 7:59), where Paul’s soul desired to be on departing, with Christ (Phil. 1:23). Christ did descend into hell, the abode of the damned, but not at the moment of death; he descended, body and soul, timelessly, after the vivificatio, before he showed himself alive and risen to the disciples. “Abyss” is, indeed, used as a term for hell, but there is no reason at this place for a reference to hell or to Christ’s descent into hell. The reference is to Christ’s resurrection, to his going down into the abyss of death and the grave and his being brought up from the dead in his glorious resurrection.
The fact that the resurrection includes our justification we have noted in 4:25, and the results of this justification as connected with his death, entombment, resurrection, and living forever Paul has shown in 6:1–11. This justification, this righteousness made ours by faith, is the point here. Jewish unbelief rejected it. Like the law, it is conveyed by means of the Word, the very Word God had given to the Jews, the very Word Paul and the Christians were now preaching. This righteousness had to come from heaven because it is God’s righteousness; it also had to come up out of the abyss of death and the grave because our sins were buried there. God brought it by sending his Son from heaven, by raising him from the dead.
And he embodied it in the Word by means of which we have it in our hearts in faith. The Jews heard the Word but scorned what it brought and acted like people who would themselves climb up to heaven and down into the abyss and thus get righteousness for themselves.
Romans 10:8
8 “But what does it say?” is Paul’s question for drawing special attention to the positive part of what this divine righteousness has to tell us. All has been done, no efforts of ours are needed, and these would needs be such impossible ones as going up into heaven and going down into the abyss, as bringing Christ down and bringing him up when, lo, in the very words once used regarding the commandment (law) we have the truth: “Nigh to thee is the utterance, in thy mouth and in thy heart!” A third brief parenthesis adds the thought that the utterance Paul had in mind when he let this righteousness use these words from Deuteronomy is “the utterance concerning the faith,” the very one “which we are preaching,” we Christians all (this is not a majestic plural).
Τὸῥῆμα = “the thing uttered,” the Word as actually uttered when preached. The genitive is objective: “concerning the faith,” the article indicates the faith of which Paul is speaking, personal, justifying faith and not the objective doctrine of Christianity. Ἐκπίστεως, out of it, i.e., out of its contents which is Christ flows our righteousness, the righteousness that is here also actually speaking to us, here itself telling us how it becomes ours.
At one time the Jews from very childhood onward learned the law by the Word uttered and taught to them; it was put into the “mouth” of each one. In this way it was by the Word also to enter the “heart” of each, the center of his being. Not, indeed, so as to attain righteousness by the law. Theirs were to be believing hearts, and they were to use the law rightly for daily contrition and repentance and for their hearts’ guide to serve God aright. Just so the gospel Word, when it is uttered and preached, brings God’s righteousness, has ever brought it where it sounded forth, has placed it right into the “mouths” of the hearers to talk about it, discuss it, make it their own, confess it; right into their “hearts” to hold it there by faith. The Word, the Word uttered, is the great medium; and being gospel-Word and not command, faith is its reception, and unbelief, sad to say, its rejection.
Since the medium, the uttered Word, was the same, it should have been as easy for the Jews to receive the gospel as to receive the law. Easier, in fact, because the gospel is a pure gift. But they received even the law only outwardly and not in the heart and closed their hearts obdurately against the gospel-word with its gift of righteousness.
Romans 10:9
9 Because, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord and shalt believe with thy heart that God raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses unto salvation.
The discussion is not about the contents of the ῥῆμα but about God’s using “utterance” or uttered Word as his means for conveying what we call the contents. Hence ὅτι = “because” and states the reason that the divine righteousness says what it does about “the utterance”; not “that” as in the A. V. and in the R. V. margin. The fact that the second person “thou” is still used does not compel us to think that the divine righteousness is still speaking; Paul now speaks and only continues with “thou” because the righteousness used this direct address although in v. 10 he changes to the impersonal passive.
As the divine Word placed the commandment (law) into the mouth and into the heart, so the Word did and does this with the gospel. How into the mouth? As thy confession. How into the heart? As thy faith. The two always go together; for true, sincere confession is meant, the idea of hypocritical confession is not discussed. This confession voices faith; for true faith is never silent, it always confesses. Paul here keeps the order: 1) confession 2) believing because this order is used in the language drawn from Deuteronomy in v. 6–8; in v. 10 he changes to the natural order: believing—confessing.
The objects are added in a summary manner: “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord.” Κύριον is predicative to Ἰησοῦν. “Jesus” merely identifies the person by means of the name he bore from childhood onward. But “Lord” concentrates into this one term all that he is as the exalted Savior, the divine Mediator, whom we trust, worship, and obey. In hoc appellatione est summa fidei et salutis. Bengel. “Jesus as Lord” is, of course, the summary contents of the gospel just as is “that God raised him up from the dead” thereby establishing him as “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). But both are introduced only incidentally so as not to leave the verbs unmodified. The condition of expectancy with ἐάν contemplates the idea that this confession will be made, and that this believing will actually occur although not necessarily in all instances where the ῥῆμα is uttered. The mention of Jesus as “Lord” harmonizes with the thought of the first question appropriated from Deuteronomy, for Jesus is the Son of God who came down from heaven to be our Lord.
The mention of God’s raising him up from the dead agrees with the second question in the sense in which the apostle tells us he uses this question, for Jesus was raised from the abyss of death and the grave to sit at the right hand of God forever. His resurrection crowned the work of salvation and revealed and forever sealed the efficacy and the sufficiency of all that Christ had done, especially also the full atoning power of his death.
If thou shalt so confess and believe “thou shalt be saved,” delivered and rescued from thy sins. On the verb and the noun used in v. 10 see 1:16. The great difference between the law and the gospel should be noted; concerning the former Moses says (v. 5) that he that does it “shall live,” concerning the latter Paul says that he that confesses and believes “shall be saved.” “Shall live” = shall not lose life, shall not die, shall go on living as never having committed a sin. A hopeless promise for the sinner! “Shall be saved” connotes the fact that we have sinned and are thus doomed as being dead in sins and then declares that the confessing and the believing sinner shall be rescued and put into permanent safety by another, by his divine Savior-Lord. Even the passive is eloquent. Here there is eternal joy for the sinner! As ὁποιήσας in v. 5 is an aorist, so here the two verbs, “shalt confess—shalt believe,” are also aorists, for both actions are conceived, not in their progress, but in their finality; and the futurity expressed by “shall be saved” sets in as the immediate result.
Romans 10:10
10 “For” helps to explain this connection. The Greek needs no articles with “heart” and “mouth,” and it has the impersonal passives which need no subjects: wird geglaubt, wird bekannt, or man glaubt, man bekennt, the latter we translate, “one believes, one confesses.” Both phrases with εἰς denote more than purpose, namely result, since in v. 9 we have “shall be saved” to express actuality. The Word of the gospel aims at faith in the heart and at confession by the mouth, and true faith always speaks out in confession. The double result is “righteousness” and “salvation.” The instant a sinner believes, righteousness results, i.e., the divine verdict that for Christ’s sake this believing sinner is accounted righteous. This is justification by faith alone.
We may say that in this instant salvation likewise results, for to be justified is to be saved. In John 3:15, 16 believing at once secures life eternal, i.e., salvation. One of the standard terms for believers is σεσωμένοι, they who have been saved. But besides indicating present salvation, σωτηρία is used also with reference to final salvation, the deliverance that transfers into heaven. So it seems to be used here. One who believes and is thereby justified confesses and shows that his faith is genuine, and the result is salvation, he is saved already now, and when the moment arrives and death calls him away, heaven is his.
Romans 10:11
11 For saith the Scripture, Everyone believing on him shall not be put to shame, i.e., as far as righteousness (justification) and salvation are concerned when he faces God and his judgment. Shame, confusion, fleeing in terror from the face of the great Judge shall not be the lot of him who rests his trust on Christ (ἐπί). For the details of this quotation from Isa. 28:16 see 9:33. When Paul adds πᾶς, “everyone,” to Isaiah’s words he brings out only their full sense to the effect that no exception exists. This is important because of what follows.
Romans 10:12
12 For there is no distinction as regards both Jew and Greek, for the same One (is) Lord of all, being rich toward all those calling upon him: For everyone whoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved.
The Jews imagined that there was a distinction, one that was entirely in their favor, one that required that a Gentile become a Jew before he could be saved. The gospel-word contradicted that as Isa. 28:16 shows and as Joel 2:32 also shows. The great means of salvation is the gospel-word, the one correlative of which is confessing faith and nothing but this faith. The universality lies in the very means of grace employed by God. The force of τεκαί is that this matter of the believer’s never being put to shame applies “as well to a Jew as to a Greek,” i.e., that even a Jew will escape being put to shame only by believing. Instead of compelling a Greek to become like a legalistic Jew, this legalistic Jew must drop his legalism and become like a believing Greek.
R. 514 makes the two genitives ablatives. As he did in 1:16, and in 2:9, 10, Paul names only the two superior classes: Jew—Greek, for what is true regarding them is also true regarding all barbarians who rank beneath them. As to the absence of distinction note 3:23.
There can evidently be no distinction since “the same One” is “Lord of all,” namely Jesus whom the Word leads us to trust and to confess “as Lord” (v. 9). What is true of God (3:29) is true of Jesus as Savior-Lord. “Lord of all” includes the barbarian besides the Jew and the Greek. “All” is not to be taken in the Calvinistic sense that no class of men as a class is excluded but in the Scripture sense of v. 11: “everyone believing,” every such individual. “Being rich toward all those calling upon him” means that, no matter how great the multitude of those doing this may be, the wealth of his saving grace and merits is never exhausted, and his will to bestow his grace is never wearied or exhausted. To call upon him is faith and confession in one and the same act. It is the cry of the publican: “Let thyself be propitiated in regard to me (ἱλάσθητίμοι) a sinner!” over against the Pharisee with his presumptuous works. The main confession which we make of Jesus as Lord is thus to call upon him.
Romans 10:13
13 Paul has the most direct Scriptural substantiation for what he is saying. He adds it with a simple γάρ, for his readers will know that he is using Joel 2:32: “Everyone whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Here a second prophet has πᾶς, “everyone,” with even ὃςἄν, “whoever,” making it as general as possible; he also has “shall call upon” and “shall be saved” (v. 9). Can anything be more assured? But here there is more than just the pronoun: call upon “him”; here there is: upon “the name of the Lord.” Paul retains the anarthrous Κυρίου which is used in the LXX of Joel as a designation for Yahweh. So Paul identifies Christ and Yahweh because they are one in essence and being, Christ being the Son of God, Yahweh’s greatest self-revelation. In v. 9 Κύριον has no article because it is a predicative accusative, and in v. 12 Κύριος is unmodified as a predicative nominative; these are the grammatical features. But the LXX regularly translate Yahweh with Κύριος minus the article, which indicate that Yahweh is meant when they print the word with capitals: LORD.
The words cited from Joel are so apt because this prophet says: shall call upon “the Name” of Yahweh. On “the Name” see 2:24 and any of the following: Matt. 6:9; Mark 9:37; Luke 9:48; John 1:12; Acts 2:21. It always signifies the revelation of God, of the Trinity, of Christ. It is the means by which he comes to us, by which we have him, without which we cannot reach him. The Word is his Name. And this whole chapter treats of the Word. Those who rejected it in unbelief doomed themselves. The Name is intended for faith and confession, for justification and salvation. There is salvation in no other Name.
Romans 10:14
14 Now comes Paul’s famous chain: How, then, shall they call on him in whom they did not believe? and how shall they believe in him whom they did not hear? and how shall they hear without one preaching? and how shall they preach unless they be commissioned? As it has been written, How beautiful the feet of those telling as glad news good things!
The British commentators puzzle about the connection of the thought, and it is suggested by them that a new paragraph, a new line of thought begins with this verse. In support of this view they point to οὖν. But this chapter deals with the Word and its correlative faith. Now faith is voiced in confession (calling upon the Lord) and comes from hearing the preaching of men sent or commissioned. An adequate presentation of the Word as the means of grace for producing faith must touch all the links in the chain. Paul lets them form a chain and fastens a golden Scripture pendant to the last link (v. 15). οὖν merely takes up the idea of calling upon the Lord which was mentioned twice in v. 12, 13 in order to trace back the whole line, which was involved in τὸῥῆμα, the uttered Word, to him who commands its utterance.
Bengel calls this a climax retrograda. Qui vult finem, vult etiam media. Deus vult ut homines invocent ipsum salutariter; ergo vult ut credant; ergo vult ut audiant; ergo vult ut habeant praedicatores; itaque praedicatores misit. Still better: the one means for bestowing God’s righteousness upon sinners who could obtain righteousness by no other means is the Word; and this Word as the means for making this righteousness ours involves all the links in the chain. Since it is the Word it makes no distinction between Jew and Greek. But the Jew would not have anything as easy as the Word to give him righteousness, and anything that made it equally easy for the Greek. Hence the tragedy of Israel.
The propositions are entirely general and apply also outside of the religious life. How will anyone ever call upon one in whom he has no faith or confidence? So if the sinner is to call for mercy he must have faith implanted in him. Every call for mercy and grace involves faith. The subjectless plurals are general, these are general statements. The readings of the texts vary between aorist subjunctives and future indicatives.
Either would be in place, the former being used in deliberative questions. They are here textually preferable. The antecedents of the relatives are contained in the relatives themselves. The Greek is satisfied to use aorists in the relative clauses; in English we mark the relativity of time and use perfects: in whom “they have not believed—whom they have not heard.” Each δέ introduces a new and a different item. In logic this extended reasoning is called a sorites, a compound syllogism or a chain syllogism.
Now as to faith—how will anyone believe in a person whom he has not heard? This is again general. Confidence in a man is wrought in only one way: the man himself must awaken it in us. Even in ordinary life synergism has no place for originating ordinary faith. A man whom we have never heard, with whom we have never had contact—how can we have confidence in him? To have heard of him or about him is only an inferior substitute. To see his deeds is not different from hearing him, for they, too, speak. Οὖ is the genitive of the person heard speaking and not the adverb: “where” they did not hear. To make this the adverb introduces the incongruous idea of place whereas everything turns on persons. Paul follows the idea of τὸῥῆμα right through this simple chain.
There are two ways of hearing a person: when he himself speaks in his own person as Jesus spoke when he was on earth, and when he sends a herald to utter his message as Jesus sent his apostles as heralds. So the next question asks how they shall hear “without one heralding,” no article, for any herald is referred to. Κηρύσσειν, which we translate “to preach,” means “to herald,” act as a herald for publicly announcing some message of a king or a commander. The point is that the herald announces no word more or less than he is bidden to announce and alters and changes nothing. He merely lends his voice to his master who often is also present in person. This the apostles were to do, and they did it, and their message still rings through the world; this the prophets before them did, often with the direct preamble: “Thus saith the Lord!” “He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me,” Luke 10:16. Applied to us who preach today, this means that we are Christ’s heralds through whom men hear Christ himself only when we transmit his Word exactly as he has commanded it to us.
Romans 10:15
15 One more link: “And how shall they herald unless they be commissioned?” second aorist passive subjunctive, which is not deliberative (R., W. P.) but the subjunctive after ἐάν; κηρύξωσιν is deliberative. A self-appointed herald is a contradictio in adjecto; he alone is a herald who is duly sent and commissioned. So with the commissioning the presentation of the Word as the great means of grace for working confessing faith unto righteousness is complete. We may regard the whole series of aorists as ingressive: “How shall they come to call upon him in whom they have not come to believe?” etc.
All these questions with negatives point to the corresponding positives. See them in v. 8, 10, and 12: Near to thee is the Word—this the Word we are heralding—with the heart it is being believed, with the mouth confessed—many are calling upon the Lord, and so righteousness and salvation are being received without distinction between Jew and Greek. It is this fact that makes Paul exclaim at the end in Scripture words: “How beautiful the feet of those telling as glad news good things!” That is the reaction which the contemplation of the Word as God’s means of salvation ought to cause in every poor sinner’s heart. The exclamation is taken from Isa. 52:7 and selects only the words here needed and corrects the inexact LXX on the basis of the original Hebrew.
The prophet voices the jubilation of the Israelites still faithful in the Babylonian captivity at the thought and the sight of the herald runners speeding over the mountains to make the great announcement to them that they are now free. This is exclamatory ὡς, R. 1193. Do not miss the touch regarding the feet of these bearers of glad tidings. Covered with dust because of the long running, they are simply “beautiful” to the eyes of these longing captives because of the message they are bringing. No more beautiful sight to them than these feet! So comes the gospel word. “Go,” cried Jesus, “disciple all nations!” and with that commission speeded the feet of his heralds: “teaching them all things that I have commanded you,” as true heralds of mine.
Such were the feet of Paul when he wrote this quotation; such are the feet of all true missionaries to this day. And this quotation adds the final touch which appears already in the commissioning: the Word comes to Jew and Greek and does not wait until those come who cannot come. Grace goes to such a length.
Ὡραῖος means timely, on the hour, and then, referring to the time of youth and bloom, lovely, beautiful; see the name “Gate Beautiful” in Acts 3:2. Beautiful, too, is the designation τῶνεὐαγγελιζομένων, for it is the very word “gospeling,” preaching the gospel of God’s righteousness and salvation (1:1). It is at times used transitively, with either a personal or a neuter object. So here the beautiful object “good things” is added, which makes the measure of overjoyed expression full.
Jewish Unbelief—Gentile Faith
Romans 10:16
16 Ah, if Paul could only have stopped with this jubilant note in regard to his own nation and its reaction to the Word, God’s means of grace. But here again, as in 9:30–33, his note of joy must turn to a note of tragedy. Israel refused the promise and the mercy (chapter 9), it refused the Word. Israel would not have the faith which these came to work.
But (alas!) not all hearkened to the glad news. For Isaiah declares, Lord, who believed what they heard from us? Then the faith—of which Isaiah speaks—(originates) from something that is heard, and that which is heard (comes) through Christ’s utterance.
The brevity of the sad statement is full of poignancy. Ἀλλά with its negative has the force of “but alas!” While “not all hearkened” is a litotes for “only a few hearkened,” it says that some did but at the same time implies that all should have done this. The fact that Paul is speaking only about all the Jews goes without saying even as he at once also cites Isaiah who spoke only of his own nation. The guilt is so great, the refusal to hearken so unreasonable, because what they refused to believe was “the glad news” in the supreme sense, the very gospel of righteousness and salvation for them. We may translate ὑπακούω “obey” (A. V.), but even then it means submit and yield to what is heard, “hearken” in the full sense of the word, namely with faith and acceptance. It is exactly the proper word because it is correlative to both κηρύσσειν (v. 14, 15), the herald’s announcing, and to “the glad news” which is thus heralded. Their ears were dull, their hearts like stone.
“For Isaiah declares” does not intend to prove from Isaiah that the Jews were unbelieving in Paul’s time. We also do not see how this citation from Isaiah brings in das goettliche Verhaengnis as though the Jews were divinely doomed to unbelief, and as though this explains their unbelief. The explanation of Jewish unbelief which Paul is offering in this chapter is the fact that they refused the righteousness which came to them only by means of the Word, its reception thus being only by faith. To come only as poor, lost sinners, and only by hearing and by believing to be declared righteous, aroused the most violent opposition in the Jewish world. By quoting Isaiah’s statement Paul adds only this in explanation (γάρ), that the Jewish opposition to the Word as the means of grace was not a new thing that occurred only at this time; 800 years before this time Isaiah (53:1) complained about it, and his complaint was a fearful indictment. Hear Stephen in Acts 7:51. Only in this sense is Isaiah’s word prophetic, namely that every renewal of unbelief among the Jews fills up “the measure of the fathers” (Matt. 23:31, 32) until it at last overflows in the complete rejection in judgment.
Paul adds “Lord” to the quotation since the prophet’s question was addressed to Yahweh. “Who believed?” implies that very few did. “Believed” is the same as “hearkened.” When it is used with the dative, “believed” means “accepted as true and trustworthy.” Τῇἀκοῇἡμῶν is by some thought to mean, “what we have heard,” either we prophets (who then proclaimed it), or we people (Isaiah being one of them). But C.-K. 106 contends for the passive sense: “what they were made to hear from or by us,” the prophets bringing them the divine Word. “Our report” (English versions) and “our preaching” (A. V. margin) omit the passive idea from the angle of the hearers and convey only the active idea from the angle of the prophets; the point of hearing in “what is heard” is also obscured. Yet both are so pertinent here; note: “how shall they hear?” (v. 14); then the mention of the one heralding, of those bringing good news, finally of hearkening to the good news. The word ἀκοή fits into this series of terms; in fact, Paul uses this question from Isaiah’s address for this very reason as v. 17 shows.
This question is so pertinent also because it introduces the great fifty-third gospel chapter of Isaiah which describes the very death and the glorification of the Messiah. It is the central chapter of Isa. 40 to 66, the very crown of the great prophetic poem. The very heart of the gospel Israel would not believe, neither then nor thereafter, not even after the Messiah had already come.
Romans 10:17
17 It is not an idiosyncrasy on the part of Paul when he draws a deduction from Isaiah’s question, and when his mind reverts to a side thought because it was unable to continue with the main thought. Nor does ἄρα imply that in the word quoted from Isaiah, Paul is concerned only about what this deduction contains. These views are not tenable. In v. 16 Paul voices the same complaint that Isaiah voiced: not all hearkened in Paul’s time—who believed in Isaiah’s? What occurs in Paul’s time is better understood when we recall what happened during Isaiah’s time. But the point is this that it was ever the gospel-word (τὸεὐαγγέλιον), the thing the Jews were made to hear (ἡἀκοή), to which they would not hearken, which they ever obdurately would not believe. Ἄρα is a mild deductive particle and gently lays the finger on this vital point.
The whole chapter, let us repeat, hinges on the Word, on this means of grace, which is applied by preaching, by commissioning preachers, by making men hear and enabling them to hearken and to believe (v. 14, 15). It is the main thought, and it should not be overlooked that “then” (ἄρα) Isaiah, too, makes “the faith” of which he speaks (hence the article) a result (ἐκ) of what one is made to hear (ἀκοή); and here the thing the Jews were made to hear (ἡἀκοή, now properly with the article) is mediated by (διά) Christ’s own uttered Word. With ἄρα Paul says that this lies in the prophet’s own question.
Our versions and various commentators, especially those who think of a side thought, now take ἀκοή in the sense of “hearing,” i.e., the act of hearing. In these two closely knit verses (16, 17) this term should have the same sense. This saving faith which brings righteousness and salvation (v. 6) does not arise out of the mere act of hearing but out of what is heard, namely the gospel itself, which men are always made to hear. Its very nature is such as to be heard. That is what makes it such a blessed means for righteousness, one that is so different from the commandment (law) which also is indeed heard but bestows no righteousness although it is heard endlessly.
The A. V. translates both ἐκ and διά “by” as though they had the same force; the R. V. has “of” and “by,” which are a little weak for distinguishing between source and medium. Right “out of” the thing one is made to hear comes this justifying faith; it never has another source. But what the gospel heralds make men to hear is not their own so that men might be justified if they were disbelieving; it is mediated by nothing less than “Christ’s own utterance.” Now the preposition is διά and not ἐκ.
In the very first place it was ῥῆμα, “utterance,” that fell from Christ’s lips; but it is not like mere human utterances which are soon dissipated and gone, it is living and acts as the medium for producing this ἀκοή that is made to resound in men’s ears, this glad news heard far and wide. In v. 8 Paul said that “we are preaching the utterance of the faith.” He retains the same word “utterance” but now adds the fact that it is Christ’s own, and that the apostles are preaching it as the one mighty medium for the message they make men hear. The article is absent because the quality is stressed; it is “utterance” spoken by the lips.
Some translate, “an utterance” and apply this to the apostolic commissioning which commanded the apostles to go forth and also point to v. 15: “except they be commissioned.” But this interpretation would call for the article because this specific utterance would be referred to. The absence of the article would then not be justified. And why should such a word as “utterance” be used for such a command when one remembers that it was used with reference to the very opposite in the preceding (v. 8)? In both passages the use is exceptional and occurs nowhere else and occurs here only for the reason that the Word is originally uttered to make men hear.
Besides, Isaiah’s question does not warrant the deduction that Isaiah was commissioned and that, therefore, Paul and the apostles also were. The fact that they had been commissioned is not the point at issue but the fact that men were made to hear; with that goes Christ’s “utterance,” ῥῆμα (-μα a term expressing result; the thing uttered; not -ις, the action of uttering, R. 151). These match: “the thing uttered” and ἀκοή, “what men were made to hear.” The latter presupposes the former even as Paul also deduces.
One may ask whether Christ’s utterance acted as the medium for Isaiah’s message as it did for that of the apostles. Why not? Are not apostles and prophets combined as one foundation in Eph. 2:20? The fact that in point of time Christ came 800 years later does not affect the inner relation of Isaiah’s gospel message. This was the same as Jewish unbelief was the same despite the element of time.
Romans 10:18
18 But I say, Did they not get to hear? Well now:
Into all the earth there went out their sound,
And unto the ends of the inhabited earth their utterances.
It is Paul himself who in his dramatic way (question and answer) emphasizes the fact that Israel got to hear (ingressive aorist). The idea is not that any of his Christian readers doubted this, or that Paul is cutting off the extenuating plea that there was perhaps no chance to hear. No; here, where hearing is the great point, he merely emphasizes the fact that Israel most certainly heard. Μή is an interrogative particle implying a negative answer, and οὐ merely negates the verb: “It certainly was not that they did not get to hear, was it?” The answer which is introduced with μενοῦιγε which emphasizes the point of hearing (R. 1151), some think with a touch of irony, is couched in Scripture language, two poetic lines taken from Ps. 19:4. These deal with the universality of natural religion, and their use to indicate the extensive spread of the gospel message is like saying that this gospel message was spread as widely for the Jews as what the heavens declare and the firmament shows. There was not a Jew who did not get to hear that message.
There is no need to question the literal fact of what Paul says. Paul is not speaking only of the preaching of the apostles, which some Jews in some corners of the earth had not yet heard. He has just quoted Isaiah’s complaint, and Isaiah proclaimed the same gospel message that the apostles later proclaimed; read that fifty-third chapter, for instance, and then read what Jesus said regarding the Scriptures and in particular regarding Moses in John 5:39, 45–47. From its very start and on through the centuries there was not a single Jew that did not get to hear. He at first heard the prophecies regarding the Messiah, and then the fulfillment came and began to spread with rapidity; not one was there who had not heard at least the prophecies. Jewish unbelief did not set in only when the fulfillment arrived; read Acts 7:51, 52, in fact, Stephen’s entire address.
It may prove profitable to pay some attention to the way in which Paul uses Scripture and does his quoting. Some say that he follows rabbinical practice, that we now quote quite differently, i.e., with more adherence to the original sense and the context. But an old work such as Horne’s, Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Scriptures, vol. II, 281, etc., the 7th ed. (the last gotten out by Horne himself) answers such views. Paul quotes just as we do but in a better way, for he knew his Old Testament better than we do. Take the present instance.
Here a word taken from a psalm is simply adopted to express Paul’s own thought, he glides over into telling Biblical language without a formula of quotation. We do the same but not always so pertinently when we quote the language of others in order to express our own thought. What is wrong or rabbinical about that? In marked contrast v. 16 begins: “For Isaiah states,” when Paul uses Isaiah’s statement in a different way and for a different purpose. Then in v. 19 and 20 two plain prophecies are quoted as prophecies. In every instance the purpose and the object are plain, and in every instance these are legitimate, even according to the most rigid modern standards.
Now the last of these synonymous lines contains the very term Paul has twice used, but it is plural, τὰῥήματα, and even has a genitive appended as has Paul’s singular (v. 8, 17). The first line has the definitive ὁφθόγγοςαὐτῶν: spoken “utterances” always make a “sound.” These lines taken from the psalm are also highly pertinent because of the vast diaspora of the Jews in Paul’s time. There were Jews almost everywhere, they had actually scattered “into all the earth,” “unto the ends of the inhabited earth,” and their Scriptures, so full of the gospel message, always went with them. Paul could not have found better words of his own composition for the thought he wanted to express. The Jews had, indeed, gotten to hear!
Romans 10:19
19 But I say, Did Israel not get to realize? As the first one Moses says:
I myself will make you jealous of a non-nation,
And with a nation senseless will I anger you.
Ἀλλὰλέγω with its terse question introduced by μή is exactly parallel to v. 18 even in the respect that the verbs have no objects. Paul is again not meeting an excuse that might be offered for the Jews as though it was ignorance that caused this rejection, as though sins of ignorance are less grave than sins committed in full realization. As was the case in v. 18, the question asked in this verse, which question implies a negative answer, intends only to emphasize the truth that, as the Jews heard the gospel-word, so they also fully realized its meaning and what its rejection implied. Theirs was not a sin of mere pitiful ignorance. The Greek has no object after ἤκουσαν (v. 18) or after ἔγνω. The Greek mind requires statement of the objects even less than does the English, yet in the Greek omission of the object also means that the stress is on the verbs and not on the objects: Was there not hearing?—was there not realization? The fact that both questions refer equally to the gospel ought to be beyond question.
Because of the two quotations that make up Paul’s answer to the second question the object of “get to realize” (ingressive aorist) is thought to be: realize “that the gospel is universal and is also for the Gentiles,” and that this realization made it so obnoxious to the Jews that they most obdurately rejected it. This idea is untenable. Israel expected to include the whole world under the rule of its Messiah, it was never opposed to universality as such. But it expected to include the whole world, not by God’s righteousness to be embraced only as a pure gift by faith, but by a righteousness attained by men’s own works by means of law (9:31). It had a strong missionary zeal (Matt. 23:15) but, as Paul says in v. 2, “not according to knowledge.” This phrase in v. 2 about lack of knowledge is not in contradiction with the question which implies full knowledge. The Jews were made to hear so thoroughly that they knew just what the righteousness from faith and the gospel meant; and it was because they were made to know it so well that they rejected it so utterly. Their ignorance lay in so zealously building up a righteousness of their own and not knowing that this was not genuine and would never stand in God’s sight.
Some construe πρῶτος with the question: “Did Israel not as the first (ahead of the Gentiles) get to realize?” Which, of course, Israel did. It is thought that this idea of Jewish priority is better fitted to the answer which Paul gives in his two quotations. But this is unsatisfactory. As the question asked in v. 18 ends with the verb, so does the question asked in v. 19. The line of thought is as follows: the Jews were given the gospel—all of them most certainly got to hear it—and all of them most certainly got to realize just what it was. The fact that they got to realize it “first” is a side issue, the discussion does not turn on priority but on faith, the one fruit of the Word as heard and understood.
“First” (in the Greek the adjective is preferred to the adverb, R. 657) Moses made a declaration, and in addition to this Isaiah (δέ) also made one; both were to the same effect, that God substituted Gentiles for the Jews, and Isaiah added the tragic reason that the Jews offered only disobedience and contradiction: the better they knew the gospel, the more violently they refused it. Moses, the very first writer of the Old Testament, and Isaiah, the greatest of the later prophets, so declare. The Law and the Prophets, these two great divisions of the Old Testament, bear the same testimony. Moses was the first great head of the young Jewish nation when it first became a nation; he witnessed all its unbelief at the start, and Stephen tells how it treated him, him who preached the promise-gospel of the great Messiah-Prophet (Acts 7:35–41).
The supposition that the lines quoted from Moses refer only to the idea that Israel “got to know” overlooks the fact that both of Paul’s questions follow v. 16 and would be pointless except for this. The questions are: “Did these Jews who did not hearken to the gospel, did not believe the thing they were made to hear, did they, perhaps, after all not get to hear or not get to know and to realize?” Ah, so well they knew and realized, this nation, that despite it all they did not believe, that God himself through Moses had to tell them: “I myself (emphatic ἐγώ) will make you jealous of a non-nation, and with a nation (that is) senseless will I anger you,” you who despite all my gospel-word to you will not hearken and believe (Deut. 32:21).
Keil (Commentar) has analyzed this Hymn of Moses and answers the critics who deny its Mosaic date and place it into the time of the kings. It speaks of the coming idolatries of Israel and announces, not this or that chastisement of God, but Israel’s final rejection. The retribution is the reflex of the sin and the unbelief. The Jews made God jealous by worshipping non-gods; he himself would make them jealous of a non-nation. This is the voluntas consequens. When the cup of wickedness is full it overflows and retribution sets in, and the retribution always fits the wickedness because it is always absolutely just.
The two poetical lines are synonymous, and each pivots on an ἐπί phrase, and these are placed chiastically, one at the end of the first line, the other at the head of the second, the one having “non-nation,” the other “nation” (on οὐ negativing a noun see 9:25). This position makes both phrases very emphatic: “I will make you jealous over a non-nation: over a nation senseless will I anger you.” Because “nation” is stressed, Paul’s question contains the word “Israel,” the great religious name of honor of the covenant nation which distinguishes this nation from all ἔθνη (see “Israelites” in 9:4). The fact that God is speaking of Paul’s time when the gospel was extended to the Gentile world, lies on the surface. The fact that since the exile the Jews could not be accused of idolatry, at least not as a nation, in no way modifies the prophecy and its fulfillment. For the fatal sin was ever unbelief, once flagrantly insulting God by idolatry, then persisting in bloody persecution. All was a unit as Stephen views it, Acts 7:51.
The word “non-nation” is exact, for God did not replace the once sacred nation Israel with another single nation; the Gentiles that flocked into the Christian Church came from all nationalities. And yet in the second phrase they are dignified by the term “nation” because they shall form a unit in the church. Non-nation = “senseless nation” in so far as all were originally senseless pagan idolaters; “senseless” is the very word used in 1:21, 31. Some find in the verbs “make you jealous” and “anger you” the implication that Israel is at last to be moved to take its rightful place, being provoked thereto by the crowding in of the Gentiles. A reading of Deut. 32:15, etc., leads to the opposite conclusion. Only a remnant of Judaism shall be saved, and that not by being made jealous and angry. But see 11:11 for a further discussion of this and of the other type of jealousy.
Romans 10:20
20 Moreover, Isaiah is very bold and says:
I was found by those not seeking me;
I became manifest to those not inquiring for me.
But in regard to Israel he says:
The whole day long did I spread out my hands to a people disobeying and contradicting.
Two witnesses from the Old Testament are permitted to speak (2 Cor. 13:1). The verb “is very bold” is added to “says” in adverbial fashion: “he says with boldness,” not mincing words. The lines are taken from Isa. 65:1, 2. The first two repeat in substance what Moses had already said regarding the Gentiles. It is again God who is speaking. The two aorists are called prophetic: what is to be is presented as having already occurred. Paul follows the LXX as sufficiently reproducing the Hebrew, but he reverses the two lines. It may well be that he did this because the second speaks of God’s manifesting himself, and by putting this line in the second place it becomes only synonymous to the preceding line, and the thought of a theophany of God to the Gentiles is excluded.
The chiliasm of Delitzsch and of others leads them to think that Isaiah had Israel in mind, and that Paul applied these lines to the Gentiles. In Isa. 63 and 64 a voice raises the most heart-rending intercession for Israel and admits all its unbelief and its obduracy. In Isa. 65 we have the Lord’s reply: It is too late! Israel is permanently rejected, save for a remnant! Its place shall be taken by Gentiles. Isa. 65:1 at once declares the latter. Then v. 2–7 denounce Israel. But we are told that v. 1 also refers to Israel and states that God is still holding the door open for them, and that he will yet be found by his people although they have become pagan by idolatry. But Paul refers Isa. 65:1 to Gentiles, and we prefer Paul’s statement to the claims of the chiliasts.
The Gentiles never sought God although they should have done so (Acts 17:27), but he was found by them (the dative to indicate the agent with passives, R. 551). In the same sense he became manifest and known to those who never inquired after him. How was he found, how made manifest? Matt. 28:19, 20 is the answer. The Word, the Word, carried to them by the preacher-heralds, this caused the true God to be found, to be manifested in Christ Jesus. This includes faith, the faith Israel would not yield.
How different would all have been if Israel had believed! Instead of having its place filled by Gentiles, and the whole church in a brief time becoming practically entirely Gentile, Israel would not have been permanently rejected but would have led the Gentile world in the obedience of faith to the Word. In the Hebrew the two verbs are the nifal tolerativum: “I let myself be found (gave myself to be found), let myself become manifest.”
Romans 10:21
21 But in regard to Israel (πρός) this is what God answers to that poignant intercession: “The whole day long (accusative of extent of time) did I spread out my hands (begging and pleading) to a people disobedient and contradicting.” Now he does it no more: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate!” Matt. 23:28. There is such a thing as “too late” even in the case of God’s grace. For 2, 000 years the Jews prove it. “Disobeying” the pleading call is unbelief; in addition to that there is “contradicting,” and that denotes hardening. In Acts 13:45 we have the same ἀντιλέγειν, which advances even to blasphemy.
Tragic is the story, just as tragic when it is viewed from the standpoint of the Word that would awaken faith as when it was viewed from the standpoint of the promise and the mercy (chapter 9) which would likewise produce faith. Why this unreasonable refusal of faith? There is no answer. “And he was speechless,” Matt. 22:12. A reasonable explanation of an unreasonable act or course of action is an impossibility. It will be helpful to compare The Eisenach Old Testament Selections 118, etc., by the author, in regard to Isaiah 63 to 65.
R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.
C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. Dr. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.