(1) I say then, hath God cast away his people ? God forbid^ &c. When we consider how many promises are made to the Jewish nation as God's peculiar people ; and how often it is said, as in Ps. 94 : 14, " The Lord will not cast off his people," it is not wonderful, that the doctrine of the rejection of the Jews, as taught in the preceding chapters, appeared inconsistent with these repeated declarations of the word of God. Paul removes this difficulty by showing in what sense the Jews were rejected, and in what way the ancient promises are to be understood. All the Jews were not cast off, and the promises did not contemplate all the Jewish people, as shown above in the ninth chapter, but only the true Israel. There is, therefore, no inconsistency between the doctrine of the apos- tle, and the declarations of the Old Testament.
There must be an emphasis laid upon the question in this verse, * Hath God entirely cast off his people \ or hath God cast off his whole people ? Has he rejected all"? By no means. Such is not my doctrine.' The question may also be understood as meaning, ' Has God cast off his true spiritual people 1' But this is not so consistent with the spirit of the pas- sage, nor with the proof, afforded in his own case by the apostle, that the objection suggested by the interrogation was unfounded. The fact that he, a Jew, was not rejected, was evidence rather that the whole nation •was not cast off, than that the true Israel were excepted. The distinction between the external and the spiritual Israel seems to be first referred to in the next verse. For I also am an Israelite^ of the seed of Abraham, oi the tribe of Benjamin; (see Phil. 3: 5.) The apostle is thus parti- cular in his statement, to make it appear that he was not a mere prose- lyte, but a Jew by birth, and consequently, as he did not teach his own rejection from the kingdom of God, he could not be understood as teach- ing that God had cast off all his ancient people.
(2) God hath not cast aivay his people which he foreknew. This verse admits of two interpretations. The words his people may be un- derstood, as in the preceding verse, as meaning the Jewish nation, and the clause which he foreknew as by implication assigning the reason for the declaration that God had not cast them off. The clause, according to this view, is little more than a repetition of the sentiment of the pre-