268 ROMANS 11: 1—10.

Even if the psalm here quoted be considered as referring to the sor rows and the enemies of the sacred writer himself, and not to those of Christ, it would still be pertinent to the apostle's object. The enemies of the psalmist were the enemies of God ; the evils imprecated upon them were imprecated on them as such, and not as enemies of the writer. These denunciations are not the expression of the desire of private revenge, but of the just and certain judgments of God. And as the psalmist declared how the enemies of God should be treated, how dim their eyes should become, and how their strength should be broken, so, Paul says, it actually occurs. David said, let them be so treated, and we find them, says the apostle, suffering these very judgments. Paul, therefore, in teaching that the great body of the Jews, the rejecters and crucifiers of the Son of God, were blinded and cast away, taught nothing more than had already been experienced in various portions of their his- tory, and predicted in their prophets.