λοτριωμένοι. They stood as ἄλλοι, as others, distin- guished as a separate class from the people of God. The word πολιτεία means—1. Citizenship. 2. The order or constitution of the state. 38. The community or state itself. The last signification best suits the con- nection. ᾿Ισραήλ means the theocratical people; and πολιτεία τοῦ ᾿Ισραήλ is that community or common- wealth which was Israel. This includes the other senses, for in being aliens from the community of God’s people, they were of course destitute of citizenship among them, and outside of the theocratical consti- tution.
And strangers from the covenants of pronvise, Kai ξένοι τῶν διαθηκῶν τῆς ἐπαγγελίας. The word cove- nants is in the plural because God entered repeatedly into covenant with his people. It is called a covenant of promise, or rather of the promise, because the pro- mise of redemption was connected therewith. That the promise meant is that great promise of a redeemer made to Abraham, and so often afterwards repeated, is plain not only from the context, but from other pas- sages of Scripture. ‘The promise made to the fathers,” says the apostle, in Acts 18, 82, “hath God fulfilled in that he hath raised up Jesus.” Comp. Rom. 4, 14-16. Gal. 3,16. As the heathen were not included in the covenant God made with his people, they had no in- terest in the promise, the execution of which that cove- nant secured. Their condition was therefore most deplorable. They were without hope—érrida μὴ éxov- tas, not having hope. They had nothing to hope, be-