108 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. IX.
23. And that He might make known. The connection is variously explained. Some make and that dependent on He endured: “If, willing to show His wrath . . . God en- dured . . . and also that.” Others make that dependent on fitted : “ Vessels fitted to destruction and also that He might make known,” etc. Godet supplies He called from ver. 24: “And called that He might make known,” etc. The difficulty is resolved by the omission of cat and. So Westcott and Hort, on the single authority of B. See Rey., in margin.
His glory. See on ch. iii. 23. Godet thinks the phrase was suggested by Moses’ request, “Show me thy glory,” Exod. oSieanhl, lke}
Afore prepared (spontoiuacev). Only here and Eph. ii. 10. The studied difference in the use of this term instead of KaTap- Tigw to jit (ver. 22), cannot be overlooked. The verb is not equivalent to forcordained (mpoopifw). Fitted, by the adjust- ment of parts, emphasizes the concurrence of all the elements of the case to the final result. Prepared is more general. In the former case the result is indicated ; in the latter, the previ- ousness. Note before prepared, while before is wanting in ver. 22. In this passage the direct agency of God is distinctly stated ; in the other the agency is left indefinite. Here a single act is indicated; there a process. The simple verb eToalar often indicates, as Meyer remarks, to constitute qualitatively ; i... to arrange with reference to the reciprocal quality of the thing prepared, and that for which it is prepared. See Luke 1,17; John xiv. 2; 1 Cor. ii. 9; 2 Tim. ii. 21. Sah yetrulys? says Reuss, “if the last word of the christian revelation is con- tained in the image of the potter and the clay, it is a bitter derision of all the deep needs and legitimate desires of a soul aspiring toward its God. This would be at once a satire of reason upon herself and the suicide of revelation. But it is neither the Jas¢t word nor the only word; nor has it any immed- iate observable bearing on the concrete development of our lives. It is not the only word, because, in nine-tenths of Scrip- ture, it is as wholly excluded from the sphere of revelation as though it had been never revealed at all; and it is not the das¢
Cu. IX.] THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 109
word, because, throughout the whole of Scripture, and nowhere more than in the writings of the very apostle who has faced this problem with the most heroic inflexibility, we see bright glimpses of something beyond. How little we were intended to draw logical conclusions from the metaphor, is shown by the fact that we are living souls, not dead clay; and St. Paul else- where recognized a power, both within and without our beings, by which, as by an omnipotent alchemy, mean vessels can be- come precious, and vessels of earthenware be transmuted into vessels of gold” (Farrar). See note at end of ch. xi.
24. Called—of. Compare ch. viii. 30. For of, read from (€&), as Rev. From among.
25. That my people which was not my people (tov ov dadv pov, Aaov od). The Greek is much more condensed. “JT will call the not-my-people my-people.” See Hos. i. 6-9. The reference is to the symbolical names given by the prophet to a son and daughter: Lo Ammz not my people, and Lo Ru- hama not having obtained mercy. The new people whom God will call my people will be made up from both Jews and Gent- iles. Hosea, it is true, is speaking of the scattered Israelites only, and not of the Gentiles; but the ten tribes, by their lapse into idolatry had put themselves upon the same footing with the Gentiles, so that the words could be applied to both. A principle of the divine government is enunciated “ which comes into play everywhere when circumstances reappear similar to those to which the statement was originally applied. The exiled Israelites being mingled with the Gentiles, and forming one homogeneous mass with them, cannot be brought to God separately from them. Isa. xlix. 22 represents the Gentiles as carrying the sons of Israel in their arms, and their daughters on their shoulders, and consequently as being restored to grace along with them ” (Godet).