659
οὗ πάντες k Here only; yap 3 Jas. i. =
pe 24. πάντες τέκνα, GAN’ “ἐν Ἰσαὰκ κληθήσεταί σοι σπέρμα”. 8. τοῦτ' 1Ch.xi.1;2
ἔστιν, οὗ τὰ τέκνα τῆς σαρκός, ταῦτα τέκνα τοῦ Θεοῦ" ἀλλὰ τὰ
m
τέκνα τῆς ἐπαγγελίας
Cor. xi.22; John viii,
3) 37. λογίζεται eis σπέρµα. 9g. ἐπαγγελίας γὰρ ον.
~ n Gen. xviii.
6 λόγος οὗτος, “ Κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν τοῦτον” ἐλεύσομαι, καὶ ἔσται τῇ το
difficulty in seeing the point ofa doxology, I agree with those who would put a colon or a period at σάρκα, and make the words that follow refer not to Christ but to the Father. This is the punctuation given in the margin by W. and Η., and “alone seems adequate to account for the whole of the language employed, more especi- ally when considered in relation to the context”? (Hort, N.T., vol. ii., app., p. 110). The doxology is, indeed, some- what hard to comprehend; it seems at the first glance without a motive, and no psychological explanation of it yet offered is very satisfying. It is as if Paul, having carried the privileges of Israel to a climax by mentioning the origin of the Messiah as far as regards His humanity, suddenly felt himself face to face with the problem of the time, how to reconcile these extraordinary privileges with the rejection of the Jews; and before address- ing himself to any study or solution of it expressed in this way his devout and adoring faith, even under the pressure of such a perplexity, in the sovereign pro- vidence of God. The use of &¥, which is in itself unnecessary, emphasises ἐπὶ πάντων; and this emphasis is “fully justified if St. Paul’s purpose is to suggest that the tragic apostasy of the Jews (vers. 2, 3) is itself part of the dispensations of Him Who is God over all, over Jew and Gentile alike, over past, present and future alike; so that the ascription of blessing to Him is a homage to His Divine purpose and power of bringing good out of evil in the course of the ages (xi. 13-16, 25-36)”": W. and H., ii., app., Ρ. 11ο. Full discussions of the passage are given in Meyer, S.and H., and Gifford; also by Dr. Ezra Abbot in the Yournal of the Society of Biblical Exegesis, 1883. With this preface Paul proceeds to justify the ways of God to men: see the introductory remarks above. The first section of his argument (ix. 6-29) is in the narrower sense a theodicy—a vindi- cation of God’s right in dealing as He has dealt with Israel. In the first part of this (vers. 6-13) he shows that the rejection of the mass of Israel from the Messianic Kingdom involves no breach
or failure of the Divine promise. The promise is not given to all the natural descendants of Abraham, but only to a chosen seed, the Israel of God.
Ver. 6. οὐχ οἷον δὲ ὅτι: this unique expression is explained by Buttmann (Grammar, p. 372, Thayer’s Transl.) as a blending of two formulas—ovx οἷον followed by a finite verb, and οὐχ ὅτι, which is common in the N.T. The meaning is, But, in spite of my grief, I do not mean to say any such thing as that the Word of God has come to nothing. For not all they that are of Israel, 7.¢., born of the patriarch, are Israel, i.e., the people of God. This is merely an appli- cation of our Lord’s words, That which is born of the flesh is flesh. It is not what we get from our fathers and mothers that ensures our place in the family of God. For the use of οὗτοι in this verse to resume and define the sub- ject see Gal. 11, 7.
Ver. 7. Nor because they are Abraham’s seed, are they all τέκνα, i.e., children in the sense which entitles them to the inheritance, iv. 11, viii. 17. God from the very first made a distinction here, and definitely announced that the seed of Abraham to which the promise belonged should come in the line of Isaac—not of Ishmael, though he also could call Abraham father. Ἐν *loaax κληθήσεταί σοι σπέρµα = Gen. xxi. 12, LXX. The words literally mean that in the line of Isaac Abraham should have the posterity which would properly bear his name, and inherit the promises made to him by God, Isaac’s descendants are the true Abrahamidae.