17. et δέ τινες τῶν κλάδων ἐξεκλάσθησαν, σὺ
k Ver. 24 δὲ Χ ἀγριέλαιος Gv | ἐνεκεντρίσθης ἐν αὐτοῖς, καὶ συγκοινωνὸς τῆς ῥίζης id τν ‘ a a > , A a st |, καὶ τῆς πιότητος } τῆς ἐλαίας ἐγένου, 18. μὴ ”κατακαυχῶ τῶν κλάδων ΄ προς εἰ δὲ κατακαυχᾶσαι, οὗ σὺ τὴν ῥίζαν βαστάζεις, GAN ἡ pila ce. m Jas. il. 13, 3 = * > , ε9 ee em de ~ ii 14 IQ. Ἔρεῖς οὖν, Εξεκλάσθησαν οἱ ” κλάδοι, ἵνα ἐγὼ ἐγκεντρισθῶ. 20. καλῶς ' τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ ἐξεκλάσθησαν,; σὺ δὲ τῇ πίστει ἕστηκας. μὴ
leat της πιοτητος ΔΝ ΑΙ,Γ23Ρ: om. και ΝΙΒΟΡΙΕ,
Weiss, Alf. and Tischdf.
It is om. by W. and H.,
2 Om. οι before κλαδοι with NABCD*FLP. 3 εξεκλασθησαν WACD°LP; εκλασθησαν ΒΡΕ. Lachm. and Treg. prefer the
latter, but all other edd. the former.
examples in which the preposition in compounds is dropped by oversight.
Weiss (Textkhritik, S. 34) gives many similar
For
υνψηλοφρονει SAB read νψηλα dpover; and so most edd.
patriarchs to the people as a whole. As chosen by God, the fathers were ἅγιοι, i.e., God’s people, and this standing (in spite of the arguments in chap. ix., and in spite of the hard facts of the situation when Paul wrote) belongs inalienably to their children. They are God’s, and it will yet become apparent that they are. Vers. 17-24. In these verses, which in a sense are a long parenthesis, Paul anticipates an objection which Gentile readers might take to his use of the last figure, the root and the branches; and he draws from it two special lessons—one, of humility, for the objectors; the other, of hope, for Israel. Ver. 17. A Gentile Christian might feel that the very fact that Jews were re- jected and Gentiles ~ccepted qualified the assurance with which Paul had just spoken of the future of Israel. It is the disposition to think so, and to presume on one’s own favoured position, which the Apostle rebukes in μὴ κατακαυχῶ τῶν κλάδων. et δέ τινες τῶν κ. ἐξεκλάσ- θησαν: τινες puts the case mildly: cf. iii. 3. ἐξεκλάσθησαν, sc., as fruitless. σὺ δὲ ἀγριέλαιος Gv: σὺ is the presumptu- ous individual before the Apostle’s mind, not the Gentile Church collectively. The ἀγριέλαιος is the olive in its natural uncultivated state. ἐνεκεντρίσθης ἐν αὐτοῖς, sc., among the native branches of the cultivated olive. The process here supposed is one that in horticulture is never performed. The cultivated branch is always engrafted upon the wild stock, and not vice verséd. This Paul knew quite well (see παρὰ φύσιν, ver. 24), and the force of his reproof to the presuming Gentile turns on the fact that the process was an unnatural one. [Ordine com- mutato res magis causis quam causas
rebus aptavit (Origen).] It gave the Gentile no room to boast over the re- jected Jews. συνκοινωνὸς τῆς ῥίζης τῆς πιότ. τῆς ἐλαίας: there is an argument in συν. At the best, the Gentile only shares with Jews in the virtues of a root which is not Gentile, but Jewish: he has his part in the consecration of the patriarchs, the one historical root of the people of God, and in the blessings God attached to it. For πιότης cf. Jud. ix. 7. The accumulation of genitives is apparently an imitation of such Hebrew constructions as Isa. xxviii. 1, 16: the meaning is, a partaker in the root of the fat olive tree.
Ver. 18. μὴ κατακαυχῶ τῶν κλάδων: for the genitive see Buttm., 185. Be- tween ‘if thou boastest,” and ‘‘thou bearest not the root,” there is no formal connection: for such _breviloquence, which requires us to supply ‘‘ consider” or ‘‘remember,” see Winer, p. 773. The sense is, You owe all you are proud of to an (artificially formed) relation to the race you would despise.
Ver. 19. ἐρεῖς οὖν: the presumptuous Gentile persists. ‘It is not to the root I compare myself, but branches were broken off that I might be engrafted: that surely involves some superiority in 9?