Ver. 29. Proof that the Israelites, in virtue of their relation to the fathers, are objects of God’s love. ἁμεταμέλητα cf. 2 Cor. vii. το: it may mean either what is not or what cannot be repented of: here the latter. God's gifts of grace, and His calling, are things upon which there is no going back. The χαρίσματα are not the moral and intellectual qualifications with which Israel was endowed for its mission in the world (Godet), but the privileges of grace enumerated in chap. ix, 4 f. Neither is the κλῆσις of God a “calling”? in the modern sense of a vocation or career assigned to any one by Him; it is His authoritative invita- tion to a part in the Messianic kingdom. From Israel these things can never be withdrawn.
Vv. 30-32. There is the less need, too, that they should be withdrawn, because God makes the very misuse of them contribute to the working out of His universal purpose of redemp- tion. The past unbelief of the Gentiles and the mercy they presently enjoy, the present unbelief of the Jews and the mercy they are destined to enjoy in the future—these things not only correspond to each other, but they are interwoven with each other; they are parts of a system which God controls, and in which every element conditions and is conditioned by all the rest: there is a Divine necessity pervading and con- trolling all the freedom of men—a Divine purpose mastering all the random activity of human wills; a purpose which is read
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