Romans 11:1-10 - Not All Jews Are Rejected, God Has Saved His Elect from Among Them

In this section Paul teaches that the rejection of the Jews was not total. While true that the nation as a whole was rejected by God (as predicted in the Old Testament) there was a remnant (small portion) of Jews whom God had saved, and perhaps a much larger remnant than many might suppose.

11:1 I ask then: Did God [totally] reject his people [the Jews]?
By no means!

[God had not totally rejected all Jews, there were those among the Jews whom God had chosen to save. Paul was a good example of this]:

I am an Israelite myself,
a descendant of Abraham,
from the tribe of Benjamin.

11:2  God did not reject his people,
whom he foreknew.
[loved beforehand]

[Notice how the following translations render the word translated "foreknow" in the NIV:

  • WMS,     "His people on whom He SET HIS HEART BEFOREHAND."
  • PHIL,      "the people whose DESTINY HE HIMSELF APPOINTED."
  • WUEST, "His people whom He FOREORDAINED"]

[Paul uses an example from the Old Testament to show what was happening among the Jews at the time the Roman letter was written]:

Don't you know what the Scripture says
in the passage about Elijah--
how he appealed to God against Israel:

11:3
"Lord, they have killed your prophets
and torn down your altars;
I am the only one left,
and they are trying to kill me"?
11:4 And what was God's answer to him?

"I have reserved for myself
seven thousand who have not
bowed the knee to Baal."
 

11:5 So too, at the present time
there is a remnant
[small portion]
chosen by grace.

["As in the days of Elijah, the number of those who had not bowed the knee to Baal was far greater than the prophet believed it to be, so the number of those who acknowledged Christ as the Messiah, in the times of the apostle, was much larger than is generally supposed. The apostle James speaks of  many myriads (Acts 21:20) of believing Jews" (Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans p.356)]

11:6 And if by grace, then it is no longer by works;
if it were,
[if God's choice had been based on
whatever He foresaw]

grace would no longer be grace.
11:7 What then? What Israel [as a nation]
sought so earnestly
[right standing before God]
it did not obtain,
but the elect did.
The others
[the non-elect Jews]
were hardened [by God],
 
11:8 as it is written
[in Deuteronomy 29:4 and Isaiah 29:10]
:

"God gave them a spirit of stupor,
eyes so that they could not see
and ears so that they could not hear,
to this very day."

11:9 And David says [in Psalm 69:22-23]:

"May their table [feasts]
become a snare and a trap,
a stumbling block
and a retribution for them.

11:10

May their eyes be darkened
so they cannot see,
and their backs be bent forever."