Romans 11:7

‘What then? What Israel seeks for, that he did not obtain, but the election obtained it, and the rest were hardened,'

What then are we to conclude from this? The conclusion must be that Israel as a whole failed to obtain what ‘it is seeking for' (compare Romans 9:31; Romans 10:3). Unbelieving Israel was, and still is, seeking for a righteousness which would make it acceptable to God, but it failed in its purpose. Only the election obtained such a righteousness, because they sought it by faith. The rest were instead ‘hardened', that is, their hearts were covered over with a hard substance preventing them from responding. The word originally refers to hard substances which develop in the body. The use of the passive verb (‘were hardened') often denotes the activity of God. The aim of using the passive tense was in order to prevent the use of God's name unnecessarily. Thus as Romans 11:8 declares, it was God Who hardened them. ‘Whom He will He hardens' (Romans 9:18; for although a different verb is used there, it contains a similar idea). This does not necessarily mean that they were hardened from birth, only that at some stage, because of their intransigence, God hastened the process, as He did with Pharaoh at the Exodus. God has so ordained that by proceeding in a course of action we form a habit hard to break. This was why so many of the Rabbis and Pharisees could not respond to Jesus. They were hardened in their ways.