Romans 11:17

some of the branches A tenderstatement of what, alas, was so great an amount of unbelief. See below again, Romans 11:25; "blindness in part."

be broken off The reference of time is specially to the crisis of the rejection of Messiah by Israel. It was true, of course, that at no period of the Church was any worldly and unbelievingJew otherwise than "broken off" from God's covenant of peace; but not till Messiah was rejected was it ever possible to think of the Jews, as a class, as being so situated.

thou The Gentile Christian, who is throughout in view.

a wild olive tree A scion of a race alien from the special Covenant of Salvation. This word, from St Paul's pen, implies no Pharisaic contempt of the Gentiles. He merely points to the Divine choice, equally sovereign for nations and for persons, which had willed that Israel, and not Greece, Rome, or India, should be the recipient and keeper of Revelation; the heaven-culturedsubject of its privileges and ordinances. Not merit, but grace, made the difference. But a real difference it was, none the less, and it left the wonder and mercy of the call of the Gentiles as great as ever.

graffed in Grafting, as is well known, is always of the good scion into the inferior stock. St Paul reverses this, no doubt quite consciously. The mere outline of his language is borrowed from the olive-yard, and that is enough for him. The union of true believers to the true Church is vividly illustrated (cp., but with care, the Lord's own great metaphor, John 15:5,) by the union of branches to a stem; the bringing of alien believers into a Church originally Jewish is vividly illustrated by grafting a piece of one tree into another. Here the likeness ends.

partakest Lit. and better, didst become a partaker.