Romans 9:3

I could wish Lit., I was wishing; the imperfect. A similar imperfect occurs Galatians 4:20; where lit., "I was desiring." Without discussing the grammatical theory of the construction we may paraphrase, I was on the way to wish, or, I was in course of wishing. Two things are implied; the tendencyto the wish; and the obstructionof it. The Gr. for "to wish" here means specially to expressa wish; almost, "to pray." Paul's love for Israel is such that, but for certain preventing reasons, he would form a wish to be cut off from Christ for their sakes.

myself Strongly emphatic in the Gr. His intense love for his brethren constrains him to contemplate himselfas their victim, if such a victim there could be.

accursed Lit. an anathema; a thing devoted to ruin by a solemn curse. Such is the meaning of the word wherever else used by St Paul; 1Co 12:3; 1 Corinthians 16:22; Galatians 1:8-9. (See Bp Lightfoot's note on Galatians 1:8.) No milder meaning will suit the intensity of this passage. St Paul could even have asked for the extremest imaginable suffering possible for man but for certain reasons in the nature of things which forbade him. These reasons may be given thus: To desire the curse of God would be to desire not only suffering, but moral alienation from Him, the withdrawal of the soul's capacity to love Him. Thus the wish would be in effect an act of "greater love for our neighbour than for God [40]." Again, the redeemed soul is "not its own:" to wish the self to be accursed from Christ would thus be to wish the loss of that which He has "bought and made His own." But, the logical reason of the matter apart, we have only to read the close of ch. 8 to see how entire a moral impossibility it was for St Paul to completesuch a wish. The words here were perhaps written with a tacit reference to the memorable passage, Exodus 32:32-33. The answer there given to the request of Moses would alone suffice to forbid the completionof any similar request thereafter.

[40] Rev. H. Moule's Suggestive Commentaryon this Epistle.