God's power to engraft the Jews again into the stock of His people proved a fortiori by comparison with what He has done for the Gentiles. To restore His own is more natural, conceivable, and one may even say easy, than to call those who are not His own. The Gentile Christian (1) was cut ἐκ τῆς κατὰ φύσιν ἀγριελαίου, from what is in its own nature an uncultivated olive, with no suitableness for the uses which the olive is intended to subserve, and (2) παρὰ φύσιν in violation of nature was engrafted into a good olive; in comparison with this doubly unnatural process one may well argue πόσῳ μᾶλλον κ. τ. λ. how much more shall these, the Jews who κατὰ φύσιν (in their own nature) belong to the good tree, have their connection with it re-established? Weiss takes ἐγκεντρισθήσονται as a logical future, and it may be so; but Paul believes in his logic, and has probably in view in the word that actual restoration of the Jews of which he now proceeds to speak.

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Old Testament