Romans 11:8

ff. This hardening (at the present day Romans 11:5) agrees with God's action toward Israel in the past, as exhibited in Scripture. The words from the O.T. can hardly be called a quotation; Deuteronomy 29:4; Isaiah 29:10; Isaiah 6:9-10, all contributed something to them. The πνεῦμα κατανύξεως is from Isaiah 29:10, and answers to the Heb. רוּחַ תַּרְדֵּמָה, a spirit of deep sleep or torpor. Virtually it is defined by what follows unseeing eyes, unhearing ears: a spirit which produces a condition of insensibility, to which every appeal is vain. κατάνυξις only occurs in LXX, Isaiah 29:10; Psalms 59:4 (οἶνον κατανύξεως); but the verb κατανύσσομαι is used by Theod. in Daniel 10:15 to translate נִרְדַּם (cognate to תַּרְדֵּמָה), and in other places of any overpowering emotion: see Fritzsche ad loc [5] Winer, p. 117. It is God Who sends this spirit of stupor, but He does not send it arbitrarily nor at random: it is always a judgment. ἕως τῆς σήμερον ἡμέρας : in Deuteronomy 29:4 ἕως τῆς ἡ. ταύτης. The change emphasises the fact that what Israel had been from the beginning it was when Paul wrote, and that God had acted toward it from the beginning on the same principle on which He was acting then. Cf. Acts 7:51 f. καὶ Δαυεὶδ λέγει : another proof of ἐπωρώθησαν, though strictly speaking a wish or an imprecation cannot prove anything, unless it be assumed that it has been fulfilled, and so can be taken as the description of a fact. Paul takes it for granted that the doom invoked in these words has come upon the Jews. γενηθήτω ἡ τράπεζα αὐτῶν κ. τ. λ. Their table in the psalm is that in which they delight, and it is this which is to prove their ruin. παγίς, θήρα, and σκάνδαλον are all variations of the same idea, that of snare or trap i.e., sudden destruction. What the Jews delighted in was the law, and the law misunderstood proved their ruin. In seeking a righteousness of their own based upon it they missed and forfeited the righteousness of God which is given to faith in Christ. καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδομα αὐτοῖς : this does not exactly reproduce either the Heb. or the LXX, but it involves the idea that the fate of the Jews is the recompense of their sin not a result to be simply referred to a decree of God. Their perverse attitude to the law is avenged in their incapacity to understand and receive the Gospel. τοῦ μὴ βλέπειν : for this Gen [6] both in Romans 11:8 and Romans 11:10, see Buttmann, Gram. of N.T. Greek, p. 267 (. tr.). τὸν νῶτον αὐτῶν διὰ παντὸς σύγκαμψον : keep them continually in spiritual bondage, stooping under a load too heavy to be borne: cf. Acts 15:10.

[5] loc. ad locum, on this passage.

[6] genitive case.

This is the condition in which by God's act, requiting their own sins, and especially their self-righteous adherence to the law as a way of salvation, the Jews find themselves. It is a condition so grievous, and so remote from what one anticipates for a people chosen by God, that it confronts Paul again with the difficulty of Romans 11:1, and obliges him to state it once more this time in a way which mitigates its severity, and hints that the fall of Israel is not the last thing concerning them to be taken into account. What if God's purpose includes and uses their fall? What if it is not final? It is with new ideas of this sort, introduced to take the edge from the stern utterances of Romans 11:8-10, that Paul deals in Romans 11:11-24.