Romans 9:11

μήπω γὰρ γεννηθέντων μηδὲ πραξάντων : “the conditional negatives (μήπω, μηδὲ) represent the circumstances not as mere facts of history, but as conditions entering into God's counsel and plan. The time of the prediction was thus chosen, in order to make it clear that He Who calls men to be heirs of His salvation makes free choice of whom He will, unfettered by any claims of birth or merit” (Gifford). πρόθεσις in this theological sense is a specially Pauline word. The purpose it describes is universal in its bearings, for it is the purpose of One who works all things according to the counsel of His will, Ephesians 1:11; it is eternal, a πρόθεσις τῶν αἰώνων, Ephesians 3:11; it is God's ἰδία πρόθεσις, 2 Timothy 1:9, a purpose, the meaning, contents, and end of which find their explanation in God alone; it is a purpose κατʼ ἐκλογήν, i.e., the carrying of it out involves choice and discrimination between man and man, and between race and race; and in spite of the side of mystery which, belongs to such a conception, it is a perfectly intelligible purpose, for it is described as πρόθεσις ἣν ἐποίησεν ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, and what God means by Christ Jesus no one can doubt. God's eternal purpose, the purpose carried out κατʼ ἐκλογὴν, yet embracing the universe, is clearly revealed in His Son. The permanent determining element, wherever this purpose is concerned, is not the works of men, but the will and call of God; and to make this plain was the intention of God in speaking as He did, and when He did, to Rebecca about her children. If we look to Genesis 25:23, it is indisputably the nations of Israel and Edom that are referred to: “Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of peoples shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger”. The same is true also of Malachi 1:2 : “I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation,” etc. Yet it would not be right to say that Paul is here considering merely the parts assigned by God to nations in the drama of providence; He is obviously thinking of Jacob and Esau as individuals, whose own relation to God's promise and inheritance (involving no doubt that of their posterity) was determined by God before they were born or had done either good or ill. On the other hand, it would not be right to say that Paul here refers the eternal salvation or perdition of individuals to an absolute decree of God which has no relation to what they are or do, but rests simply on His inscrutable will. He is engaged in precluding the idea that man can have claims of right against God, and with it the idea that the exclusion of the mass of Israel from the Messiah's kingdom convicts God of breach of faith toward the children of Abraham; and this He can do quite effectually, on the lines indicated, without consciously facing this tremendous hypothesis.