Romans 11:31

The word νῦν, now, strongly contrasts the present period (since the coming of Christ) with the former, Romans 11:30. Now it is the Jews who are passing through their time of disobedience, while the Gentiles enjoy the sun of grace. But to what end? That by the grace which is now granted to the latter, grace may also one day be accorded to the Jews. This time, then, it will not be the disobedience of the one which shall produce the conversion of the others. A new discord in the kingdom of God will not be necessary to bring about the final barmony. In this last phase, the good of the one will not result from the evil of the other, but from their very blessedness. Israel went out that the Gentiles might enter. But the Gentiles shall not go out to make place for the Jews; they will open the door to them from within. Thus are explained at once the analogy and the contrast expressed by the conjunctions ὥσπερ, as, and οὕτω, even so, which begin and form a close connection between Romans 11:30-31. It cannot be doubted that the clause τῷ ὑμετέρῳ ἐλέει, by your mercy (that which has been shown to you), depends on the following verb ἐλεηθῶσι, may obtain mercy, and not on the preceding proposition. The apostle places this clause before the conj. ἵνα, that, to set it more in relief; for it expresses the essential idea of the proposition. Compare the similar inversions, Romans 12:3; 1 Corinthians 3:5; 1 Corinthians 9:15, etc.

For the form καὶ οὖτοι, these also, in the first proposition, there is substituted in the second the form καὶ αὐτοί, they, or they themselves also, to bring out the identity of the subject to which those two so opposite dispensations apply. It is impossible to admit the Greco-Latin reading, which has καὶ αὐτοὶ both times. We must also reject the reading of some Alex. and of some ancient translations, which in the second proposition repeat the νῦν, now. These last words refer evidently to the future.