Romans 9:30,31

“ What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have obtained righteousness, but the righteousness which is of faith; and that Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. ”

The question: What shall we say then? has in the present case peculiar gravity: “The explanation of the fact not being found by saying, God has annulled His word; what, then, is the solution of the enigma?” Thus, after setting aside the false solution, Paul invites his reader to seek with him the true one; and this solution he expresses in Romans 9:31 in a declaration of painful solemnity, after prefacing it in Romans 9:30 with a saying relating to the lot of the Gentiles. While the latter have obtained what they sought not, the Jews have missed what they sought; the most poignant irony in the whole of history. Some expositors have thought that the proposition which follows the question, What shall we say then? was not the answer to the question, but a second question explanatory of the first. We must then prolong the interrogation to the end of Romans 9:31. But what do we find there? Instead of an answer, a new question, διατί, wherefore? This construction is clearly impossible. It is the same with the attempt of Schott, who makes a single question of the whole sentence from the τί οὖν to δικαιοσύνην (the second): What shall we say then of the fact that the Gentiles have obtained...? and who finds the answer to this question in the last words of the verse: “but the righteousness of faith!”

The solution given by the apostle may be thus expressed: “That, whereas the Gentiles have obtained..., Israel, on the contrary, has failed”... ῎Εθνη, without article: Gentiles, beings having this characteristic. The subjective negative μή might be rendered: “ without their seeking.” Δικαιοσύνην, without article, a righteousness. It is a mistake to give to this word here, as Meyer does, the moral sense of holiness; for it could not be said of the Greeks that they did not often aspire after a high morality. What they never sought was righteousness, in the religious sense of the word, justification. The idea which they formed of sin as a simple error. and of the Deity as not looking very narrowly at human actions, did not lead them to the pursuit of righteousness in this sense. And yet they obtained it, precisely because they were exempt from the false pretensions which barred access to it in the case of the Jews. They were like the man of whom Jesus speaks, who, crossing a field, discovers a treasure in it which he was not seeking, and without hesitating makes sure of its possession. The verb κατέλαβεν, literally, put the hand on, suits this mode of acquisition. It must, however, be further explained how the matter could transpire in this way; hence the last words: “but the righteousness which is of faith.” The δέ, but, is explicative (as in Romans 3:22): “but the righteousness thus obtained could, of course, only be a righteousness of faith.”