Romans 11:31

31 so these also have now not believed in your mercy, in order that *they* also may be objects of mercy.

Romans 11:31 Meaning and Commentary

Romans 11:31

Even so have these also now not believed
Now is the time of the Jews' unbelief, blindness has happened to them, the vail is over their hearts; as the Gentiles formerly did not believe God, so the Jews do not now; though they believe there is a God, and that there is but one God, yet they do not believe God in Christ; nor that he is the Father of Christ; or that Christ is the Son of God, the true Messiah, and Saviour of the world: they do not believe, as some read the words, connecting them with the next clause, and so they stand in the original text, "in your mercy"; meaning either Christ, in whom the Gentiles obtained mercy; or the Gospel, the means of it; or the sense is, that they do not believe that mercy belongs to the Gentiles, having entertained a notion, treat the Messiah, and the blessings of mercy and goodness by him, are peculiar to Israel: but our version after Beza, who follows Theophylact, connects the clause with the following,

that through your mercy they may obtain mercy;
not through the mercy the Gentiles show to others, but which they have received of God; and principally intends faith, which springs from the mercy of God, and is a gift of his pure, free, rich grace; and stands opposed to the unbelief of the Jews, through which the Gentiles are said to obtain mercy; and the meaning: is, that in time to come, the Jews, observing the mercy obtained and enjoyed by the Gentiles, will be provoked to jealousy, and stirred up to an emulation of them, to seek for the same mercy at the same hands, and in the same way, they have had it; see ( Romans 11:11 ) ; The apostle's argument in favour of the call and conversion of the Jews, upon the whole is this, that since the unbelief of the Gentiles was no bar to their obtaining mercy, and that through the infidelity of the Jews; then it cannot be thought, that the present blindness, hardness of heart, enmity, and unbelief, which now attend the Jews, can be any obstacle to their obtaining mercy in the same way the Gentiles have; but as the one has been, the other also will be.

Romans 11:31 In-Context

29 For the gifts and the calling of God [are] not subject to repentance.

30 For as indeed *ye* [also] once have not believed in God, but now have been objects of mercy through the unbelief of *these*;

31 so these also have now not believed in your mercy, in order that *they* also may be objects of mercy.

32 For God hath shut up together all in unbelief, in order that he might shew mercy to all.

33 O depth of riches both of [the] wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable his judgments, and untraceable his ways!

Footnotes

• [a]. This means that the Jews would not believe in the mercy shown to the Gentiles, and thus lost the glad tidings of the grace of God for themselves; and thus, their right to the promises being gone, they come in at the end as objects of mere mercy, as any poor Gentile might be, though, by that mercy, God accomplishes his promises, to which, as to their present responsibility, they had lost all title. It is this which gives rise to the apostle's expressions of admiration as to the wisdom of God.