Paul's train of thought unfolds as follows in these verses. Because God's election of Israel did not depend on natural descent (vv. 6-10) or human merit (vv. 11-14), Israel's disobedience cannot nullify God's sovereign purpose for the nation.
9:6 The word of God that was in Paul's mind was evidently God's revelation of His plans for Israel in the Old Testament. God revealed that He had chosen Israel to be a kingdom of priests (Exod. 19:5-6). The Israelites were to function as priests in the world by bringing the nations to God (cf. Isa. 42:6). They were to do this by demonstrating through their life in the Holy Land how glorious it can be to live under the government of God. Israel had failed to carry out God's purpose for her thus far and consequently had suffered His discipline. It looked as though the word that God had spoken concerning Israel's purpose had failed. The Greek word translated "failed"(ekpeptoken) means "gone off its course"as a ship. Paul proceeded to show that God would accomplish His purpose for Israel in the rest of chapters 9-11.
". . . Romans 9-11 contains 11 occurrences of the term Israel,' and in every case it refers to ethnic, or national, Israel. Never does the term include Gentiles within its meaning. The NT use of the term is identical with the Pauline sense in this section."293
"Premillennialists deny that the NT authors spiritualize, or reinterpret, OT texts. That is really the focus, it seems to me. Does the NT, for example, apply OT promises made to ethnic believing Israel to the NT church (cf. Acts 15:13-18; Gal. 6:16)?"294
Even though all the descendants of Israel (Jacob) constitute the nation of Israel as Scripture speaks of Israel, God spoke of Israel in a more restricted sense as well. Paul had previously pointed out this distinction between the outward Jew and the inward Jew (2:28-29).295
9:7 Even though God promised to bless Abraham's descendants it was only one branch of his family that He singled out for special blessing. God's special elective purpose applied only to Isaac and his line of descendants.
9:8 It was not all the natural children of Abraham that God had in mind when He spoke of blessing Abraham's seed uniquely. It was only the children born supernaturally in fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham about seed that He was speaking, namely Isaac's descendants.
"What counts is grace, not race."296
9:9 God did not choose to bless Isaac after his birth only because he was Abraham's son. Rather He promised Abraham before Isaac's birth that He would provide and bless a son for the patriarch supernaturally. His unusual birth confirmed God's choice of Isaac, as the channel of special blessing, to his parents.
9:10-12 God's special election of one portion of Abraham's descendants for special blessing is further evident in His choice of Jacob rather than Esau. Someone might say that Isaac was obviously the natural son through whom blessing would come since he was the first son born to Abraham and Sarah. That was not true of Jacob. Furthermore Esau and Jacob both had the same mother as well as father, so that was not a factor as an objector might claim it was in Isaac and Ishmael's case. Jacob and Esau might have shared the firstborn privilege since they were twins. One conception produced both of them. However, God chose Jacob even though Rebekah bore Esau before Jacob. As in the case of Isaac, God made a choice between them before their birth. Their birth was also supernatural since their mother was barren. God chose Jacob before he had done any deeds or manifested a character worthy of God's special blessing. The fact that Jacob became a less admirable person in some respects than Esau shows that God's choice was not due to Jacob but to Himself.
"Surely, if Paul had assumed that faith was the basis for God's election, he would have pointed this out when he raised the question in v. 14 about the fairness of God's election. All he would have needed to say at that point was of course God is not unjust in choosing Jacob and rejecting Esau, for his choosing took into account the faith of one and the unbelief of the other.'"297
9:13 By quoting Malachi 1:2-3 Paul raised his discussion from the level of personal election to national election. Malachi was speaking of nations, as the context of this Malachi quotation shows. Paul's point was that God does not wait until He sees how individuals or nations develop and what choices they make before He elects them. God chose Jacob and the nation of Israel for reasons that lay within Himself, not because they merited election (cf. Deut 7:6-8). This is a powerful refutation of the idea that election results from prior knowledge, that God chooses a person for salvation having foreseen that he or she will believe the gospel.
"The connection of this quotation with v. 12 suggests that God's love is the same as his election: God chose Jacob to inherit the blessings promised first to Abraham. . . . If God's love of Jacob consists in his choosing Jacob to be the seed' who would inherit the blessings promised to Abraham, then God's hatred of Esau is best understood to refer to God's decision not to bestow this privilege on Esau. It might best be translated reject.' "Love' and hate' are not here, then, emotions that God feels but actions that he carries out."298
"As to Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,' a woman once said to Mr. Spurgeon, I cannot understand why God should say that He hated Esau.' That,' Spurgeon replied, is not my difficulty, madam. My trouble is to understand how God could love Jacob!"299
"The strong contrast is a Semitic idiom that heightens the comparison by stating it in absolute terms."300
In verses 6-13 Paul established that Israel was the object of God's choice for special blessing because of His own gracious will. He did not choose Israel because of the Israelites' natural descent from Abraham or because of their superior qualities.
