The first pericope gives hope for the future by showing that even now some Jews believe.
11:1 The opening question carries on the rhetorical style of 10:18 and 19. God has not rejected the Israelites because they have, on the whole, rejected Him. The proof of this is that Paul himself was a member of the believing remnant, a Christian Jew. Paul even came from the small and sometimes despised tribe of Benjamin (cf. Judg. 19-21) yet God had saved him.
11:2 The faith of Paul and other believing Jews, though few, proves that God has not completely rejected the people whom He had elected (foreknew, cf. 8:29).
In Elijah's day Israel's departure from God was widespread.
11:3-4 Elijah concluded that he was the only Israelite who had remained faithful to the Lord. God assured him that He had preserved other Israelites who constituted a believing remnant within the unfaithful nation.
"The very fact of God's choice excludes the possibility of his desertion of his own."328
11:5 Likewise in Paul's day and today there are believing Jews who constitute a remnant among the physical descendants of Jacob. By referring to God's gracious choice Paul focused on the real reason for the presence of a remnant.
11:6 The apostle elaborated the final thought of verse 5 here. It is the grace of God, not the works of the remnant that is the real cause of their condition. Believing Jews are not superior, just greatly blessed.
11:7 Verses 7-10 summarize the argument (v. 7) with supporting Old Testament quotations (vv. 8-10). Verse 7 ties back to 10:3.
The Greek word translated "hardened"(eporothesan) is not the same one Paul used in 9:18 (sklerunei). The one he used in 9:18 simply pictures a hardening. The one he used here describes hardening with the result that the hardness renders the person more difficult to get through to from then on. It is as though a callus built up over the Israelites that made them less sensitive to God.329
". . . God's hardening permanently binds people in the sin that they have chosen for themselves."330
"This postponement in Israelite history is not so much an interruption of redemption as an extensionof predicted hardening (Rom. 11:7-10). The Exile, which was a punishment for national disobedience, has therefore been prolonged during the present age until the appointed time for Israel's national (and spiritual) restoration (Acts 1:7; 3:21; Rom. 11:25-27)."331
11:8 The quotation in this verse is a combination of Deuteronomy 29:4 and Isaiah 29:10. Paul used these passages to prove the following point. The Israelites did not follow God faithfully even though they saw God's miraculous deliverance from Egypt, experienced His preservation in the wilderness, and heard the warnings of the prophets. God gave them a spirit of stupor because they failed to respond to the numerous blessings that He bestowed on them.332A similar example would be a person losing his appetite for steak because he eats steak every day. This was apparently an instance of God giving them over to the natural consequences of their actions (1:24, 26, 28).
11:9-10 The Jews regarded Psalm 69 as Messianic in Paul's day (cf. John 15:25). The quotation from this psalm (vv. 22-23) records David's desire. He wished that his enemies' table (i.e., blessings) would become something that they would stumble over. The enemies in view were the Lord's enemies as well as the king's since he was the Lord's anointed. This is really what had happened to the Israelites who had set themselves against God by rejecting His Son. Inability to see clearly and bondage to the Law had resulted (cf. Act. 15:10). The Greek phrase dia pantosusually means "continually."It probably means that here rather than "forever."333Paul would explain that Israel's obstinacy and bondage would not last indefinitely (v. 26). Paul explained that God had brought upon the Jews what David had prayed would happen to his persecutors.
Even though as a whole Israel had reaped the fruit of her own stubborn rebellion against God, God had called a remnant within the nation for salvation. The presence of this remnant shows that God has not cast off His chosen people completely or been unfaithful to His promises to them.
