For as ye Believing Gentiles; in times past Before Christ was preached to you; have not believed God Did not believe in the living and true God: or rather, as the words ποτε ηπειθησατε τω θεω signify, were once disobedient to God, and were buried in ignorance and superstition; but now have obtained mercy Namely, to be converted and pardoned; through their unbelief τη τουτων απειθεια, through, or on occasion of, their disobedience. The apostle does not mean that the Gentiles would not have been admitted into the covenant and church of God, by having the gospel preached to them, if the whole Jewish nation had embraced the gospel, the title of the Gentiles to all the blessings of the covenant with Abraham being established by the covenant itself. But his meaning is, as is explained in the note on Romans 11:11. Even so have these
As if he had said, As you obtained mercy after a long time of disobedience, so shall the Jews, who now, since the preaching of the gospel, have not believed, ηπειθησαν, have disobeyed; that through your mercy The mercy shown to you in the conversion of so many of you, being provoked to emulation, Romans 11:11; they also may obtain mercy May be brought to believe in Christ, and so partake of mercy. “The disobedience of the Jews consisted in their rejecting the gospel, notwithstanding it was preached to them, as the fulfilment of the prophecies contained in their own sacred records. And by obtaining mercy, is meant the being admitted into the covenant and church of God, which is called mercy, because it proceeded entirely from the mercy of God, Romans 9:15.” For God hath concluded them all in unbelief Suffered the main body both of the Jews and Gentiles, successively, for some time, to continue under the power of their unbelief, or disobedience rather, that, in his own time, he might fulfil the great counsel of his goodness, in showing undeserved mercy both to Jews and Gentiles. See John 12:32. First, God suffered the Gentiles, in the early ages of the world, to revolt from him, and took the family of Abraham, as a peculiar seed, to himself: afterward he permitted them to fall through unbelief, disobedience, idolatry, and, at last, the rejection of their own Messiah, and took the believing Gentiles for his people. And he did even this to provoke the Jews to emulation, and so bring them also, in the end, to faith in, and obedience to, the gospel. This was truly a mystery in the divine conduct, which the apostle adores with such holy astonishment.