Who are Israelites The seed of Jacob, that eminent patriarch, who, as a prince, had power with God and prevailed. The apostle, with great address, enumerates these privileges of the Jews, both that he might show how honourably he thought of them, and that he might awaken their solicitude, not to sacrifice that divine favour, by which they had been so eminently and so long distinguished. To whom pertaineth the adoption That is whom God hath taken into a special covenant with himself, whereby he stands engaged ever to act the part of a God and Father to them, and to own them for his children. It is true, this adoption of the Jews was but a shadow of the heavenly adoption of believers in Christ; yet was it, simply considered, a prerogative of a very sacred import. And the glory The visible symbol of the divine presence which rested above the ark, was called the glory, 1 Samuel 4:21, and the glory of the Lord. Hence the introduction of the ark into the temple, is called the entrance of the King of glory, Psalms 24:7; and upon the carrying away of the ark by the Philistines, the wife of Phineas, now at the point of death, said, The glory is departed from Israel. But God himself was the glory of his people Israel, and by many visible testimonies of his presence with them, shed a glory upon them, and caused their brightness to shine throughout the world. So Isaiah, The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. These two last-mentioned particulars are relative to each other: Israel is the firstborn son of God, and the God of glory is his God. And the covenants That with Abraham, Genesis 15:8; Genesis 17:2; Genesis 17:7; and that with the Jewish nation by the ministry of Moses, Exodus 24:7-8; Exodus 34:27; including the seals of these covenants, namely, circumcision, the seal of the former, Genesis 17:10; and the sprinkling of blood the seal of the latter, Exodus 24:8. He says covenants, in the plural, also, because God's covenant with his people was often and variously repeated. And the giving of the law The glorious promulgation of the moral law by God himself, by the mediation of his angels upon mount Horeb; not excluding the more private delivery of the various judicial and political laws appointed for the government of that commonwealth. The covenant, in the first dispensation of it, was given long before the law. And the worship of God The way of worshipping God according to his will, prescribed in the ceremonial law for the people, till Christ should come in the flesh: and the promises Of the Messiah, and of spiritual and eternal blessings by him.
By enumerating these privileges of the Jews, the apostle, as above observed, not only meant to show them that he respected them on account of these advantages, but to make them sensible of the loss they were about to sustain by God's casting them off. “They were to be excluded from the better privileges of the gospel church, of which their ancient privileges were but the types. For their relation to God as his people, signified by the name Israelites, prefigured the more honourable relation which believers, the true Israel, stand in to God. Their adoption as the sons of God, and the privileges they were entitled to thereby, were types of believers being made partakers of the divine nature by the renewing of the Holy Ghost, and of their title to the inheritance of heaven. The residence of the glory, first in the tabernacle and then in the temple, was a figure of the residence of God, by his Spirit, in the Christian Church, his temple on earth, and of his eternal residence in that church, brought to its perfect form in heaven. The covenant with Abraham was the new, or gospel covenant, the blessings of which were typified by the temporal blessings promised to him and to his natural seed: and the covenant of Sinai, whereby the Israelites, as the worshippers of the true God, were separated from the idolatrous nations, was an emblem of the final separation of the righteous from the wicked for ever. In the giving of the law, and the formation of the Israelites into a nation, or community, the formation of the city of the living God, and of the general assembly and church of the firstborn, was represented. Lastly, the heavenly country, the habitation of the righteous, was typified by Canaan, a country given to the Israelites by God's promise.” Macknight.