Romans 11:7 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

What then? q. d. My discourse comes to this, or this is the sum of it. Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; i.e. the body of the Jewish nation, seeking righteousness and life by the works of the law, have not obtained it, or they have not hit the mark; they aimed at it, but they shot wide; they took a great deal of pains to little or no purpose: see Romans 9:31. The election; i.e. the elect; the abstract for the concrete: so before, circumcision for the circumcised. The rest were blinded; i.e. those who are not elected; they are left, by God's just judgment, to their own ignorance and obdurateness; as also to Satan, who doth increase it in them, 2 Corinthians 4:4. The antithesis requires that he should have said: The rest have not obtained; but he speaks this of purpose to show the cause of their not obtaining, i.e. their own blindness of mind and hardness of heart.

Romans 11:7

7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blindeda