Who are Israelites— The Apostle with great address enumerates these privileges of the Jews, both that he might shew 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. In the word adoption he alludes to the Horeb covenant, whereby the Israelites became the peculiar people of God, and he their supreme ruler and protector. See Exodus 4:22.Deuteronomy 14:1.Jeremiah 31:9. Hosea 11:1. The glory means the Schechinah, which resided visibly among them on the mercy-seat. Hence the ark was called the glory. Compare Psalms 78:61. 1 Samuel 4:21-22.Ezekiel 10:4; Ezekiel 43:2; Ezekiel 43:27. For the covenants, sees Genesis 17:14.Exodus 34:27; Exodus 34:35. Whether the giving of the law, νομοθεσια, signifies the extraordinary giving of the law by God himself, or the exact constitution of their government, in the moral and judicial part of it, (for the next word λατρεια, the service, seems to comprehend the religious worship,) this is certain, that in either of these senses it was the peculiar privilege of the Jews, and what no other nation could pretend to. See Locke, and Doddridge.
Related Commentaries of Romans 9:4
Romans 9:4
4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants,b and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;