Romans 9:5 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Whose are the fathers, &c.— See Exodus 3:6-16. Acts 7:32. How ingenious soever the conjecture of Dr. Taylor may be thought, by which he would read Ων ο Θεος ο επι παντων, to answer to ων οι πατερες, whose are the Fathers, and whose is the God over all, it would doubtless be extremely dangerous to follow this, or any other reading of the like kind, unsupported by any critical authority of manuscripts or ancient quotations; nor does there appear any authority whatever for rendering the last clause, God be blessed for ever. We must therefore consider this text as a proof of Christ's proper divinity, which the opposers of that doctrine have never been able to answer. Proclus (de Fide, p. 53.) esteemed the verse before us so clear a proof of the divinity of Christ, that he says, "It shuts and walls up every avenue of calumny or reproach;" and Theophylact considers it as a passage which must put Arius to shame, as St. Paul expressly declares Christ to be God over all. This will appear still more plainly, if we recollect that it was a Jewish custom, whenever the priest mentioned the name of God in the sanctuary, for the people to say, "Blessed be the name and glory of his kingdom for ever and ever." The words used chap. Romans 1:25 are an abridgment of this form. Similar to it is the doxology at the end of the Lord's prayer, and chap. Romans 11:36 of this Epistle. In all these and in other places, the giving glory being an acknowledgment of the eternal God, and in several of them being applied peculiarly to Christ, is a convincing proof of his Godhead. See Hammond, Doddridge, and Locke.