For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
For ('But') if the first-fruit be holy, the lump is also [holy]; and if the roof be holy, so [are] the branches. The Israelites were required to offer to God the first-fruits of the earth-both in their raw state, in a sheaf of newly reaped grain (Leviticus 23:10-11), and in their prepared state, made into cakes of dough (Numbers 15:19-21), by which the whole produce for that season was regarded as hallowed. It is probably the latter of these offerings that is here intended, as to it the word "lump" best applies; and the argument of the apostle is, that as the separation unto God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, from the rest of mankind, to be the parent stem of their race, was as real an offering of first-fruits as that which hallowed the produce of the earth, so, in the divine estimation, it was as real a separation of the mass or "lump" of that nation in all time to God. The figure of the "root" and its "branches" is of like import-the consecration of the one of them extending to the figure of the "root" and its "branches" is of like import-the consecration of the one of them extending to the other.