Romans 9: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul says he carries deep sorrow for his fellow Israelites and lists what belongs to them, then argues that God's word has not failed, because not everyone descended from Israel counts as Israel. Using Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Moses, and Pharaoh, he says God's choice rests on his own call and mercy rather than on works, and he answers the charge that this makes God unjust with the picture of a potter and his clay. He quotes Hosea and Isaiah about people called who were not God's people and about a remnant of Israel being saved. He closes by saying Gentiles who were not pursuing righteousness obtained the righteousness that comes by faith, while Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, stumbled over the stone laid in Zion.

Claim by Claim

1. 9:1
   • Paul says the truth in Christ.
   • Paul says he does not lie.
   • Paul's conscience also bears him witness in the Holy Spirit.
2. 9:2
   • Paul has great heaviness in his heart.
   • Paul has continual sorrow in his heart.
3. 9:3
   • Paul could wish that he himself were accursed and cut off from Christ.
   • Paul would wish this for the sake of his brothers.
   • Paul's brothers are his kinsmen according to the flesh.
4. 9:4
   • Paul's kinsmen are Israelites.
   • The adoption as sons belongs to them.
   • The glory belongs to them.
   • The covenants belong to them.
   • The giving of the law belongs to them.
   • The service of God belongs to them.
   • The promises belong to them.
5. 9:5
   • The fathers belong to them.
   • Christ came from them as concerning the flesh.
   • He is over all.
   • He is God blessed forever.
   • Amen.
6. 9:6
   • It is not as though the word of God has failed.
   • Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
7. 9:7
   • Being the seed of Abraham does not make them all children.
   • It was said: in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
8. 9:8
   • The children of the flesh are not the children of God.
   • The children of the promise are counted as the seed.
9. 9:9
   • The word of promise is this: at this time I will come.
   • The promise says Sarah shall have a son.
10. 9:10
    • Rebecca also conceived by one man.
    • That one man was Isaac, our father.
11. 9:11
    • The children were not yet born.
    • The children had done nothing good or evil.
    • This was so that the purpose of God according to election might stand.
12. 9:12
    • The purpose of God is not of works.
    • The purpose of God is of him that calls.
    • It was said to Rebecca: the elder shall serve the younger.
13. 9:13
    • It is written: Jacob I have loved.
    • It is written: Esau I have hated.
14. 9:14
    • Paul asks what shall we say then.
    • Paul asks whether there is unrighteousness with God.
    • Paul denies it absolutely.
15. 9:15
    • God says to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.
    • God says to Moses: I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16. 9:16
    • It is not of him that wills.
    • It is not of him that runs.
    • It is of God that shows mercy.
17. 9:17
    • The scripture says to Pharaoh: for this very purpose I have raised you up.
    • The purpose was that God might show his power in Pharaoh.
    • The purpose was that God's name might be declared throughout all the earth.
18. 9:18
    • God has mercy on whom he will.
    • God hardens whom he will.
19. 9:19
    • Paul says someone will ask him: why does God still find fault?
    • Paul says someone will ask: who has resisted his will?
20. 9:20
    • Paul addresses the objector as a man.
    • Paul asks who the objector is to reply against God.
    • Paul asks whether the thing formed will say to him that formed it: why have you made me thus?
21. 9:21
    • The potter has power over the clay.
    • The potter can make from the same lump one vessel unto honour.
    • The potter can make from the same lump another vessel unto dishonour.
22. 9:22
    • Paul asks what if God was willing to show his wrath.
    • Paul asks what if God was willing to make his power known.
    • God endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath.
    • The vessels of wrath were fitted to destruction.
23. 9:23
    • God acted that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy.
    • God had prepared the vessels of mercy beforehand unto glory.
24. 9:24
    • The vessels of mercy are us, whom God has called.
    • God called them not of the Jews only.
    • God called them also of the Gentiles.
25. 9:25
    • God says in Hosea: I will call them my people who were not my people.
    • God says: I will call her beloved who was not beloved.
26. 9:26
    • In the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there they shall be called the children of the living God.
27. 9:27
    • Isaiah cries out concerning Israel.
    • Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant shall be saved.
28. 9:28
    • The Lord will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness.
    • The Lord will make a short work upon the earth.
29. 9:29
    • Isaiah said beforehand.
    • Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a seed, we would have been as Sodom.
    • Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a seed, we would have been made like Gomorrah.
30. 9:30
    • Paul asks what shall we say then.
    • The Gentiles did not follow after righteousness.
    • The Gentiles have attained to righteousness.
    • That righteousness is the righteousness which is of faith.
31. 9:31
    • Israel followed after the law of righteousness.
    • Israel has not attained to the law of righteousness.
32. 9:32
    • Paul asks why.
    • They did not seek it by faith.
    • They sought it as it were by the works of the law.
    • They stumbled at the stumblingstone.
33. 9:33
    • It is written: behold, I lay in Zion a stumblingstone and a rock of offence.
    • Whoever believes on him shall not be ashamed.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

9:1

"Holy Ghost" is the KJV's regular phrase for the Holy Spirit. In 1611 "ghost" simply meant spirit or breath and carried none of the modern sense of an apparition of the dead.

9:2

"Heaviness" in 1611 English meant grief or sorrow, not weight or drowsiness.

9:3

"Accursed" translates the Greek word anathema, something handed over to God for destruction and so cut off from the community. "My kinsmen according to the flesh" means his blood relatives, here his fellow Jews.

9:4

Four terms here are technical. "Adoption" draws on a formal legal act, well known in the Roman world, by which an outsider was given the full standing of a son, inheritance included. "The glory" refers to the visible blaze of God's presence that Israel's scriptures describe settling on the tabernacle and the temple. A "covenant" was a binding agreement, sworn and usually sealed with a sign or a sacrifice; the ones meant are those made with Abraham, with Israel at Sinai, and with David. "The service of God" translates a word for the organized ritual worship of the temple, its sacrifices and ceremonies, not service in the sense of helping people.

9:5

"The fathers" means the founding ancestors of the nation: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The last part of the verse is genuinely disputed. Ancient Greek manuscripts carried no punctuation, so the closing words can be read as a description of Christ ("who is over all, God blessed for ever") or as a separate burst of praise to God ("God, who is over all, be blessed for ever"). Translators divide over it, and the Greek alone cannot settle it.

9:6

The man Jacob was renamed Israel, and his descendants were called Israel after him, so the word is at once a personal name, a family line and a nation. The sentence turns on that double use: being descended from Israel and counting as Israel are not automatically the same thing.

9:7

"Seed" is the KJV's word for offspring or descendants, singular in form but collective in sense. The quotation is from Genesis 21:12, spoken when Abraham's older son Ishmael was sent away: the line that carried the promise was traced through Isaac, not through every child Abraham fathered.

9:9

Quoting Genesis 18:10 and 14. "At this time will I come" means at this same season a year from now, when Sarah, long past childbearing age, would have a son.

9:10

The point is the tightening of the example. Abraham's two sons had different mothers, so one could say the difference lay there. Rebecca's twins, Esau and Jacob, had the same mother and the same father and were conceived at the same moment, which removes that explanation.

9:11

"Election" here means simply choosing or selecting. It carries none of the modern sense of an election by vote.

9:12

Quoting Genesis 25:23, spoken to Rebecca while she was still pregnant. In that culture the firstborn son normally took the leading place in the family and a double share of the inheritance, so "The elder shall serve the younger" reverses the ordinary order of things.

9:13

Quoting Malachi 1:2 and 3, written centuries after Esau and Jacob had died and speaking of the two nations descended from them, Israel and Edom. In Hebrew usage "love" and "hate" set against each other in this way commonly mean chosen and not chosen, preferred and passed over, rather than describing feelings.

9:14

"God forbid" is the KJV's stock rendering of a short Greek phrase meaning "may it never be." The word God does not occur in it. It is the strongest available way of rejecting a suggestion.

9:15

Quoting Exodus 33:19, God's reply to Moses after Moses asked to be shown God's glory.

9:16

"Him that willeth" means the person who wants or intends something. "Him that runneth" is a footrace image standing for hard human effort, the runner straining for the prize.

9:17

Quoting Exodus 9:16, addressed to Pharaoh during the plagues in Egypt. "Raised thee up" is ambiguous in the Hebrew and in the Greek alike: it has been understood as brought you onto the stage of history, as kept you standing when you might have been destroyed, and as lifted you to power.

9:18

"Hardeneth" picks up the repeated language of the Exodus story, where Pharaoh's heart is said to be hard, meaning stubborn and unyielding. In that story the hardening is sometimes attributed to Pharaoh himself and sometimes to God, and Paul is quoting that language as it stands.

9:19

"Find fault" means blame or hold responsible. "His will" here means his settled purpose or decision, not a passing wish.

9:20

"Repliest against" means answers back or contradicts. The picture of the clay questioning the potter who shapes it is taken from Isaiah 29:16 and 45:9.

9:21

"Power" here means right or authority, not physical force. A pottery workshop turned out both fine ware for the table and display and rough ware for ordinary or dirty jobs, all from one batch of clay. "Honour" and "dishonour" describe the status of the use a pot is put to, not the moral worth of the pot.

9:22

"Longsuffering" is the KJV's word for patience held over a long stretch of time. "Wrath" here means settled judicial anger against wrong, not a loss of temper. The word translated "fitted" is genuinely ambiguous in Greek: the same form can mean made ready by someone else or having made themselves ready, and translators divide over which is meant.

9:23

"Afore prepared" means prepared beforehand, in advance.

9:24

"Gentiles" is the standard term for everyone who is not Jewish, that is, all the other nations of the world.

9:25

"Osee" is the KJV's spelling of Hosea, following the Greek form of the name. The quotation is from Hosea 2:23. Hosea had been told to give his children names that served as living signs to Israel: a daughter called Lo-ruhamah, "not pitied" or "not loved," and a son called Lo-ammi, "not my people." The promise quoted here cancels both names.

9:26

Quoting Hosea 1:10. "The living God" was the standard way of distinguishing God from carved idols, which could neither move nor speak.

9:27

"Esaias" is the KJV's spelling of Isaiah, taken from the Greek form of the name. A "remnant" is what is left over after most of something has been destroyed; in the prophets it is the technical word for the handful of survivors left after a national catastrophe. The quotation is from Isaiah 10:22 and 23.

9:28

The 1611 phrasing is obscure now. "Cut it short" and "a short work" do not refer to shortening a text; they mean that God will settle the matter decisively and without delay.

9:29

Quoting Isaiah 1:9. "Sabaoth" is not a form of "Sabbath." It is a Hebrew word left untranslated, meaning armies or hosts, so the title means the Lord who commands the armies of heaven. "Sodoma" and "Gomorrha" are the Greek spellings of Sodom and Gomorrah, the two cities destroyed in Genesis 19; the force of the comparison is that they were wiped out with nobody left. "A seed" here means a few surviving descendants to carry the line on.

9:30

"Followed after" means pursued or chased. "Righteousness" translates a word that covers both being in the right morally and being declared in the right, acquitted, as in a courtroom verdict. Paul uses both senses at once, which is why English translations vary between "righteousness" and "being right with God."

9:31

"The law of righteousness" keeps the compressed word order of the Greek. The phrase means a law that would produce or deliver righteousness, that is, the law approached as the route to standing in the right with God.

9:32

"The works of the law" means the doing of what the law requires, the whole practice of keeping its commands. "Stumblingstone" is a stone left in the road that a walker trips over.

9:33

"Sion" is the KJV's Greek-based spelling of Zion, the hill in Jerusalem and, by extension, the city itself. The quotation combines two lines from Isaiah, 28:16 and 8:14. "Rock of offence" has nothing to do with insulting anyone: "offence" here renders a word for a trap or a trip hazard, the thing that makes a person fall. "Shall not be ashamed" means will not be publicly disgraced or left humiliated, as someone is who has trusted in something that fails.