Romans 11

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:

• In Greek:
  • Codex Vaticanus (AD 325–350)
  • Codex Sinaiticus (330–360)
  • Codex Alexandrinus (400–440)
  • Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (c. 450; extant verses 1–14)
• in Gothic language
  • Codex Carolinus (6th/7th century; extant verses 33–36)
• in Latin
  • Codex Carolinus (6th/7th century; extant verses 33–36)

Old Testament references

• Romans 11:1–2 references Psalm 94:14^[7]
• Romans 11:3 references 1 Kings 19:10,14^[8]
• Romans 11:4 references 1 Kings 19:18^[8]
• Romans 11:8 references Deuteronomy 29:4 and Isaiah 29:10^[8] and Isaiah 6:9^[8]
• Romans 11:9–10 references Psalm 69:22, 23^[7][8]
• Romans 11:27 references Isaiah 59:20, 21
• Romans 11:34 references Isaiah 40:13,^[8] Wisdom 9:13^[8] and Jeremiah 23:18
• Romans 11:35 references Job 41:11

New Testament references

• Romans 11:1 references Philippians 3:5
• Romans 11:34 references 1 Corinthians 2:16^[8]

Verse 1

I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

Paul opens this part of his letter with another rhetorical question: "Has God cast away His people?"^[a][9] He also uses the phrase "Certainly not!" or *God forbid" (μη γενοιτο, mē genoito) regularly in this letter.^[b] On this occasion, he puts himself forward as an example to evidence his argument, "to show that God has not rejected His people en masse. An Israelite of pure descent, he is, nevertheless a true believer".^[11] Later in the chapter (Romans 11:13),^[12] Paul also refers to himself as the "apostle of the gentiles" (εθνων αποστολος, ethnōn apostolos).

Verse 25–27

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins."

Historian Paula Fredriksen reads these verses as Paul's attempt to explain why, by the middle of the first century AD, gentiles appeared to outnumber Jews in the Christ-following movement. She argues that Paul offered a reinterpretation of an apocalyptic prophecy: God has deliberately made most of Israel temporarily insensible to the gospel, so that apostles like Paul would have more time to reach gentiles across the nations. Only after the full complement of nations had been gathered in would God restore Israel's receptivity. For Paul, she contends, this was not a rejection of Jews, but a temporary postponement; God's promises to Israel remained irrevocable.^[14] She then traces how centuries later, Augustine of Hippo reinterpreted this same passage, arguing that "all Israel" referred not to actual Jews but to "spiritual Israel," meaning the church.^[14]