Romans 9:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What can be said about this? That the son is unworthy? But the other is also unworthy, indeed much more so. Therefore either both should have been punished together or both honored together.

Something like this, I say, happened with the Gentiles and the Jews, and in a way still more strange. That all were unworthy, the Apostle declared above when he said: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23).

But the extraordinary thing is that, while all were unworthy, the Gentiles alone were saved.

After this one may raise another question. If God did not intend to fulfill the promises given to the Jews, why did He give them? Only men, not knowing the future and often being deceived, promise gifts to those unworthy to receive them.

But He Who foresees present and future, and Who clearly knew that the Jews would become unworthy of the promises and therefore would receive nothing of what was said, why did He give the promises?

How, then, did Paul resolve this? He showed who the Israel is to whom God gave the promises. Once this was shown, it was also proved that all the promises had been fulfilled.

Pointing to this, he said: "For not all who are of Israel are Israel" (Rom 9:6). The Apostle used the name Israel, not Jacob, because this name was a sign of his virtue, righteousness, the gift received from above, and the fact that Jacob saw God.

But you will say: all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. If all sinned, why were some saved and others lost? Because not all wished to come, although by God's will all were saved, since all were called.

For the moment, however, the Apostle does not say this. He resolves the question more broadly, deriving a new question from other examples, just as earlier he resolved the greatest difficulty by another difficulty.

When the question was how, after Christ's justification, all the others became participants in this righteousness, he brought Adam as an example and said: "For if by the trespass of one death reigned... much more those who receive the abundance of grace shall reign in life" (Rom 5:17).

He does not resolve the question about Adam. But by Adam's example he resolves his own question and proves that there is greater reason to allow that He Who died for them should have over them whatever authority He wills.

To most people it seems not wholly reasonable that all should suffer punishment for one man's sin. Yet it is far more reasonable, and more fitting to God, that all should be justified because of one man's service.

Still, the Apostle did not resolve the first difficulty. The more obscure it remained, the more strongly the Jew's mouth was stopped. The perplexity concerning the latter difficulty passed over to the first, and the latter became clearer from it.

So here also Paul resolves the question by means of new difficulties, because he was disputing with Jews. Therefore he does not fully resolve the examples presented by him. As one disputing with Jews, he was not obliged to do so.

Nevertheless, by these examples he explains everything he needed. Why are you amazed, he says, that some of the Jews were saved and others were not? Everyone knows that the same thing happened in ancient times with the patriarchs.

Why is Isaac alone called Abraham's seed, though Abraham was the father of Ishmael and many others? Was it not because Ishmael's mother was a slave? But what relation does that have to the son?

Still, I will not argue. Let Ishmael be excluded because of his mother. But what shall we say about Keturah's children? Were they not free, and were they not born of a free woman? Why, then, were they not counted worthy of the advantages given to Isaac?

And why do I speak of them? Rebecca was Isaac's only wife. She bore two sons, both from Isaac. Yet those born of the same father and the same mother, who caused her the same birth pangs, being of one blood, from one womb, and, moreover, twins, received unequal rights.

Here you can no longer refer to the mother's slavery, as in regard to Ishmael. Nor can you say that they were not born from one womb, as in regard to the children of Keturah and Sarah. Here the birth pangs were felt at the same hour.

Therefore Paul, as though considering the final example clearer, says that this happened not only with Isaac, "but also when Rebecca had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac."

Here it was necessary to add, let us say, “will be brought in for proof and confirmation,” or “will be a type, ύποτύπωσις, and representation, είκονισμός, of the calling and of grace according to election and foreknowledge.”

For if something of this kind were added, his discourse would at last appear to be properly complete. Yet, I do not know why, he omitted this and at once passed on to what was said and what happened at the birth from Isaac.

Nor is it because Esau was rejected that all his offspring deserve condemnation. We see that apostates were born in Jacob's family, and believers were born from Esau. All Jews, believing and unbelieving, come from Jacob. That good and believing sons come from Esau is proved by Job. He is from the sons of Esau, in the fifth generation from Abraham, and therefore his descendant.

It is even despite the fact that “from them, according to the flesh, is Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen”; Rom 9:5.

Then the Apostle makes this observation: “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are of Israel are Israel; nor are all Abraham’s children because they are his seed.”

That is, “it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as the seed,” the true seed of Abraham; Rom 9:6-8.

By the power of the promise only one son of Sarah was born; Rom 9:9. Therefore Abraham’s other children, for example those by Hagar and Keturah, were only his children according to the flesh. Concerning them God promised absolutely nothing.

From this it follows, although the Apostle does not state it literally, that the Jews, though descended from Abraham, still may not be counted in God’s judgment as true descendants of Abraham, the forefather of the Jews.

The Apostle explains this vividly by the example of Rebecca’s sons. Although both were born from her by one father, Isaac, and were even conceived at the same time; Rom 9:10.

God chose only one of them, and indeed the younger, even before their birth. The Apostle adds: “that God’s purpose according to election might stand, not from works, but from Him who calls” to one destiny or another.

So also it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated”; Rom 9:11-13; cf. Mal 1:2.

Then, as though imbued with the strict and sharp spirit of Old Testament speech, he expresses the doctrine of predestination itself in a strict and sharp form: whom God wills, He has mercy on, and whom He wills, He hardens.

But from the examples cited we see that God does not love those who are unworthy of this, but those who were righteous. Likewise, God did not refrain from showing His special love to those who were meek and obedient, but to those who were disobedient and even cruel, as, for example, Pharaoh.

Pharaoh's cruelty was turned into punishment for him, in fulfillment of Scripture's word: "By the things wherein a man sins, by these he is tormented."

The chief force of the Apostle's thought is that both the calling to salvation and rejection depend on God, Who calls and has mercy, or rejects and punishes, and Who says: "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy," and so forth.

According to His Grace Bishop Theophan, "St. Paul introduced this saying so that those perplexed over why not all the Jews entered into possession of the blessings of the promised Deliverer would frame this perplexity not according to some external details that catch the eye, but from the idea of God as all-righteous and all-good."

Yet together with this, both in the examples and in the whole course of the discourse, another important thought is suggested: God has mercy on the worthy and rejects or punishes the unworthy. This second thought is not set forth as strongly as the first.

The holy fathers and other interpreters attend equally to both thoughts, so that no one may exaggerate the first and diminish the second.

St. John Chrysostom, for example, says: "The chief intention of blessed Paul in all that he said was to teach that God alone knows the worthy. To Him Who knows the secrets of the heart, it is perfectly known who is worthy of crowns and who of punishment and torment.

He does not wait for the completion of the deed in order to recognize one as worthy and another as not. I bring the example of those born from one father and mother. Both were born from Rebecca and Isaac, the lawful son of Abraham, who was approved by God Himself and became the father of those who would inherit the promises.

If he is father, then those who came from him should also be fathers. But this was not so, for Esau was excluded from this rank. From this we see that Abraham's children are called his own children not only by birth, but because they are worthy of the virtues of their parent.

If they were called such by birth alone, Esau and Jacob would have had to enjoy equal rights. On the contrary, not only such a birth was required, but also morals. The Apostle, however, does not say that one was good and the other wicked, and therefore the first was preferred.

He presents divine foreknowledge as the only cause, against which only one utterly senseless would dare argue. Do not demand an accounting from the Creator. Do not ask: why is one crowned and another punished? He knows how to observe justice in everything.

Therefore He said: 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,' that is, rejected. You know from the outcome that this is just, but God knew it before the fulfillment."

Explaining the meaning of the following words, Oecumenius writes: "If there is no unrighteousness with God, and yet, when all worshiped the calf, God says. 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,' then surely it is because He secretly entered the hearts of men with His eyes and saw who was worthy of mercy and who was unworthy" (Isa 32).

In relation to the present Jews also, God does not act unrighteously. Even now, those who are worthy are saved because they believe. Those who are unworthy perish because they do not believe.

"If Moses did not know who were worthy and who unworthy of punishment for taking part in the worship of the calf, are we to know the causes of what takes place?"

Therefore, although Esau wanted to receive the promise and ran toward it, another was counted worthy. Nevertheless, "one must will and run, and apply all one's strength to the work. But at the same time one must remember that without God's will neither the one who wills nor the one who runs reaches the goal, unless God's help comes.

God has mercy on and wills the one who himself wills to be saved."

The same thing happened with the children of Rebecca, who conceived from Isaac at one time and bore twins. One of them was excluded from the inheritance, and the other was chosen as heir of the promise. Against this there was nothing more to object.

Thus in this example it is tangibly clear that spiritual promises do not depend at all on bodily descent. The Apostle's speech in this text is itself abbreviated and incomplete. Anyone may complete it as he finds best, guided by the course of the Apostle's thought already presented.

Blessed Theodoret writes: "If you think, says the Apostle, that Isaac was preferred to Ishmael and to Abraham's children born of Keturah because of Sarah, then what will you say about Rebecca? Here there is one mother, one father, and one conception, because the children are twins.

The Apostle expressed this by the words, 'having conceived from one bed.' That is, Rebecca conceived both at one and the same time. Yet one is beloved by God, and the other is unworthy of God's care for him."

St. Chrysostom brings both the previous example and this one under a single view and draws a general conclusion in keeping with the Apostle's purpose.

"Why marvel," says the Apostle, "if among the Jews some were saved and others were not? Everyone knows that the same thing happened in ancient times with the patriarchs. Why is Isaac alone called Abraham's seed, though Abraham was the father of Ishmael and many others?

Was it because Ishmael's mother was a slave? But how does that fall on the son? Still, I will not argue. Let Ishmael be cast out because of his mother. But what shall we say of Keturah's children? Were they not free, and were they not born of a free woman?

Why, then, were they not counted worthy of the advantages given to Isaac? And why speak of Keturah's children? Rebecca was Isaac's only wife. She bore two sons, both from Isaac.

Yet those born of one father and one mother, causing her the same birth pangs, being of one blood, from one womb, and, moreover, twins, did not receive equal rights. Here one cannot appeal to the mother's slavery, as in the case of Ishmael.

Nor can one say they were not born from one womb, as with the children of Keturah and Sarah. They had one mother, who felt the birth pangs at one and the same hour.

Therefore Paul, regarding the latter example as clearer, says that this happened not only with Isaac, but also with Rebecca, and so forth."

By this simple indication the Apostle's aim had already been attained. He proved by examples from ancient history that from the beginning God excluded some from participation in the promises, despite their bodily descent from the fathers who received them.

Therefore there is no reason to marvel if even now some prove to be excluded from participation in the blessings given by the promised Redeemer and Savior.

But here, as in the first example, the Apostle does not limit himself to a mere indication. He adds explanatory thoughts, entering more and more deeply into the laws of God's providential ordering.