811 Make a song to God our strength: make a glad cry to the God of Jacob. 2 Take up the melody, playing on an instrument of music, even on corded instruments. 3 Let the horn be sounded in the time of the new moon, at the full moon, on our holy feast-day: 4 For this is a rule for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob. 5 He gave it to Joseph as a witness, when he went out over the land of Egypt; then the words of a strange tongue were sounding in my ears. 6 I took the weight from his back; his hands were made free from the baskets. 7 You gave a cry in your trouble, and I made you free; I gave you an answer in the secret place of the thunder; I put you to the test at the waters of Meribah. (Selah.)
8 Give ear, O my people, and I will give you my word, O Israel, if you will only do as I say! 9 There is to be no strange god among you; you are not to give worship to any other god. 10 I am the Lord your God, who took you up from the land of Egypt: let your mouth be open wide, so that I may give you food. 11 But my people did not give ear to my voice; Israel would have nothing to do with me. 12 So I gave them up to the desires of their hearts; that they might go after their evil purposes. 13 If only my people would give ear to me, walking in my ways! 14 I would quickly overcome their haters: my hand would be turned against those who make war on them. 15 The haters of the Lord would be broken, and their destruction would be eternal. 16 I would give them the best grain for food; you would be full of honey from the rock.
821 God is in the meeting-place of God; he is judging among the gods. 2 How long will you go on judging falsely, having respect for the persons of evil-doers? (Selah.) 3 Give ear to the cause of the poor and the children without fathers; let those who are troubled and in need have their rights. 4 Be the saviour of the poor and those who have nothing: take them out of the hand of the evil-doers. 5 They have no knowledge or sense; they go about in the dark: all the bases of the earth are moved.
6 I said, You are gods; all of you are the sons of the Most High: 7 But you will come to death like men, falling like one of the rulers of the earth. 8 Up! O God, come as judge of the earth; for all the nations are your heritage.
831 O God, do not keep quiet: let your lips be open and take no rest, O God. 2 For see! those who make war on you are out of control; your haters are lifting up their heads. 3 They have made wise designs against your people, talking together against those whom you keep in a secret place. 4 They have said, Come, let us put an end to them as a nation; so that the name of Israel may go out of man's memory. 5 For they have all come to an agreement; they are all joined together against you: 6 The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites; Moab and the Hagarites; 7 Gebal and Ammon and Amalek; the Philistines and the people of Tyre; 8 Assur is joined with them; they have become the support of the children of Lot. (Selah.)
9 Do to them what you did to the Midianites; what you did to Sisera and Jabin, at the stream of Kishon: 10 Who came to destruction at En-dor; their bodies became dust and waste. 11 Make their chiefs like Oreb and Zeeb; and all their rulers like Zebah and Zalmunna: 12 Who have said, Let us take for our heritage the resting-place of God. 13 O my God, make them like the rolling dust; like dry stems before the wind. 14 As fire burning a wood, and as a flame causing fire on the mountains, 15 So go after them with your strong wind, and let them be full of fear because of your storm. 16 Let their faces be full of shame; so that they may give honour to your name, O Lord. 17 Let them be overcome and troubled for ever; let them be put to shame and come to destruction; 18 So that men may see that you only, whose name is Yahweh, are Most High over all the earth.
19 You will say, Branches were broken off so that I might be put in. 20 Truly, because they had no faith they were broken off, and you have your place by reason of your faith. Do not be lifted up in pride, but have fear; 21 For, if God did not have mercy on the natural branches, he will not have mercy on you. 22 See then that God is good but his rules are fixed: to those who were put away he was hard, but to you he has been good, on the condition that you keep in his mercy; if not, you will be cut off as they were. 23 And they, if they do not go on without faith, will be united to the tree again, because God is able to put them in again. 24 For if you were cut out of a field olive-tree, and against the natural use were united to a good olive-tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be united again with the olive-tree which was theirs?
25 For it is my desire, brothers, that this secret may be clear to you, so that you may not have pride in your knowledge, that Israel has been made hard in part, till all the Gentiles have come in; 26 And so all Israel will get salvation: as it is said in the holy Writings, There will come out of Zion the One who makes free; by him wrongdoing will be taken away from Jacob: 27 And this is my agreement with them, when I will take away their sins. 28 As far as the good news is in question, they are cut off from God on account of you, but as far as the selection is in question, they are loved on account of the fathers. 29 Because God's selection and his mercies may not be changed. 30 For as you, in time past, were not under the rule of God, but now have got mercy through their turning away, 31 So in the same way these have gone against the orders of God, so that by the mercy given to you they may now get mercy. 32 For God has let them all go against his orders, so that he might have mercy on them all.
33 O how deep is the wealth of the wisdom and knowledge of God! no one is able to make discovery of his decisions, and his ways may not be searched out. 34 Who has knowledge of the mind of the Lord? or who has taken part in his purposes? 35 Or who has first given to him, and it will be given back to him again? 36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever. So be it.
(Read Romans 11:11-21)
The gospel is the greatest riches of every place where it is. As therefore the righteous rejection of the unbelieving Jews, was the occasion of so large a multitude of the Gentiles being reconciled to God, and at peace with him; the future receiving of the Jews into the church would be such a change, as would resemble a general resurrection of the dead in sin to a life of righteousness. Abraham was as the root of the church. The Jews continued branches of this tree till, as a nation, they rejected the Messiah; after that, their relation to Abraham and to God was, as it were, cut off. The Gentiles were grafted into this tree in their room; being admitted into the church of God. Multitudes were made heirs of Abraham's faith, holiness and blessedness. It is the natural state of every one of us, to be wild by nature. Conversion is as the grafting in of wild branches into the good olive. The wild olive was often ingrafted into the fruitful one when it began to decay, and this not only brought forth fruit, but caused the decaying olive to revive and flourish. The Gentiles, of free grace, had been grafted in to share advantages. They ought therefore to beware of self-confidence, and every kind of pride or ambition; lest, having only a dead faith, and an empty profession, they should turn from God, and forfeit their privileges. If we stand at all, it is by faith; we are guilty and helpless in ourselves, and are to be humble, watchful, afraid of self-deception, or of being overcome by temptation. Not only are we at first justified by faith, but kept to the end in that justified state by faith only; yet, by a faith which is not alone, but which worketh by love to God and man.
(Read Romans 11:22-32)
Of all judgments, spiritual judgments are the sorest; of these the apostle is here speaking. The restoration of the Jews is, in the course of things, far less improbable than the call of the Gentiles to be the children of Abraham; and though others now possess these privileges, it will not hinder their being admitted again. By rejecting the gospel, and by their indignation at its being preached to the Gentiles, the Jews were become enemies to God; yet they are still to be favoured for the sake of their pious fathers. Though at present they are enemies to the gospel, for their hatred to the Gentiles; yet, when God's time is come, that will no longer exist, and God's love to their fathers will be remembered. True grace seeks not to confine God's favour. Those who find mercy themselves, should endeavour that through their mercy others also may obtain mercy. Not that the Jews will be restored to have their priesthood, and temple, and ceremonies again; an end is put to all these; but they are to be brought to believe in Christ, the true become one sheep-fold with the Gentiles, under Christ the Great Shepherd. The captivities of Israel, their dispersion, and their being shut out from the church, are emblems of the believer's corrections for doing wrong; and the continued care of the Lord towards that people, and the final mercy and blessed restoration intended for them, show the patience and love of God.
(Read Romans 11:33-36)
The apostle Paul knew the mysteries of the kingdom of God as well as ever any man; yet he confesses himself at a loss; and despairing to find the bottom, he humbly sits down at the brink, and adores the depth. Those who know most in this imperfect state, feel their own weakness most. There is not only depth in the Divine counsels, but riches; abundance of that which is precious and valuable. The Divine counsels are complete; they have not only depth and height, but breadth and length, Ephesians 3:18, and that passing knowledge. There is that vast distance and disproportion between God and man, between the Creator and the creature, which for ever shuts us from knowledge of his ways. What man shall teach God how to govern the world? The apostle adores the sovereignty of the Divine counsels. All things in heaven and earth, especially those which relate to our salvation, that belong to our peace, are all of him by way of creation, through him by way of providence, that they may be to him in their end. Of God, as the Spring and Fountain of all; through Christ, to God, as the end. These include all God's relations to his creatures; if all are of Him, and through Him, all should be to Him, and for Him. Whatever begins, let God's glory be the end: especially let us adore him when we talk of the Divine counsels and actings. The saints in heaven never dispute, but always praise.
