But I say, Has not Israel known? First, Moses says, *I* will provoke you to jealousy through [them that are] not a nation through a nation without understanding I will anger you.
Paul asks whether Israel understood what God was doing. He answers by calling their own lawgiver, Moses, as the first witness against them.
Israel objected to a gospel that reached beyond them. Paul answers them from the books they treasured most:
Were Israel unaware of God's purpose to bring blessing to Gentiles? Did the free proclamation of the gospel take them by surprise? The law and the prophets had already pointed to this work of divine grace... See how the Word opens up here! The combined testimony of Moses and the prophets cut away every ground of objection the Jew had against the gospel. Their objections could not stand. Their ignorance of what was in the Hebrew Scriptures stood out in broad daylight.
The word "first" matters. Paul starts with Moses, the man Israel honoured most:
The first is Moses himself. Moses says, "I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation." How could the Jews say that this meant themselves? On the contrary, the Gentiles were the ones provoking the Jew — "with a foolish nation I will make you angry." Did they deny that they were a foolish nation? Very well then; Moses said a foolish nation would make them angry.
God answers in kind:
They had provoked God to jealousy by trusting in false gods and idols. So God would provoke them to jealousy by means of a foreign nation. He will use the people Israel despised to discipline her, and to gain such a place over her that Israel becomes jealous of that nation.
Which nation did Moses mean? Not one of Israel's old neighbours:
Paul declares that these words are the language of Moses, and that they refer to the Gentiles called while God counts Israel Lo-ammi — "not my people". Moses does not point to the Syrians or the Assyrians. He points to the call of those who were not a people, while God sets His ancient people aside for a time, to move Israel to jealousy.
The people Israel looked down on became the instrument of her rebuke:
In the days of Roman rule, Israel scorned the Gentiles for the folly of idol worship. But God had said He would use such a people to rebuke Israel. He would favour them to provoke Israel to jealousy. So Gentiles turned to God from idols, while Israel clung to her desolate state. It was bitter to her to think of Gentiles finding blessing from God apart from her authority.
God's mercy to the Gentiles was not the end of His people:
This clearly points to His mercy to the Gentiles. He is not abandoning His people. He is provoking them to jealousy, and in fact drawing out their irritation.
God's kindness to the nations carries a second purpose:
When God proclaims salvation to the Gentiles, He does not do it only to bless the Gentiles. He does it so that their blessing may stir Israel to jealousy, and Israel may turn to God again.
Paul worked toward the same end in his own ministry:
Moses speaks of the LORD making Israel jealous by letting them see Gentiles coming into blessing. Paul sought to do the same, so that they might be saved.
- Warned. Israel could not claim surprise. Moses and the prophets had already announced God's blessing for the nations.
- Matched. They stirred God's jealousy with false gods. He answers by stirring theirs with a people who were not a nation.
- Despised. "Not a nation" and "foolish nation" name the idol-worshipping Gentiles Israel scorned. God favoured those very people, and used them to rebuke her.
- Provoked. The jealousy is not a farewell but a call home. God blesses the Gentiles so that Israel will turn back to Him.
- Imitated. Paul takes God's own method as his ministry: bless the nations, make Israel jealous, and save some of them.
But Esaias is very bold, and says, I have been found by those not seeking me; I have become manifest to those not inquiring after me.
Paul has just asked whether Israel failed to hear. He answers by calling Israel's own prophets as witnesses. Here he turns to Isaiah, and first remarks on the prophet's nerve.
One writer points out that the daring lies in the grammar.
Yes, Isaiah does speak with great boldness. He speaks as the very voice of Jehovah, not about Him. He does not say, "He is sought… He is found… He said…" but rather, "I am sought… I am found… I said…" How is it, we may ask, that people who never asked after God are now seeking Him? The answer seems obvious. It must happen because God first sought them. This is exactly what has taken place in this Gospel age. Israel is set aside, and God goes out in sovereign mercy to the Gentiles, as Paul explains in Romans 11. Has the wonder of this mercy sunk into our hearts in any real measure?
The audience made boldness necessary. No Jewish hearer could claim this sentence for himself, and the words carry a second edge.
This does not satisfy the apostle, or rather the Spirit of God. He goes on to point out that Isaiah "is very bold" in a similar way. That is, there is no hiding the truth of the matter. The Jews were the last people in the world to take such ground as this. It was undeniable that the Gentiles did not seek the Lord, nor ask after Him; and the prophet says that Jehovah was found by those who did not seek Him, and showed Himself to those who did not ask after Him. Nor is there only the plain call of the Gentiles in this. Just as clearly, there is the rejection, at least for a time, of proud Israel.
These words open a chapter in Isaiah. Commentators treat Paul's use of them as the settled meaning of the prophecy, not a loose application.
The last two verses of Romans 10 leave no room for hesitation about their bearing. They give an inspired comment on our opening verses. They prove beyond controversy that the first points to the call of the Gentiles now going on. It is an enemy's work to slight the New Testament use of the passage… We might never have discovered the inspired application on our own. But once made, it commends itself to the spiritual mind, because it fits the well-known facts exactly.
Notice the man who says this, and the people he says God found.
Here we have a Jewish prophet, hemmed in by nature and by religion within a rigid exclusiveness. He tells us that God was found by those who never sought Him by sacrifice or ritual. He showed Himself to those who never asked after Him by prayer or any other means.
Paul himself was proof of it. His conversion showed the truth before his own pen recorded it.
But when I come to Saul I find the other side, showing this new departure from the old ways; He illustrates the word he himself later wrote: "I have been found by those who did not seek me" (Rom. 10).
The same boldness belongs to anyone who preaches free grace today.
Was Paul then more bold than Isaiah? Long before, Isaiah had prophesied, "I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me." To criticise the gospel preacher is to criticise the witness of the Old Testament as well as the New.
The same writer turns this into a call for anyone who has received such grace:
Grace wants bold confessors. Proclaim its lovely tones without fear. It "brings salvation for all people" (Titus 2), even though those who receive it may be few. It makes known the love of God to a guilty world. It tells out all that He is. It lays down no conditions.
- Cause. Nobody finds God by accident. If people who never asked are now seeking, it is because God first went out seeking them.
- Gift. Those He found brought no sacrifice, no ritual, no prayer. Grace lays down no conditions, so it reaches people with no qualifications.
- Voice. Isaiah spoke God's own "I." He announced mercy reaching past Israel while he stood inside Israel.
- Reach. Commentators read the quotation as the call of the Gentiles, now in progress. Israel's rejection stands beside it in the next verse.
- Result. Paul was found while he was not seeking. He is the pattern, and grace found that way still asks for bold confessors.
But unto Israel he says, All the day long I have stretched out my hands unto a people disobeying and opposing.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.