Robertson Word Pictures - Romans 11:17 - 11:17

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Robertson Word Pictures - Romans 11:17 - 11:17


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Branches (kladōn). From klaō, to break.

Were broken off (exeklasthēsan). First aorist passive indicative of ekklaō. Play on the word klados (branch) and ekklaō, to break off. Condition of first class, assumed as true. Some of the individual Jews (natural Israel) were broken off the stock of the tree (spiritual Israel).

And thou (kai su). An individual Gentile.

Being a wild olive (agrielaios ōn). This word, used by Aristotle, occurs in an inscription. Ramsay (Pauline Studies, pp. 219ff.) shows that the ancients used the wild-olive graft upon an old olive tree to reinvigorate the tree precisely as Paul uses the figure here and that both the olive tree and the graft were influenced by each other, though the wild olive graft did not produce as good olives as the original stock. But it should be noted that in Rom 11:24 Paul expressly states that the grafting of Gentiles on to the stock of the spiritual Israel was “contrary to nature” (para phusin).

Wast grafted in (enekentristhēs). First aorist passive indicative of enkentrizō, to cut in, to graft, used by Aristotle. Belongs “to the higher Koiné[28928]š” (literary Koiné[28928]š) according to Milligan.

Partaker (sunKoinéōnos). Corinthians-partner.

Fatness (piotētos). Old word from piōn (fat), only here in N.T. Note three genitives here “of the root of the fatness of the olive.”