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Rom_9:31-32. Israel, on the contrary, striving after the law of righteousness, has (in respect to the mass of the people) not attained to the law of righteousness.
νόμον -g0- δικαιος -g0-.] The law affording righteousness. Quite erroneous is the view of Chrysostom, Theodoret, Calvin, Beza, Piscator, Bengel, Heumann, that it is a hypallage for δικαιοσύνην νόμου ; and that of Rückert and Köllner is arbitrary, that Paul, in his effort after brevity and paradox, has used a condensed phrase for τὸν νόμον ὡς νόμον δικ . On the contrary, the justifying law is in both instances (comp. δικαιοσύνην , Rom_9:30) to be left without any more precise concrete definition, and to be regarded as the ideal (comp. also Fritzsche and Philippi), the reality of which the Israelites strove by their legal conduct to experience in themselves (to possess), but did not obtain. The justifying law! this is the idea, which they pursued, but to the reality they remained strangers. If, finally, we chose, with many others (including Bengel, Koppe, Flatt, Reiche, Köllner, Krehl, de Wette), to understand the first νὸμ . δικ . of the historical Mosaic law, and the second of Christianity, διώκων would be opposed to us; for this, according to Rom_9:30, expresses not the endeavour to fulfil the law, but the endeavour to possess the law, as, indeed, οὐκ ἔφθασε εἰς must correspond to κατέλαβε in Rom_9:30, and therefore must simply denote non pervenit (Vulg.), not: non praevenit (Erasmus, Estius, Hammond, and others, including Ewald and Jatho). Comp. on Php_3:16. The reading of Lachmann, εἰς νόμον οὐκ ἔφθασε , which Hofmann follows, is explained by the latter: Israel was set upon fulfilling a law which teaches what is right ( διώκων νόμον δικαιοσύνης ), but did not thereby succeed, did not become ἔννομος ( εἰς νόμον οὐκ ἔφθασε ); because the law remained for it, like a shadow, ever only near, but unattainable, thus Israel had not at all come to have its standpoint generally in a law and to live in it, neither in that of the Old Testament, which it sought to follow, nor in that of the New Testament, on which it turned its back. An entirely subjective artificial complication of ideas, with invented accessories, and not even historically correct, since in fact the Israelites stood and lived only too much ἐν νόμῳ and as ἔννομοι , but could not withal attain to the νόμος δικαιοσύνης . This δικαιοσύνης is the tragic point of the negative counter-statement, and hence is indispensable in the text.
διὰ τί ] sc. εἰς νόμον δικ . οὐκ ἔφθασεν ; answer: ὅτι οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως , sc ἐδίωξαν νόμον δικ . For, had they started from faith in their striving, they would have obtained in Christianity the realization of their endeavour, the νόμον δικαιοσύνης ; through faith in Christ, to whom the law already points (Rom_3:31, Rom_10:5 ff.; Joh_5:46), they would have become righteous, and would thus in the gospel have really attained what floated before them as an idea, the justifying law.
ὡς ἐξ ἔργ .] ὡς can neither denote a hypocritical conduct (Theophylact), nor presumed works (Fritzsche), nor quasi (van Hengel, following the Vulgate); for, indeed, the Jews really set out from the works of the law in their endeavour. On the contrary, it means: Because their διώκειν was in the way, in which a διώκειν starting from works is constituted; the (perverted) kind and quality of the endeavour is designated, comp. 2Co_2:17; Joh_1:14. The ἐξ ἔργ . is by ὡς brought into fuller relief; see Klotz, ad Devar. p. 757 f.
προσέκοψαν κ . τ . λ .] without γάρ (see critical remarks), but thus coming in all the more strikingly: they stumbled, etc.; that is the fatal fact, which befell them in their διώκειν , and caused that they οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως κ . τ . λ . Had they not stumbled at the stone of stumbling, they would have entered on the right line of endeavour ἐκ πίστεως , instead of their perverted one ὡς ἐξ ἔργων νόμου . The simple appropriateness, clearness, and force, with which the προσέκοψαν κ . τ . λ . is thus introduced, must exclude the connection with ἀλλʼ ὡς ἐξ ἔργων νόμου (Lachmann), followed also by Th. Schott (“but, as could not but happen in consequence of works, came to ruin on the stone of stumbling”). The λίθος προσκόμματος , the stone on which one stumbles (trips), is Christ, in so far as occasion for unbelief is taken at His manifestation (especially at His death on the cross, 1Co_1:23). Comp. Luk_2:34; 1Pe_2:7-8. The figure is in perfect correspondence with the conception of the διώκειν , and was perhaps selected in anticipation of the passage of Scripture to be adduced. Aptly, moreover, Theophylact remarks: λίθ . προσκ . κ . πέτρα σκανδ . ἀπὸ τοῦ τέλους καὶ τῆς ἐκβάσεως τῶν ἀπιστησάντων ὠνόμασται ὁ Χριστός · αὐτὸς γὰρ καθʼ ἑαυτὸν θεμέλιος καὶ ἑδραίωμα ἐτέθη .