The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.

Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.

Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Romans 11:7-10

⁷ What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were Hardened, ⁸ as it is written,

“God gave them a spirit of stupor,
    eyes that would not see
    and ears that would not hear,
down to this very day.”

⁹ And David says,

“Let their table become a snare and a trap,
    a stumbling block and a retribution for them;
¹⁰ let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see,
    and bend their backs forever.”

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Last week’s post discussed Paul’s reminder to his Jewish converts that their forefathers had disobeyed God from the time of Moses, yet He always keeps the remnant of His faithful — His elect — from generation to generation.

Matthew Henry tells us (emphases mine below):

This is called a remnant according to the election of grace; they are such as were chosen from eternity in the counsels of divine love to be vessels of grace and glory.

Paul reminded his audience that the people of Israel, with hardened hearts, did not find what they were looking for, although the elect did (verse 7).

Having a hardened heart can be spiritually perilous, as Henry explains:

Some are chosen and called, and the call is made effectual. But others are left to perish in their unbelief; nay, they are made worse by that which should have made them better. The gospel, which to those that believed was the savour of life unto life, to the unbelieving was the savour of death unto death. The same sun softens wax and hardens clay. Good old Simeon foresaw that the child Jesus was set for the fall, as well as for the rising again, of many in Israel, Luke 2:34.– Were blinded; eporothesan–they were hardened; so some. They were seared, and made brawny and insensible. They could neither see the light, nor feel the touch, of gospel grace. Blindness and hardness are expressive of the same senselessness and stupidity of spirit. They shut their eyes, and would not see; this was their sin: and then God, in a way of righteous judgment, blinded their eyes, that they could not see; this was their punishment.

To reinforce the reminder, Paul cites Isaiah 29:10 …

For the Lord has poured out upon you
    a spirit of deep sleep,
and has closed your eyes (the prophets),
    and covered your heads (the seers).

… and Isaiah 6:9 (verse 8):

And he said, “Go, and say to this people:

“‘Keep on hearing,^[a]but do not understand;
keep on seeing,^[b]but do not perceive.’

That is the worst place to be in this life, the worst judgement from God.

Henry tells us this was true in Isaiah’s time, in Christ’s time and extends to the present day:

… this hardening work has been in the doing; some among them have been blind and senseless. Or, rather, ever since the first preaching of the gospel: though they have had the most convincing evidences that could be of the truth of it, the most powerful preaching, the fairest offers, the clearest calls from Christ himself, and from his apostles, yet to this day they are blinded. It is still true concerning multitudes of them, even to this day in which we live; they are hardened and blinded, the obstinacy and unbelief go by succession from generation to generation, according to their own fearful imprecation, which entailed the curse: His blood be upon us and upon our children.

Paul concludes his message to the Jewish converts by paraphrasing Psalm 69:22-23 (verses 9, 10):

²² Let their own table before them become a snare;
    and when they are at peace, let it become a trap.^[a]
23 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see,
    and make their loins tremble continually.

Henry says that, in those verses, David foretold the suffering of Christ from His own people:

David (Romans 11:9,10), quoted from Psalms 69:22,23, where David having in the Spirit foretold the sufferings of Christ from his own people the Jews, particularly that of their giving him vinegar to drink (Romans 11:21, which was literally fulfilled, Matthew 27:48), an expression of the greatest contempt and malice that could be, in the next words, under the form of an imprecation, he foretels the dreadful judgments of God upon them for it: Let their table become a snare, which the apostle here applies to the present blindness of the Jews, and the offence they took at the gospel, which increased their hardness. This teaches us how to understand other prayers of David against his enemies; they are to be looked upon as prophetic of the judgments of God upon the public and obstinate enemies of Christ and his kingdom. His prayer that it might be so was a prophecy that it should be so, and not the private expression of his own angry resentments. It was likewise intended to justify God, and to clear his righteousness in such judgments.

Those who continue to reject God cause God to impose this judgement, as John MacArthur explains:

… they were hardened by some outside power, some outside force. And that force is none other than God Himself. They were hardened by God. You say, “Does God harden people?” Well do you remember chapter 9 verse 18, “Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy and whom He will, He hardens.” And who was his illustration in chapter 9? Who is the illustration of God hardening? Who was it? Pharaoh, God hardened Pharaoh …

When God hardens it is a result of a process of willful rejection of true righteousness, a process of hardening, hardening, hardening, hardening … When God moves in with judicial, final, judgmental, condemning, hardening of the heart, it is as a result and response to a continual process of willful rejection. It is a judicial thing that comes to those who continue to reject, who continue to reject, who continue to reject.

However, God always has His remnant of believers.

Later in the chapter, we will see that Paul says this rejection of much of Israel is only temporary, until the Gentiles are fully in God’s fold.

Paul addresses the Gentiles in the next part of Romans 11.

Next time — Romans 11:11-15