For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that hardness ( πώρωσις; see Romans 11:8) in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles he come in. And so all Israel shall be saved. πᾶς ισραὴλ here must mean the whole nation; not, as Calvin explains, "complebitur salus totius Israel Dei [i.e. of the spiritual Israel, as in Galatians 6:16] quam ex utrisque [i.e. with Jews and Gentiles] colligi oportet;" for "Israel" must surely be understood in the same sense as in the preceding verse, where it denotes the Jewish nation as opposed to the Gentiles. σωθήσεται, as seems required by the whole context, means coming into the Church (cf. Acts 2:47, ὁ δὲ κύριος προσετίθει τοὺς σωζομένους καθ ἡμέραν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ). As it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: and this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. Referring, as throughout the Epistle, to the Old Testament for confirmation, St. Paul here, as in former instances, combines passages, and quotes freely, perhaps from memory. The main citation is from Isaiah 59:20, Isaiah 59:21, with an addition from Isaiah 17:9, the LXX. being followed. The citations are relevant, being specimens of many others that might have been adduced, predicting the final pardon and restitution of the house of Israel itself, notwithstanding judgments, through the Redeemer who was to come.
What follows, to verse 33, is in the way of summary and further comment.
As touching the gospel indeed (with regard to acceptance of the gospel now) they are enemies for your sakes (for their having become God's enemies by rejecting and opposing it has been the occasion of your having been now called in): but as touching the election (God's original choice of Israel to be his people. ἐκλογὴ here cannot well have a concrete sense, as in Romans 11:7), they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts ( χαρίσματα, meaning "free gifts," or "gifts of grace;" the word used to denote the special gifts of the Holy Ghost showered after Pentecost in the apostolic Church; but expressing generally, as here, whatever God, of his own good will, grants freely) and the calling of God are without repentance (i.e. unrepented of by him and irrevocable; cf. Numbers 23:1-30. 19, 20; also 1 Samuel 15:29). This denial of anthropopathy in God is asserted as a general truth, to be applied to his calling of "the fathers," i.e. the patriarchs, and their seed after them, to be his people. It is true that, as is shown in Romans 4:1-25., there is a spiritual seed of Abraham, not necessarily of the house of Israel, to whom the promises in their ultimate scope were to be fulfilled; but the apostle regards it as impossible that the promises made primarily to the chosen people themselves should be revoked or fail of eventual fulfilment to them.
For as ye in times past believed not God,but now have obtained mercy through their unbelief (or, disobedience): even so have these also now not believed (or, obeyed), that through your mercy (i.e. the mercy shown to you) they also may obtain mercy. The position of ἵνα after τῷ ὑμετέρῳ ἐλέει has led commentators, ancient and modem, to connect τῷ ὑμετέρῳ ἐλέει with the preceding ἠπείθησαν, and to try to hit upon a meaning in this connection. But the sense of the passage, as well as the parallalism of the preceding clause, favours the connection of the Authorized Version, as given above. (For a similar position of ἵνα, cf. 2 Corinthians 12:7.)