Romans 11:17-18 - Exposition

But if some of the branches were broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree ( i.e. of the stock of a wild olive tree; cf. Romans 5:1-21 :34) wast grafted in among them, and wast made partaker with them of the root and the fatness of the olive tree, boast not against the branches. But if thou boastest, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee . In thus addressing the Gentile in the second person singular, the apostle brings his warning home to any individual Gentile Christian who might be inclined to boast; though regarding him still as representing Gentile believers generally. They are compared to slips of the wild olive tree ( ἡ ἀγριέλαιος , oleaster ), which was unproductive (cf. "Infelix superat foliis oleaster amaris"), acquiring richness and fertility by being grafted into the cultivated tree ( ἡ καλλιέλαιος , oleo ) . Whether or not such a reversal of the usual system of grafting would have the imagined effect does not matter, as long as the illustration serves St. Paul's purpose well, and helps us to grasp, his conception. The common process is—

"... to marry

A gentle scion to the wildest stock,

And make conceive a bark of baser kind,

By bud of nobler race."

In the illustration before us a scion of wildest stock is supposed to be made to conceive through the stock of nobler race to which it is united. The selecting the olive tree for illustration is happy, inasmuch as it was not only a characteristic produce of Palestine, but also regarded as symbolical of a plant of grace; cf. Psalms 52:8 , "I am a green olive tree in the house of God;" also Jeremiah 11:16 ; Hosea 14:6 . See also the parable of Jotham ( 9:8 , 9:9 ), where the trees apply first to the olive tree to be their king; and observe also there the word "fatness," used here also by St. Paul: ΄ὴ ἀπολείψασαα τὴν πιότητα μου ἐν ᾗ δοξάσουσι τὸν θεὸν ἄνδρες πορεύσομαι κινεῖσθαι ἐπὶ τῶν ξύλων ; ( LXX .). The "branches" against which the ingrafted scion is warned not to beast are not exclusively either the broken-off or the remaining ones, but, as the sequel shows, the natural branches of the tree generally. The Gentile Christian is not to contemn the race of Israel because so large a portion of it is at present apart from the Church and under judgment; for it is, after all, from the stock of Israel, into which he has been engrafted, that he derives all his own fertility. As to the Christian Church being ever regarded as derived from that of Israel, the fulfilment and outcome of the ancient covenant, see note on Romans 1:2 ; and cf. John 4:22 , "For salvation is of the Jews."