2 For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
They, when they heard it, glorified God. They said to him, "You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law.
This I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment;
but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn't arrive at the law of righteousness. Why? Because they didn't seek it by faith, but as it were by works of the law. They stumbled over the stumbling stone;
in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them.
They zealously seek you in no good way. No, they desire to alienate you, that you may seek them. But it is always good to be zealous in a good cause, and not only when I am present with you.
What was the blessing you enjoyed? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.
For according to their power, I testify, yes and beyond their power, they gave of their own accord,
seeing it is God who said, "Light will shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
"I myself most assuredly thought that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. This I also did in Jerusalem. I both shut up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death I gave my vote against them.
They listened to him until he said that; then they lifted up their voice, and said, "Rid the earth of this fellow, for he isn't fit to live!"
crying out, "Men of Israel, help! This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place. Moreover, he also brought Greeks into the temple, and has defiled this holy place!"
It isn't good to have zeal without knowledge; Nor being hasty with one's feet and missing the way.
He said, Come with me, and see my zeal for Yahweh. So they made him ride in his chariot.
In that day Yahweh with his hard and great and strong sword will punish leviathan the swift serpent, and leviathan the crooked serpent; and he will kill the monster that is in the sea.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Romans 10
Commentary on Romans 10 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 10
The dissolving of the peculiar church-state of the Jews, and the rejection of that polity by the repealing of their ceremonial law, the vacating of all the institutions of it, the abolishing of their priesthood, the burning of their temple, and the taking away of their place and nation, and in their room the substituting and erecting of a catholic church-state among the Gentile nations, though to us, now that these things have long since been done and completed, they may seem no great matter, yet to those who lived when they were doing, who knew how high the Jews had stood in God's favour, and how deplorable the condition of the Gentile world had been for many ages, it appeared very great and marvellous, and a mystery hard to be understood. The apostle, in this chapter, as in the foregoing and that which follows, is explaining and proving it; but with several very useful digressions, which a little interrupt the thread of his discourse. To two great truths I would reduce this chapter:-
Rom 10:1-11
The scope of the apostle in this part of the chapter is to show the vast difference between the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of faith, and the great pre-eminence of the righteousness of faith above that of the law; that he might induce and persuade the Jews to believe in Christ, aggravate the folly and sin of those that refused, and justify God in the rejection of such refusers.
Rom 10:12-21
The first words express the design of the apostle through these verses, that there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, but they stand upon the same level in point of acceptance with God. In Jesus Christ there is neither Greek nor Jews, Col. 3:11. God doth not save any nor reject any because they are Jews, nor because they are Greeks, but doth equally accept both upon gospel terms: There is no difference. For the proof of this he urges two arguments:-