“Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.”
Romans 11:18, KJV
“do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.”
Romans 11:18, ESV
Table of Contents
- Romans 11:18 Meaning – Boast not against the branches
- Romans 11:18 Meaning – But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee
Romans 11:18 Meaning – Boast not against the branches
Argument 8. If thou shalt boast against the Jews, as more worthy than they, thou behavest thyself no less foolishly, than the branches born by the root, should boast against the root which bears them. Therefore thou oughtest not to despise the Jews.
Dickson, David – An Exposition of All St. Paul’s Epistles (1659)
The conclusion which the apostle draws from this contrasted view of the Jews and Gentiles — the first, the natural branches of a good olive-tree, some of whom had been broken off; the second, branches of a wild olive grafted in to the stock of the good olive, is this — that the converted Gentiles should not think contemptuously of the Jews, whether converted or unconverted.
We have already had occasion to notice the strong antipathy that existed between the Jews and the Gentiles. Conversion to Christianity, though it diminished, did not extinguish this feeling. The converted Jews cenerally regarded the converted Gentiles as their inferiors. The converted Gentiles resented this, and were in danger, not merely of thinking of the unbelieving Jews as a race utterly abandoned by God, but even of despising the converted Jews, as a set of narrowminded, superstitious, bigoted men.
Brown, John – Analytical exposition of the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Romans (1857)
Romans 11:18 Meaning – But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee
The gentiles cannot dispute with the Jews concerning the excellence of their race, without entering into a controversy with Abraham himself, which would have been too base, since he resembles the root by which they are carried, and become lively and vigorous.
It would be as absurd for the gentiles to boast against the Jews, as for the branches to be high-minded against the root.
This is true, when the excellence of the race of the Jews is taken into consideration, for Paul always wishes us to direct our attention to the beginning of our salvation; for we know, after Christ’s advent, the wall of separation was destroyed, and the whole world was sprinkled with the grace which God had before deposited with his own people.
The calling of the gentiles, it follows, from this view of the case, resembled the ingrafting of a tree; nor did they unite in any other way with the people of God, but by striking their roots into the stock of Abraham.
Calvin, John – Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans tr. Francis Sibson (1834)
The apostle here guards the Gentile Roman converts against this unbecoming temper. “Boast not against the branches” — not even against those which have been broken off; “but if thou boast” — there is here plainly an ellipsis, which must be supplied by some such word as ‘remember’ — “thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.”
The force of these words is readily apprehended, ‘The weight of obligation is all on one side. The Jews are in no way indebted to the Gentiles; the Gentiles are very much indebted to the Jews.”
Salvation is of the Jews. The Gentiles owed everything to their connection with that spiritual society, which had the Jewish Patriarch for its root, and whose principal branches had been his natural descendants.
It ill became them to look down on those who had been longer connected with that society than themselves, or to glory over those by whose fall salvation had the sooner come to them.
Brown, John – Analytical exposition of the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Romans (1857)
