The Chosen and the Hardened

February 20th, 2025
by Dr. Lance Waldie

Romans 11:7-10 What then? What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened; 8 just as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes to see not and ears to hear not, down to this very day.” 9 And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, and a stumbling block and a retribution to them. 10 Let their eyes be darkened to see not, and bend their backs forever.”

Paul brings his argument to a close by asking, “What then?”—what is the conclusion to the matter at hand? His answer is that Israel as a whole has failed to obtain the righteousness she diligently seeks because she seeks it as if it were by works. God’s righteousness, however, is obtained only through faith, not works. This leads Paul to present another proof that God has not abandoned Israel, namely that God has “hardened” the hearts of those Jews who refuse to believe, not all of them. Paul says that God’s elect, His remnant preserved according to grace, did obtain what the larger nation of Israel failed to obtain. The rest of them “were hardened.” This is a passive verb form that indicates Israel was hardened by someone or something outside of themselves, namely God. But like Pharaoh (9:17), they were only hardened by God after they stubbornly hardened their own hearts to Jesus Christ. As evidence of this, Paul quotes again from both the Law and the Prophets to give further proof that none of this takes God by surprise.

Quoting from the Law (Deut. 29:4) and the Prophets (Isa. 29:10), Paul conflated these two texts to say, “As it is written, ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes to see not and ears to hear not, down to this very day.’ ” This proves that it is God who is responsible for hardening the hearts of so many Israelites. Then, to top it off, Paul quoted from the Writings (the third portion of the Hebrew Bible), citing David in Psalm 69:22-23, who said, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.” In that Psalm, since David was praying this against his enemies, it is ironic that God would answer his prayer against His own people, Israel. But Israel as a nation became God’s enemy by rejecting and even crucifying their own Messiah, the Christ.

David’s prayer against his enemies in is particularly harsh. A person’s table is generally thought of as a safe place where feasting is enjoyed, but for those who rejected God, their table would become a “snare and a trap.” It is notable that Jews considered God’s Word, in the Torah, to be their spiritual nourishment, and it was. But those same Scriptures that they thought of as nourishment would be God’s tool of judgment upon them, like poison in their food. It was a stumbling block and a retribution to them because they willfully ignored its teachings. Of course this was accompanied by darkened eyes that could not see and bent backs. A bent back was indicative of many things: oppressive slavery, being under a heavy load, cowering with fear or grief, being too weak to stand upright, or even giving the imagery of stooping to grope on the ground looking for food which would be the result of not being able to see from blindness.

Food for Thought

God’s hardening of Israel, or of any unbelieving person, is not unfair. He hardens only those who willfully reject His Son, Jesus Christ. Like Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened by God after he hardened it himself (cf. Exod. 4:21; 9:12; 10:20), Israel had hardened themselves to God’s plan over thousands of years and were eventually rejected by God. The point here is that without God saving a remnant by grace—unmerited favor—He would had to have reneged on His promises to Israel, for none of them were able to know God except by God’s grace. Surely, “Unless the Lord of hosts had not left us a remnant, we would have become like Sodom and would have resembled Gomorrah” (Rom. 9:29). All glory to God for electing anyone!