{12} But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.

(12) An objection: if calling is a testimony of election, were not the Jews called? Why should I not grant that, says the apostle, seeing that there is no nation which has not been called? Much less can I say that the Jews were not called.

People's New Testament

10:18 Have they not heard? Who are alluded to? Both Jews and Gentiles. The objector might say, Well, if faith comes by hearing, so few have heard that we are not responsible for our unbelief. Nay, says the apostle, the opportunity to hear has been very widely extended. In the language of the Psalmist Ps 19:4,

Their sound went into all the earth. The sound of the preachers of the gospel.

And their words unto the ends of the world. When the vast multitude converted on Pentecost were scattered to their homes, they carried the gospel into all parts of the civilized world. Paul was now writing to the church in Rome, where no apostle had ever been.

Wesley's Notes

10:18 But their unbelief was not owing to the want of hearing For they have heard. Yes verily - So many nations have already heard the preachers of the gospel, that I may in some sense say of them as David did of the lights of heaven. Psa 29:4

Scofield Reference Notes

Margin world

oikoumene = inhabited earth.

See Scofield Note: note "Lk 2:1".

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. But I say, Have they not heard?-"Did they not hear?" Can Israel, through any region of his dispersion, plead ignorance of these glad tidings?

Yes, verily, their sound went-"their voice went out"

into all the earth, and their words unto the end of the world-These beautiful words are from Ps 19:4. Whether the apostle quoted them as in their primary intention applicable to his subject (as Olshausen, Alford, &c.), or only "used scriptural language to express his own ideas, as is done involuntarily almost by every preacher in every sermon" [Hodge], expositors are not agreed. But though the latter may seem the more natural since "the rising of the Sun of righteousness upon the world" (Mal 4:2), "the Dayspring from on high visiting us, giving light to them that sat in darkness, and guiding our feet into the way of peace" (Lu 1:78, 79), must have been familiar and delightful to the apostle's ear, we cannot doubt that the irradiation of the world with the beams of a better Sun by the universal diffusion of the Gospel of Christ, must have a mode of speaking quite natural, and to him scarcely figurative.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:18-21 Did not the Jews know that the Gentiles were to be called in? They might have known it from Moses and Isaiah. Isaiah speaks plainly of the grace and favour of God, as going before in the receiving of the Gentiles. Was not this our own case? Did not God begin in love, and make himself known to us when we did not ask after him? The patience of God towards provoking sinners is wonderful. The time of God's patience is called a day, light as day, and fit for work and business; but limited as a day, and there is a night at the end of it. God's patience makes man's disobedience worse, and renders that the more sinful. We may wonder at the mercy of God, that his goodness is not overcome by man's badness; we may wonder at the wickedness of man, that his badness is not overcome by God's goodness. And it is a matter of joy to think that God has sent the message of grace to so many millions, by the wide spread of his gospel.