{9} For if the {o} firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root {p} be holy, so are the branches.

(9) The nation of the Jews being considered in their head and root, that is, in Abraham, is holy, although many of the branches are cut off. Therefore in judging of our brethren, we must not dwell on their unworthiness, to think that they are at once all cast off, but we ought to consider the root of the covenant, and rather go back to their ancestors who were faithful, that we may know that the blessing of the covenant rests in some of their posterity, as we also find proof here in ourselves.

(o) He alludes to the first fruits of those loaves, by the offering of which the whole crop of corn was sanctified, and they might use the rest of the crop for that year with good conscience.

(p) Abraham.

People's New Testament

11:16 For if the firstfruit be holy. See Nu 15:18-21. Some explain the first fruits by Abraham and the patriarchs. It probably refers, rather, to the Jewish Christians, the election by grace (Ro 11:5). If a portion of the nation has been saved, it is an assurance that the whole nation can be saved.

And if the root be holy. The root may refer to Abraham. The figure is that of a tree, with the patriarchs for the root. Holy is used in the sense of acceptable to God, a common sense in the Scriptures. In Ro 11:17 the figure of the root, the stalk and the tree, is expanded.

Wesley's Notes

11:16 And this will surely come to pass. For if the first fruits be holy, so is the lump - The consecration of them was esteemed the consecration of all and so the conversion of a few Jews is an earnest of the conversion of all the rest. And if the root be holy - The patriarchs from whom they spring, surely God will at length make their descendants also holy.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16. For-"But"

if the first-fruit be holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root . so the branches-The Israelites were required to offer to God the first-fruits of the earth-both in their raw state, in a sheaf of newly reaped grain (Le 23:10, 11), and in their prepared state, made into cakes of dough (Nu 15:19-21)-by which the whole produce of that season was regarded as hallowed. It is probable that the latter of these offerings is here intended, as to it the word "lump" best applies; and the argument of the apostle is, that as the separation unto God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, from the rest of mankind, as the parent stem of their race, was as real an offering of first-fruits as that which hallowed the produce of the earth, so, in the divine estimation, it was as real a separation of the mass or "lump" of that nation in all time to God. The figure of the "root" and its "branches" is of like import-the consecration of the one of them extending to the other.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

11:11-21 The gospel is the greatest riches of every place where it is. As therefore the righteous rejection of the unbelieving Jews, was the occasion of so large a multitude of the Gentiles being reconciled to God, and at peace with him; the future receiving of the Jews into the church would be such a change, as would resemble a general resurrection of the dead in sin to a life of righteousness. Abraham was as the root of the church. The Jews continued branches of this tree till, as a nation, they rejected the Messiah; after that, their relation to Abraham and to God was, as it were, cut off. The Gentiles were grafted into this tree in their room; being admitted into the church of God. Multitudes were made heirs of Abraham's faith, holiness and blessedness. It is the natural state of every one of us, to be wild by nature. Conversion is as the grafting in of wild branches into the good olive. The wild olive was often ingrafted into the fruitful one when it began to decay, and this not only brought forth fruit, but caused the decaying olive to revive and flourish. The Gentiles, of free grace, had been grafted in to share advantages. They ought therefore to beware of self-confidence, and every kind of pride or ambition; lest, having only a dead faith, and an empty profession, they should turn from God, and forfeit their privileges. If we stand at all, it is by faith; we are guilty and helpless in ourselves, and are to be humble, watchful, afraid of self-deception, or of being overcome by temptation. Not only are we at first justified by faith, but kept to the end in that justified state by faith only; yet, by a faith which is not alone, but which worketh by love to God and man.