25. For I would not . . . that ye should be ignorant of this mystery--The word "mystery," so often used by our
apostle, does not mean (as with
us) something incomprehensible, but "something before kept secret,
either wholly or for the most part, and now only fully disclosed"
(compare
Ro 16:25;
1Co 2:7-10;
Eph 1:9, 10; 3:3-6, 9, 10).
lest ye should be wise in your own conceits--as if ye alone were in
all time coming to be the family of God.
that blindness--"hardness"
in part is happened to--"hath come upon"
Israel--that is, hath come partially, or upon a portion of Israel.
until the fulness of the Gentiles be--"have"
come in--that is, not the general conversion of the world to Christ,
as many take it; for this would seem to contradict the latter part of
this chapter, and throw the national recovery of Israel too far into the
future: besides, in
Ro 11:15,
the apostle seems to speak of the receiving of Israel, not as
following, but as contributing largely to bring about the general
conversion of the world--but, "until the Gentiles have had their
full time of the visible Church all to themselves while the Jews
are out, which the Jews had till the Gentiles were brought in." (See
Lu 21:24).
JFB.
Picture Study Bible