Romans 11:3

Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) I am left alone—i.e., of the prophets.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

11:1-10 There was a chosen remnant of believing Jews, who had righteousness and life by faith in Jesus Christ. These were kept according to the election of grace. If then this election was of grace, it could not be of works, either performed or foreseen. Every truly good disposition in a fallen creature must be the effect, therefore it cannot be the cause, of the grace of God bestowed on him. Salvation from the first to the last must be either of grace or of debt. These things are so directly contrary to each other that they cannot be blended together. God glorifies his grace by changing the hearts and tempers of the rebellious. How then should they wonder and praise him! The Jewish nation were as in a deep sleep, without knowledge of their danger, or concern about it; having no sense of their need of the Saviour, or of their being upon the borders of eternal ruin. David, having by the Spirit foretold the sufferings of Christ from his own people, the Jews, foretells the dreadful judgments of God upon them for it, Ps 69. This teaches us how to understand other prayers of David against his enemies; they are prophecies of the judgments of God, not expressions of his own anger. Divine curses will work long; and we have our eyes darkened, if we are bowed down in worldly-mindedness.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Lord, they have killed ... - This is taken from 1 Kings 19:10. The quotation is not literally made, but the sense is preserved. This was a charge which Elijah brought against the whole nation; and the act of killing the prophets he regarded as expressive of the character of the people, or that they were universally given to wickedness. The fact was true that they had killed the prophets, etc.; 1 Kings 18:4, 1 Kings 18:13; but the inference which Elijah seems to have drawn from it, that there were no pious people in the nation, was not well founded.

And digged down - Altars, by the Law of Moses, were required to be made of earth or unhewn stones; Exodus 20:24-25. Hence, the expression to dig them down means completely to demolish or destroy them.

Thine altars - There was one great altar in the front of the tabernacle and the temple, on which the daily sacrifices of the Jews were to be made. But they were not forbidden to make altars also elsewhere; Exodus 20:25. And hence they are mentioned as existing in other places; 1 Samuel 7:17; 1 Samuel 16:2-3; 1 Kings 18:30, 1 Kings 18:32. These were the altars of which Elijah complained as having been thrown down by the Jews; an act which was regarded as expressive of signal impiety.

I am left alone - I am the only prophet which is left alive. We are told that when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred of them and hid them in a cave; 1 Kings 18:4. But it is not improbable that they had been discovered and put to death by Ahab. The account which Obadiah gave Elijah when he met him 1 Kings 18:13 seems to favor such a supposition.

Seek my life - That is, Ahab and Jezebel seek to kill me. This they did because he had overcome and slain the prophets of Baal; 1 Kings 19:1-2. There could scarcely be conceived a time of greater distress and declension in religion than this. It has not often happened that so many things that were disheartening have occurred to the church at the same period of time. The prophets of God were slain; but one lonely man appeared to have zeal for true religion; the nation was running to idolatry; the civil rulers were criminally wicked, and were the leaders in the universal apostasy; and all the influences of wealth and power were setting in against the true religion to destroy it. It was natural that the solitary man of God should feel disheartened and lonely in this universal guilt; and should realize that he had no power to resist this tide of crime and calamities.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. and I am left alone—"I only am left."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See 1 Kings 19:10,14.

Digged down thine altars: these were not the altars of the high places, for they are commended that cast them down; nor the altars in the temple at Jerusalem, for they were out of the reach of the ten tribes, against whom Elias complains: but such altars (say some) as the godly of the ten tribes did build to serve God with, when they were not permitted to go up to Jerusalem; in which case the building of private altars (as some learned Jews have affirmed) was allowed. Or else by

altars you may understand such altars as Elias himself, by the special commandment of God, had erected. Others, by digging down God’s altars, do understand their corrupting and destroying the true worship of God; and the words are to be taken synecdochically, or metonomically, the sign being put for the thing signified.

I am left alone; so it was, for aught he knew; for few, if any, did publicly own the true worship of God: so general was the defection of the ten tribes in those days.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Lord, they have killed thy prophets,.... By the order of Jezebel, wife of Ahab king of Israel, 1 Kings 18:4. This sin of slaying the prophets of the Lord is charged upon the Jews by Christ, Matthew 23:31, and by the apostle, 1 Thessalonians 2:15. In the text in 1 Kings 19:14, it is added, "with the sword": which expresses the manner of death they were put to; and this clause is there put after the following, according to a rule of transposition among the Jews; See Gill on Matthew 27:10.

And digged down thine altars; either the altars which the patriarchs had formerly built, and were still in being; and though not used, yet were kept and had in great veneration; wherefore the pulling of them down was done in contempt of them, and of the worship of God, which had been formerly performed there; or else such altars, which the religious among the ten tribes built, since the times of Jeroboam, who forbad them to go up to Jerusalem, but ordered them to go to Dan or Bethel; which they not choosing to do erected altars in different places for divine service, and which the Jews (r) say were allowed; for from that time, the prohibition of altars at other places than at Jerusalem ceased:

and I am left alone: meaning either as a prophet, not knowing that Obadiah had hid an hundred prophets by fifty in a cave, 1 Kings 18:4; or else as a worshipper of the true God, imagining that he was the only person in Israel, that had a true zeal for the Lord of hosts:

and they seek my life; lay in wait for it, Jezebel by her emissaries being in quest of him; it is added in 1 Kings 19:14, "to take it away"; for she had swore by her gods, that by the morrow about that time, his life should be as the life of one of the prophets of Baal he had slain; and in one copy it is added here.

(r) Kimchi in 1 Kings 18.30.

Geneva Study Bible

Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Romans 11:3. 1 Kings 19:10; 1 Kings 19:14, freely from the LXX.

ἀπέκτ.] The Israelites, namely, under Ahab and Jezebel. 1 Kings 18:4; 1 Kings 13:22.

κατέσκαψ.] have thoroughly destroyed, have razed. Comp. Soph. Phil. 986: Τροίαν … κατασκάψαι. Eur. Hec. 22 (of the domestic altar); Dem. 361. 20; Plut. Popl. 10; 2Ma 14:38 (τὸ θυσιαστήριον).

τὰ θυσιαστ.] On the plural, as the temple in Jerusalem was the place exclusively destined for worship, the view of Estius suffices: “Verisimile est, Eliam loqui de altaribus, quae passim in excelsis studio quodam pietatis Deo vero erecta fuerant; maxime postquam decem tribus regum suorum tyrannide prohibitae fuerunt, ne Jerusolymam ascenderent sacrificii causa. Quamvis enim id lege vetitum esset [see Leviticus 17:8-9; Deuteronomy 12:13-14] ac recte fecerint Ezechias et Josias, reges Judae, etiam ejusmodi aras evertendo, tamen impium erat eas subvertere odio cultus Dei Israel.” Comp. Grotius, also Keil, on the books of Kings, p. 262, Archäol. I. § 89.

ὑπελείφθ. μόνος] in the sense of Elias: alone of the prophets; but according to the application designed by the apostle, as Romans 11:4 shows: as the only one of Thy faithful. But in this case we are not to assume, as Hofmann and others wish to do, that Paul, in order to suggest this sense, has transposed the original order of the two clauses of the verse—which is rather to be regarded as accidental; and this, considering the freedom of citation otherwise used, we need the less hesitate about, since Paul could not, even in the original order, see the reference of the verse which was in his thoughts to be excluded.

On ζητεῖν τ. ψυχ. τινος, to seek after one’s life, see on Matthew 2:20.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. Lord, they have killed, &c.] 1 Kings 19:10. The quotation is not precisely with either LXX. or Heb.; but substantially exact.—The Gr. past verbs here are aorists.

3. This, and not the evangelical equality of Jew and Gentile, is here in view; with the special object of reminding the Gentile Christian how singular and eminent had been the work of the Jewish Church; how welcome individual Jews must be to return to the Church, which, though now universal in extent, was, and of course is always, Jewish in descent; and how natural it was that a special work in that Church should yet be designed for an aggregate of Jewish believers.

Bengel's Gnomen

Romans 11:3. Κύριε, τοὺς προφήτας σου—τὴν ψυχήν μου) 1 Kings 19:14, LXX., ἐγκατέλιπον τὴν διαθήκην σου οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ, τὰ θυσιαστήριά σου καθειλον, καὶ τοὺς προφήτας σου ἀπέκτειναν ἐν ῥομφαίᾳ, καὶ ὑπολέλειμμαι ἐγὼ μονώτατος, καὶ ζητοῦσι τὴν ψυχήν μου λαβεῖν αὐτήν. The children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away. The nicety of the apostle’s style is remarkable; the LXX. in this passage use μονώτατος, as they often do; Paul μόνος.

Romans 11:3

Vincent's Word Studies

They have killed thy prophets - and digged, etc.

Paul gives the first two clauses in reverse order from both Septuagint and Hebrew.

Digged down (κατέσκαψαν)

Sept., καθεῖλαν pulled down. The verb occurs only here and Acts 15:16. Compare on Matthew 6:19.

Altars (θυσιαστήρια)

See on Acts 17:23.

Alone (μόνος)

Sept. has the superlative μονώτατος utterly alone.

Life (ψυχήν)

From ψύχω to breathe or blow. In classical usage it signifies life in the distinctness of individual existence, especially of man, occasionally of brutes. Hence, generally, the life of the individual. In the further development of the idea it becomes, instead of the body, the seat of the will, dispositions, desires, passions; and, combined with the σῶμα body, denotes the constituent parts of humanity. Hence the morally endowed individuality of man which continues after death.

Scripture. In the Old Testament, answering to nephesh, primarily life, breath; therefore life in its distinct individuality; life as such, distinguished from other men and from inanimate nature. Not the principle of life, but that which bears in itself and manifests the life-principle. Hence spirit (ruach, πνεῦμα) in the Old Testament never signifies the individual. Soul (ψυχή), of itself, does not constitute personality, but only when it is the soul of a human being. Human personality is derived from spirit (πνεῦμα), and finds expression in soul or life (ψυχή).

The New-Testament usage follows the Old, in denoting all individuals from the point of view of individual life. Thus the phrase πᾶσα ψυχή every soul, i.e., every person (Romans 2:9; Romans 13:1), marking them off from inanimate nature. So Romans 11:3; Romans 16:4; 2 Corinthians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 12:15; Philippians 2:30; 1 Thessalonians 2:8, illustrate an Old-Testament usage whereby the soul is the seat of personality, and is employed instead of the personal pronoun, with a collateral notion of value as individual personality.

These and other passages are opposed to the view which limits the term to a mere animal life-principle. See Ephesians 6:6; Colossians 3:23; the compounds σύμψυχοι with one soul; ἰσοψύχον like-minded (Philippians 1:27; Philippians 2:20), where personal interest and accord of feeling are indicated, and not lower elements of personality. See, especially 1 Thessalonians 5:23.

As to the distinction between ψυχή soul and πνεῦμα spirit, it is to be said:

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