Romans 11:13

For Better, perhaps, But, or Now; by documentary evidence. The particle merely calls attention to the fresh and fuller statement.

I speak to you Immediately. He implies a hope to reach the Jews throughthem.

you Gentiles Evidently the Roman Christians were in the main a Gentile body, and as such St Paul here speaks to them. The words, of course, would be intelligible if he spoke only to a Gentile section;but the whole drift of cch. 9 11 shews that the Gentiles were a very large majority.

I am the apostle, &c. "I" is emphatic: his position toward the Gentiles was distinct among the Apostles. "A noble self-consciousness here finds expression." (Meyer.) For the fact of this distinctive commission see Acts 9:15; and see below, Romans 15:15-19; Galatians 2:7-8; Ephesians 3:8. See also 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 for an illustration of his intense and sympathetic devotion to this his work, and his holy indignation at the sin of Jewish unbelief and persecution.

magnify Lit. glorify. The practical meaning is that he is, and rejoices to be, the Apostle for the Gentiles; makes much of his commission both in word and deed; discusses with his Gentileconverts even those truths which specially concern Jews; and yet, all the while, not without a longing and design to benefit his Jewish brethren for he knows that the more his work prospers among the Gentiles, the more hope there is that Jews will be roused to attention and enquiry, and so to the desire to enter the covenant of Messiah. See on Romans 11:11.