Romans 11:4-5

“ But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Even so then, at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. ” Χρηματισμός : the direction of a matter, and hence: a decision of authority; then: a divine declaration, an oracle (Matthew 2:12).

It is impossible to apply the words: “I have reserved to myself,” to the temporal preservation of this elect body of pious Israelites, in the midst of the judgments which are soon to burst on Israel. It is in the spiritual sense, as faithful worshippers in the midst of reigning idolatry, that God reserves them to Himself. They are the leaven kept by His faithfulness in the midst of His degenerate people.

It is impossible to understand what leads Hofmann to take κατέλιπον as the third person plural: “ They (the persecutors) have left me seven thousand men.” This cannot be the meaning in the Hebrew, where the grammar is opposed to it; and as little the sense meant by Paul, where the words to myself and according to the election of grace, Romans 11:5, prove that he is speaking of the action of God Himself. The pronoun to myself does not belong to the Hebrew text; it is added by Paul to bring more into relief the settled purpose of grace in this preservation.

The substantive Βάαλ, Baal, is preceded by the feminine τῇ : “ the (female) Baal.” This form is surprising, for Baal, the god of the sun among the Phoenicians, was a masculine divinity, to whom Astarte, the goddess of the moon, corresponded, as the female divinity. By the LXX. the name Baal is sometimes used as feminine, sometimes as masculine. In our passage this version uses it in the latter way. To explain the female form as used here by Paul, it has been thought that Baal was sometimes regarded as a hermaphrodite divinity. But in 1 Samuel 7:4, we find Baal put along with Astarte, and both in the feminine form. It seems to us more natural simply to understand the feminine substantive εἰκόνι, the image, in the sense of: “the statute Baal.” Meyer objects that in that case the article τοῦ would be required before Βάαλ. But the Jews took pleasure in identifying false gods with their images, as if to say that the god was nothing more than his material representation. The Rabbins, in this same contemptuous spirit, had invented the term Elohoth to designate idols, a feminine plural of Elohim, and several have been thereby led to suppose that our feminine article might be explained by a feeling of the same kind. This explanation is not impossible, but the previous one seems to me the more simple.