Romans 10:18

But I say [To give my cornered Jewish objector every chance to escape from his obvious culpability, I ask in his behalf this question], Did they not hear? [This question demands a negative answer--a denial of the "not heard," and is therefore an emphatic way of asserting that they had heard. "They" is unlimited, all had heard it, so the Jew could never plead lack of hearing as an excuse for rejecting the gospel. Having thus asserted his position in the question, he proceeds to prove it in the answer] Yea, verily [Menounge. See note on Romans 9:20], Their sound [Psalms 19:4. "The Psalmist," says Clark, "has kavvam, their line, which the LXX., and the apostle who quotes from them, render phthoggos, sound." Line means string, harpstring, a tone, a chord, and then, metonymically, sound] went out into all the earth, And their words unto the ends of the world. [It was Alford who, in this connection, discovered "that Psalm 19 is a comparison of the sun, and glory of the heavens, with the word of God. As far as verse 6 the glories of nature are described: then the great subject is taken up, and the parallelism carried out to the end. So that the apostle has not, as alleged in nearly all the commentators, merely accommodated the text allegorically, but taken it in its context, and followed the comparison of the Psalm." The light of the knowledge of God had hitherto been confined to the narrow space of Palestine, but the light of the gospel had now passed beyond these boundaries, and had begun to be as world-illuminating as the celestial orbs, and in doing this it had only fulfilled the words of David. God had done his part as thoroughly in grace as it had been done in nature, and no Jew could excuse himself at the expense of God's good name. "There is not," says Godet, expressing the sentiments of Paul, born of the memories of his own ministry, "a synagogue which has not been filled with it, not a Jew in the world who can justly plead ignorance on the subject." "When the vast multitude converted at Pentecost," says Johnson, were scattered to their homes, they carried the gospel into all parts of the civilized world." (Comp. Titus 2:11; Colossians 1:6; Colossians 1:23) This bestowal of natural light and bounty universally was more than a suggestion that God intended to bestow spiritual light and grace upon all. (Comp. Acts 14:17) "As he spake," says Calvin, "to the Gentiles by the voice of the heavens, he showed bar this prelude that he designed to make himself known at length to them also." "It was," says Hengstenberg, "a pledge of their participation in the clearer, higher revelation."]