Romans 15:12

And again, Isaiah saith, There shall be the root of Jesse, And he that ariseth to rule over the Gentiles; On him shall the Gentiles hope. [The quotations found in verses Romans 15:9-12 are presented to confirm Paul's teaching that it was God's original, eternal purpose to include the Gentiles in Israel, the passages forming a parenthesis elucidating the idea of verse 7; viz., "even as Christ received you." The first passage is from Psalms 18:49; and introduces David as confessing and praising as theocratic King under God not apart from, but among, the Gentiles. In the second, taken from Deuteronomy 32:43; Moses exhorts the Gentiles to rejoice in God together with all his people, or Israel. The third, from Psalms 117:1; repeats the thought of the second; while the last, from Isaiah 11:10; is a definite announcement of the reign of Messiah as the root of Jesse, or head of the Davidic dynasty (and hence Jewish) over the Gentiles also, and that not as a foreign oppressor, but as a hope-fulfilling native king. The great prophetic fact forecast in all these quotations is a coming day of joint praise for Jew and Gentile. What a consolation and what an aid toward patience these Scripture quotations must have been to Paul, in his work as apostle to the Gentiles! (See v. 4.) The trend of the argument toward his apostolic ministry forms a transition leading to the epistolary conclusion which follows the benediction of the thirteenth verse.]