The Insanity Of Faith: Paul’s Theological Use Of Isaiah In Romans 9:33

By Dane C. Ortlund

[Dane C. Ortlund is a Ph.D. candidate in Biblical Theology at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.]

“They have stumbled over the stumbling stone” (Rom 9:32).[1] So wrote Paul of his fellow Jews; yet the words could just as well serve as a prophetic foreshadowing of generations of post-Pauline interpreters over the apostle’s very statement. This essay considers Paul’s theological use of the OT in Rom 9:33, where he conflates Isa 8:14 and 28:16 in identifying this “stone of stumbling.” We will first examine both Isaianic texts in their original contexts. Second, we will consider the use of these two texts in intertestamental Judaism. This will lead, third, to a consideration of Rom 9:33 in its own context. All of this, fourth, will funnel into six theological implications.

The two emphases of this essay are sustained considerations of (1) the OT context from which Paul is drawing and (2) the specifically theological use of Isaiah. These two foci unite to suggest that Paul employs these Isaianic texts to explain the double-sided nature of the responses elicited by Christ—Jewish rejection and Gentile embrace—by quoting the OT in a way that is not only contextually responsible but hermeneutically illuminating and even salvation-historically required.

I. Isa 8:14 And 28:16 In Context

In order to make sense out of Paul’s conflation of Isa 8:14 and 28:16, we will examine these two texts in their own contexts, operating under the assumption that Rom 9:33 can be understood only as clearly as the passages Paul is citing are understood.[2] Such an approach is in contrast to many studies of Rom 9:33, which concentrate either on Paul’s own meaning (without due attention to the OT context from which Paul quotes) or on the pre-canonical background to Paul’s use of the OT—often in conjunction with 1 Pet 2:6-8, which quotes these same two Isaianic texts.[3]

A. Isa 8:14

Historically, Isaiah 1-39 is aimed at Isaiah’s own contemporaries in the latter years of the eighth century B.C.[4] Assyrian supremacy has leveled out due to a series of weak leaders; in the meantime, however, God’s people have capitulated to spiritual idolatry, ethical complacency, and social injustice. Chapter 8 comes during the reign of Ahaz of Judah and the terror that has overcome him in light of the Syro-Ephraimite pact threatening on Judah’s north doorstep. Yahweh declares that Judah will not be overcome, pledging the sign of Immanuel (7:14) as evidence of his promise. Yet the locus of Ahaz’s hope is not Yahweh but Assyria. Judah looks to the primary military superpower of the known world to deal with the threat from the north.

Concerning literary background, Isaiah’s public ministry begins in 7:1 as he informs Ahaz of Assyria’s impending arrival and destruction of Judah as a result of Ahaz’s misplaced trust in Assyria rather than Yahweh as well as Israel’s covenant faithlessness as a nation. As with so much of Isaiah 1-39, ch. 8 deals with the question of whether Israel will trust Yahweh or its own resources in the face of such tumultuous political uncertainties. The answer is painfully clear: because Israel has rejected the calm waters of covenant faithfulness (v. 6) they will drown in the overflowing floods of

Assyrian wrath (vv. 7-8). Yet Judah will not be completely overrun; Isaiah holds out hope:

But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken. (8:13-15)

Moving to exegesis, the MT of 8:14 reads:

והיה למקדשׁ ולאבן נגף ולצור מכשׁול לשׁני בתי ישׂראל לפח ולמוקשׁ ליושׁב ירושׁלם

And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of striking[5] and a rock of stumbling[6] to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare[7] to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Two exegetical questions, one minor and one major, can be fruitfully directed to this text. First, who is the subject of the sentence? Who is being metaphorically compared (note the five instances of the ל-prefix) to a sanctuary, a stone, a rock, a trap, and a snare? Verse 13 makes clear that it is Yahweh himself, the LORD of hosts (יהוה צבאות)—a meaningful title indeed in light of the tense military background to these chapters[8]—who is in view.[9] Despite scholarship’s virtual unanimity on this point, it is worth clarifying in light of the perplexing nature of the identity of the “stone” of 28:16.

Second, then, more substantively, what is meant by likening God to a “stone of striking” (לאבן נגף) and a “rock of stumbling” (לצור מכשׁול)? On the one hand, the foregrounded theme is undoubtedly that of judgment against God’s own people. Multiplying metaphors, God paints a picture of the punitive divine response elicited by his people’s covenant faithlessness. He will be a stone on which his people will strike their foot, trip, and fall to the ground. The same word (נגף) is used in Exod 12:13 when Yahweh says that no “striking” or “plague” will befall his people when he smites the firstborn of the Egyptians in the event that later became known as the first Passover.[10] The next phrase, “rock of stumbling,” is set in parallel to the immediately preceding “stone of striking”. for conceptual reinforcement. Driving the point home further are the next two parallels, describing Yahweh as a “trap” (פח) and “snare” (מוקשׁ) to his wayward people, a pair of nouns that occurs in Josh 23:13 as a cipher for what the nations will become to Israel if Israel forsakes God and intermarries with them. The pair also crops up in Ps 69:23 (LXX 68:23) in an imprecatory utterance against David’s enemies (cf. Rom ll:9).[11] To drive the judgment theme home still further, Isa 8:15 reiterates that “many shall stumble on” this stone; “They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.”[12]

Yet covenant judgment is a primary, not a solitary, motif. Several hints indicate that salvation is available for those who trust God. First, Yahweh’s call to his people to fear him and regard him as holy (v. 13) is largely emptied of meaning if unmitigated judgment is unavoidably imminent for all Israel without exception. Second, while vv. 14-15 spew out a litany of metaphors for the way God will become an object over which they will trip, this list begins by designating Yahweh as a “sanctuary” (מקדשׁ), the place in which God comes to dwell in the midst of the people (Exod 15:17; 25:8)—in other words, a temple. The conjunction of “sanctuary” and “stone” heightens the probability that temple imagery is in play here. Evidently Yahweh will be a sanctuary or temple for the Yahweh-trusting minority and a stone of striking for the unfaithful majority.[13] Third, Isaiah himself sounds a note of personal covenant loyalty to Yahweh in v. 17 that may serve as a kind of clarion call to his fellow countrymen to yield themselves likewise. Fourth, larger themes throughout Isaiah 1-39 indicate that a saved remnant, trusting doggedly in Yahweh against all politically evident reasons to abandon such trust, will be mercifully preserved. At times Yahweh’s deliverance is even enunciated by metaphorically describing him as a saving צור, the very image used to depict Israel’s stumbling in 8:14 (e.g., 17:10; 30:29). Becker thus speaks of the “unheilstheologische Umkehrung” of 8:14, in which a rock of refuge becomes a rock of judgment.[14] Still, even in 8:14 the salvific dimension ought not to be lost completely. Fifth, the LXX interprets 8:14 with a clearly hopeful element, inserting ἐὰν ἐπʼ αὐτῷ πεποιθὼς ᾖς into the beginning of the verse, perhaps in deliberate anticipation of Isaiah’s own declaration in v. 17 (καὶ πεποιθὼς ἔσομαι ἐπʼ αὐτῷ).[15]

The offer of hope latent in the text is not duly appreciated by all. Sweeney, for instance, while appropriately bringing out the judgment in the text, may neglect the refuge provided for those who look to Yahweh and not Assyria for security.[16] Becker rightly detects echoes from the psalms that speak of Yahweh as a “rock” for his people (e.g., Ps 18:3) but goes on to mute unnecessarily the strain of hope implicit in Isa 8:14.[17] Barthel similarly denies any detection of a Heilswort in this text.[18] Wildberger goes further, asserting that v. 14 turns faith in Yahweh into a mere illusion, while Watts’s fatalistic interpretation almost makes God appear capricious.[19] Oswalt, Jacob, and Motyer (and to a lesser degree Seitz) more satisfactorily bring out the double-sided (albeit asymmetrical) message of 8:14—Yahweh is readying his judgment to be poured out on Israel, though even now it is not too late to turn and trust in him.[20]

According to Isa 8:14, Yahweh himself will be a stone over which faithless Israelites who persist in idolatrous trust in Assyria will stumble, yet he will, as ever, remain a rock of refuge to those who trust in him.

B. Isa 28:16

Hezekiah is king in Judah as we come to Isaiah 28. The northern kingdom has been laid waste by Assyria, whose own supremacy now wavers in the wake of the death of Sargon II as Sennacherib seeks to consolidate his predecessor’s power. Egypt has offered to make a pact with Judah (as has, perhaps, Babylon—see 39:1-2). The specific backdrop to ch. 28 is Hezekiah’s indecisiveness as to whether he will sign on with Egypt or trust fully in Yahweh. In a course of events that becomes tragically predictable in the history of God’s rulers, first in the northern kingdom but also increasingly in the south, the tumultuous military and political storms of the time prove too much for Hezekiah and he capitulates to the felt security offered by Egypt.[21]

From a literary perspective, Isaiah 28 comes in the midst of a sweeping affirmation of Yahweh’s sovereign and righteous rule over all nations that began in ch. 13.[22] Yet ch. 28 begins a new section in which Isaiah drives home the utter folly, in light of this broader theme of Yahweh’s omnipotent rule, of entrusting oneself to pagan superpowers.[23] Isaiah 28:1 inaugurates a series of six woes that extend through ch. 33, climaxing in a statement of horrific judgment on all the nations (ch. 34) that contrasts with a reciprocally glorious redemption of God’s people (ch. 35). More immediately, Isaiah 28 is a judgment on God’s people, specifically the priests and prophets (v. 7), whose instruction is worthless (v. 9) and will be substituted with teaching from foreign lips (vv. 11-12). Yet Israel’s leaders remain impenitent and even boast in their false teaching (vv. 14-15). Beginning in v. 16 Yahweh responds, in what some perceive to be the climax of ch. 28.[24]

Isaiah 28:16 is rife with textual difficulties. We will address the most important of these in what follows.[25]

לכן כה אמר אדני יהוה הנני יסד בציון אבן אבן בחן פנת יקרת מוסד מוסד המאמין לא יחישׁ

Therefore thus says the Lord, Yahweh, “Behold, I found[26] in Zion a stone, a tested[27] stone, a costly cornerstone for the foundation,[28] firmly founded;[29] the one who trusts[30] will not be in haste.[31]

A single exegetical question gets at the heart of this verse: who or what is the stone? This text, like 8:14, probably has connotations of the temple, which would have been the primary referent in mind concerning a “costly cornerstone.”[32] Perhaps 28:16 is an intratextual development of 8:14—as Wagner has ably argued.[33] The immediate question, however, is whether the stone is more than merely a cipher for the temple. In 8:14 the stone is transparently Yahweh; in 28:16, however, Yahweh is the one speaking, declaring that he will lay this stone in Zion. If he is laying the stone, the stone cannot be Yahweh himself.

Or can it? Cheyne, Clements and Seitz do indeed see Yahweh as the stone.[34] Others disagree. Brueggemann and Wildberger believe the stone is faith,[35] Alexander and Young the Messiah,[36] Oss the faithful remnant,[37] Watts the Davidic house or the temple,[38] and Motyer cannot decide between Zion, Yahweh himself, or the Davidic promise.[39] Others resist precise identification of the stone—for which they can hardly be blamed![40] The very multiformity of opinions cautions us against latching too quickly onto one option to the exclusion of others. We suggest that the common denominator to the sanest interpretations of the stone is that of promised divine security appropriated by self-abandoning trust in the face of humanly insurmountable opposition. One may acknowledge the temple connotations of 28:16 without concretizing the precise identity of this stone in order to grasp this fundamental point. Childs helpfully takes the whole canonical book of Isaiah into account and reads 28:16 in light of it:

The symbolism of the stone encompasses the reality of the new community, a faithful remnant, which is a foretaste of the coming righteous reign of God and which is ushered in by the promised messianic rule of Zion.[41]

Three elements comprise our articulation of the essence of what this stone represents. First, “promised divine security” is communicated in Yahweh’s declaration:

הנני יסד בציון אבן אבן פנת יקרת מוסד מוסד

Behold, I found in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly founded.

We have already noted the emphatic first person singular of both the pointing of the MT and the use of ἐγώ in the LXX. Grammatical conclusions aside, God undeniably piles up the metaphors to express the unshakable and precious nature of the cornerstone he is laying in Zion.[42]

Second, this security is “appropriated by self-abandoning trust.” Verse 16 ends with המאמין לא יחישׁ, “the one who trusts (in him/it) will not be in haste.”[43] Confronting God’s people are two choices: frenetic, self-resourced appeal to Egypt, on the one hand, or quiet, submissive trust in the covenant Lord on the other. The former looks horizontally for help, to the human plane; the latter vertically, to the divine plane. The point, moreover, is not that security comes from building firmly but from looking to the one who is building/has built firmly.[44] Yet Yahweh’s call is for more than patience.[45] It is a call to yield oneself wholly to God’s covenant promises to Zion in the face of immediate, palpable, and overwhelming opposition. It is a call to the insanity of faith.

This brings us to the third element of what the stone represents—trust that is activated “in the face of humanly insurmountable opposition.” Assyria loomed; Egypt offered assistance. Nothing could be more intuitively reasonable than to seize this opportunity for political and military consolidation. What other (realistic) hope was there?

In sum, Isa 28:16, like 8:14, contains both a redemptive and a punitive dimension.[46] Yet the relative emphasis of these two elements in ch. 28 is the polar opposite of that in ch. 8, where the note of judgment sounds loudest. While the context of ch. 28 is largely one of judgment, the dominant note of v. 16 is that of faith-appropriated security.

II. Isa 8:14 And 28:16 In Intertestamental Judaism

The foregoing analysis leads us to ask how Jews subsequently understood these two Isaianic texts.

Reflection upon Isa 8:14 is meager.[47] The only unambiguous reference is b. Sank. 38a. This Mishnaic tractate speaks of two sons of a rabbi whose silence during a meal prompts their father to bring them more wine (a parental tactic not duly appreciated around my own dinner table growing up). Upon loosening up, the sons announce that “David will not come until the two houses of patriarchal authority come to an end,” explaining that they are referring to the head of the exile in Babylon and the leader in Israel. This is then grounded by quoting Isa 8:14 (presumably focusing on לשׁני בתי ישׂראל toward the end of the verse). All that can be confidently concluded is that Isa 8:14 is here understood in an eschatological sense, probably messianically, referring to the restoration of the Davidic house.[48]

Isaiah 28:16 figures more prominently in the Jewish literature, most notably in Qumran.[49] Not surprisingly, the Scrolls identify their own community as the stability-providing cornerstone of Isaiah. The clearest citation is in the Community Rule, where we read that the community (or possibly its leaders: see IQS 8:1)

will be the tested wall, the precious cornerstone [היאה חומת הבחן פנת יקר], whose foundations shall neither be shaken nor swayed ... a fortress, a Holy of Holies for Aaron, all of them knowing the Covenant of Justice and thereby offering a sweet savor. They shall be a blameless and true house in Israel, upholding . . . the covenant of eternal statutes. (IQS 8:7-10)

This text appropriates Isa 28:16 to portray the eschatologically foundation-laying role played by the Qumran community.[50] Less clear is the possible allusion in IQS 5:5-6, which speaks of community members “establishing a foundation of truth [ליסד מוסד אמת] for Israel. . . . They are to atone for all those in Aaron who volunteer for holiness, and to those who belong to the house of truth in Israel.”[51] Yet in both texts, interestingly, we find temple imagery (“a Holy of Holies for Aaron”; “house [בית] of truth”), a theological implication already noted in our analysis of both Isa 8:14 and 28:16 and which will be picked up below once again.[52]

The Thanksgiving Hymns contain a few allusions to Isa 28:16. At one point the hymnist says that God “set a foundation upon the rock, and beams upon a just measuring line, [inspecting the tested stones [אבני בחן] with a tr[ue] plumb line so as to build a strong [wall] which shall not be shaken” (1QH 6:26-27). Isaiah 28 may also be in mind in the next hymn, which blesses God thus:

You have strengthened me before the wars of wickedness, and in all their devastation you have not shattered me for the sake of your covenant. You set me up as a strong tower; as a high wall. Upon the rock you have established my frame, and eternal foundations for my footing. All my walls are tested walls [להנמת בחן], which will not be shaken. (1QH 7:7-9)

Williams claims that a few references to Isa 28:16 can also be found in the rabbis, yet on close inspection his propositions appear improbable.[53] The reference in b. Yoma 54a to the foundations of the world being laid as a cornerstone is closer to Job 38:6 than anything in Isaiah. Likewise, his example of Num. Rab. 12:4 speaks of the foundation of the world in light of Ps 50:2; nothing in Isaiah appears to be in the immediate purview.

In brief, intertestamental Judaism occasionally employs these Isaianic texts to refer to the eschatological hope of the future, with either the Messiah or the Jewish community itself in view, and often in conjunction with temple imagery.

III. Isa 8:14 And 28:16 In Rom 9:33

The precise role chs. 9-11 play in the flow of Romans has been a subject of much debate in recent decades and need not detain us here. While previous generations of interpreters viewed these chapters as peripheral to the letter’s central burdens, and James Dunn considers it now to be the “dominant view” and “consensus position” that 9-11 form the climax of Romans,[54] a more satisfactory description of these chapters is to consider them neither as parenthetical nor as climactic but as “integral” to the epistle as a whole.[55]

For our purposes we focus primarily on the flow of thought of this section itself. The thematically crucial statement of these three chapters is 9:6a, in which the apostle affirms that God’s word to Israel has not failed. The remainder of chs. 9-11 is a demonstration of this overarching point.[56] While it would be artificial to extract from these chapters a decontextualized “discussion de caractere proprement dogmatique”[57] of the theological tension of divine sovereignty (Romans 9) and human responsibility (Romans 10), it is clear that Paul’s first strategy for defending God’s faithfulness to his covenant people is by focusing on his own inscrutable and unilateral election (9:6-29) before following up with a forceful indictment of Israel’s rejection of Jesus as the Christ (9:30-10:21).[58] Chapter 11 then affirms the presence of a remnant among ethnic Israel and underscores the mutual humility appropriate to the heilsgeschichtliche role of both Jews and Gentiles. Throughout all three chapters Paul pervasively draws from his Hebrew Scriptures, more so than in any other comparable portion in the Pauline corpus—Hubner amasses over one hundred quotations and allusions from Romans 9-11.[59]

Zeroing in on ch. 9, an opening section expresses Paul’s anguish over the widespread failure of his fellow Jews to embrace Jesus as Messiah (v. 5) in spite of the profuse advantages of being God’s covenant people (9:3-5; cf. 3:1-8). Denying the failure of the word (= promises[60]) of God (9:6a), Paul explains that a true Israel exists within ethnic Israel (9:6b), establishing this by going back to the patriarchs themselves. He points out that God’s covenant promises traveled down one side of Abraham’s offspring (Isaac and Jacob) but not the other (Ishmael and Esau). This leads to a defense of God’s righteousness (9:14), rooted in his absolute right to do as he wills, as demonstrated in the divine hardening of Pharaoh’s heart (9:15-23). Paul then integrates his impassioned theodicy with the surprising extension of mercy to Gentiles, establishing this Gentile inclusion with OT support from Hosea and Isaiah (9:24-29).

All this brings Paul to reflect in a conclusive way (τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν, 9:30) on the implications of what he has been saying in 9:1-29, providing one of the most striking passages in the Pauline corpus as “the scandalous inversions”[61] of Romans 9 are brought to a head:

What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law of righteousness[62] did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.[63] They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever[64] believes in him will not be put to shame.” (9:30-33)

Probably deliberately employing the language of a race,[65] Paul shocks not only the sensibilities of his Jewish readers but also the moral universe of all who intuitively believe there to be a discernable correlation between obedience (“pursuit of the law,” v. 31; “works,” v. 32) and divine approbation, turning upside down the notion that discharging the law obtains corresponding approval before God.[66] The question, then, is how it can be that Gentiles, not pursuing righteousness, have attained it, while Jews, pursuing a law of righteousness, have not.[67] Paul explains this outrageous state of affairs in v. 32 by pinpointing the manner in which each respective group pursued righteousness—Gentiles “by faith” (ἐκ πίστεως), Jews “as of works” (ὡς ἐξ ἔργων).[68] The apostle then grounds the failure of the Jews by recourse to the two Isaiah texts which, according to Wagner, “anchor his entire argument” in 9:30-10:4.[69] “They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame’” (9:32b-33). In pursuing the law by works, Israel has tripped over a divinely-placed stone in the middle of the path, as foretold in Isaiah’s ancient prophecy.

This brings us to the brink, then, of turning to the ultimate purpose of this paper, in which we will flesh out the meaning of Rom 9:33 by specifically considering Paul’s theological use of Isaiah. Before doing so, however, two textual matters bear mentioning that have not yet surfaced in our discussion. More sustained analyses of these textual complexities can be found elsewhere.[70]

First, both Paul and Peter, against the LXX, use τίθημι instead of ἐμβάλλω in quoting Isa 28:16. The significance of this distinction is not primarily interpretative but textual, indicating that Paul seems to be relying either on a pre-Pauline Christian formula[71] or constructing his own translation from the MT; either way he is likely not self-consciously relying on the LXX.[72] Indeed, Paul and Peter consistently agree with one another, strikingly if not completely (Peter is slightly closer to the LXX than Paul). Both are closer to the sense of the MT than any LXX version.[73] Does the similarity of Rom 9:33 to 1 Peter 2, against the LXX, suggest that Paul was drawing on some kind of testimonium? Ellis, drawing on Dodd, believes so.[74] The textual evidence makes it difficult to disagree, yet it would be forced to insist on a pre-Pauline written collection of testimonia. Orally transmitted testimonia would account for Dodd’s identification of frequent references to a small number of OT contexts while also allowing for the minor divergences between Romans 9 and 1 Peter 2.

Second, the LXX renders the MT’s יָחִישׁ (he will be in haste) with καταισχυνθῇ (he will be ashamed), prompting some to propose יבושׁ (he will be ashamed) as the original Hebrew reading.[75] Yet a strict disjunction between “be in haste” and “be ashamed” is not required.[76] Though the LXX translator is doing some interpretation here—Koch is not wrong to call it a “vollig freien Paraphrase”[77]—the semantic disruption caused thereby ought not to be exaggerated. Shame, a recurring Isaianic theme, is frequently associated with stressful “haste.” Throughout Isaiah 29-30, for instance, Isaiah speaks of the shame that will result if Judah frantically seeks refuge from Assyria in Egypt (e.g., 30:3-5).[7]8 Frenetic busyness, moreover, as Luther argued, might be seen as the natural (external) result of (internal) shame.[79]

A closing comment is in order in light of textual tensions identified here and throughout this study: we must humbly allow for fluidity as we read these ancient texts and consider how they were handled and reproduced. The linguistic anxiety some scholars feel over textual discrepancies is largely needless. There is a kind of exegetical “being in haste” that stumbles over the LXX’s and Paul’s failure to reproduce earlier texts down to every jot and tittle that may align more with post-Enlightenment concerns of textual reproduction than the way biblical authors actually drew from earlier sources.[80]

IV. Theological Synthesis

We arrive then at the ultimate purpose of this essay. All that has been said to this point funnels into the following six theological observations emerging from Paul’s use of Isaiah in Rom 9:33.

First, hermeneutically, Paul respects the meaning of Isaiah in its original contexts, yet allows the text to be appropriately transformed in light of the Christ event. According to Fitzmyer, Rom 9:33 “disregards the contexts of the original and makes the OT say almost the exact opposite of what it actually does say.”[81] Hiibner similarly believes of Paul that “er den urspninglichen Sinn von Jes 28,16 verkehrt.”[82] Koch and Stanley, though more moderate, comment likewise.[83] Yet are mechanical reproduction of meaning and outright contradiction our only two options such that if we fail to find the former we must conclude the latter? Might a third possibility exist— that of filling out the OT meaning? To be sure, Paul does not mechanically reproduce the original sense. Rather, he reads the OT with what Francis Watson has called “the hermeneutics of faith”— better, the hermeneutics of christologically circumscribed faith. For Paul, Jesus Christ is the pinnacle at which the biblical drama culminates and the filter through which all redemptive history passes.[84] Christ came “as a plan [εἰς οἰκονομίαν] for the fullness of time, to unite [ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι] all things in him” (Eph 1:10). To read an Isaianic divine promise of a firm foundation laid in Zion and requiring faith from God’s people as ultimately realized in Jesus Christ—especially as other early Christian traditions identified Christ as the cornerstone rejected by the builders (Ps 118:22; 1 Pet 2:7; cf. Eph 2:20)—is not freewheeling hermeneutical gymnastics but the kind of retrospective interpretative connecting of the dots required by the “inner teleological reference”[85] of the OT itself as well as by the architectonic shift of the aeons inaugurated in Christ’s first coming.

Second, soteriologically, both Isaianic texts offer salvation in the midst of a larger context of judgment. The stone is double-edged; it cuts two ways.[86] To those who seek refuge in God, the stone is a sanctuary and a sure foundation; to those who take refuge in the more palpable, visible, and concrete assistance of human might, the stone is a trap and a snare, and life remains frenetic. Yet the double-edged nature of these texts comes through even more strongly in Paul’s use of them, as he takes the harshest portion of Isa 8:14 and places it squarely amidst the most comforting words of Isa 28:16.[87] Paul’s gospel lands on people in polar opposite ways, depending on whether it meets with persistence in self-salvation or openness to self-divestment—one the aroma of death, the other the aroma of life.

Third, ecclesiologically; Paul corrals these passages from Isaiah into his impressive repertoire of OT texts legitimating his controversial mission to the Gentiles.[88] Reading Isaiah’s assurance that “the one who believes (in him/it) will not be put to shame,” Paul notes that the prophet did not write, “the one born into God’s covenant people will not be put to shame.” Since anyone can believe, anyone can partake of the Isaianic promises. This is underlined in Rom 10:11, where, on his way to showing that “there is no distinction between Jew and Greek” (v. 12), Paul reproduces once more the latter clause of Isa 28:16, though with one crucial (and unanimously attested) addition: “everyone [πᾶς] who believes in him will not be put to shame.”[89]

Fourth, anthropologically, Paul’s use of this Isaianic conflation underscores his pessimistic view of human moral capacity outside of Christ.[90] Yet this skepticism is not here rooted in Jewish transgression of the law. Paul’s criticism of his fellow Jews in Rom 9:30-10:4 concerns not a disdain for righteousness but their quest for it.[91] The call to faith here is not primarily the faith that counts on forgiveness for sins but the faith that, looking to God, resists the inveterate human proclivity to strengthen divine approbation with moral contribution. Israel pursued a law of righteousness (9:31); they had a zeal for God (10:2). What was missing? These otherwise laudable efforts were undertaken “as of works” (9:32); their zeal was “without knowledge” of God’s freely granted righteousness (10:3). This broader context (9:30-10:4) must appropriately illumine our understanding of Paul’s use of Isaiah, for explications of the quotation of 9:33 often fail to sufficiently incorporate its prompting in v. 32.[92] The Jews were not pursuing the νόμος δικαιοςύνης “by faith, but as if it were based on works”—and then, immediately: “They have stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written . . .” (vv. 32b-33a). It is an anthropological concern—Paul’s reflection on the wrongheaded manner of pursuing the law, and the need for faith—that launches him into his use of Isaiah.[93] This use points us away, moreover, from interpreting Israel’s main error in 9:30-10:4 as ethnic exclusivism.[94] The alternative to faith in Isaiah 8 and 28 is not social presumptuousness rooted in racial lineage and sustained by observance of ethnically distinguishing badges, but rather self-resourced deliverance: looking to human might, one’s own or that of other nations, for security.[95] Faith, for Isaiah and for Paul, is, at its core, trusting God’s promises against all odds.[96]

Fifth, christologically, Paul roots the error of his fellow Jews not only in the anthropological mistake of unbelief but also in their relation to Christ.[97] The stone over which they stumbled was Christ himself.[98] A minority argues that the stone in Rom 9:33 is the Torah,[99] and occasionally one stumbles (!) upon more idiosyncratic stand-alone proposals.[100] Yet Christ appears to be the stone due to (1) the way Paul places πιστεύων ἐπʼ αὐτῷ in apposition to the λίθος;[101] (2) the clear articulation of Jesus as the stone in 10:9-11;[102] and (3) the interpretative precedent set by the Targum, which speaks of the stone as a messianic king.[103] And Israel has stumbled over Christ, not “believing in him.” We must be more precise, however; emphasizing “believes in him,” Sanders can agree that the stone is Christ while seeing the Jews’ error simply as one of salvation-historical failure to recognize Jesus’ messianic status.[104] That is, Sanders develops the christological error but denies the organically connected anthropological error. We must also note, therefore, “believes in him”—the anthropological implication noted above must be integrated with our christological observation. Paul not only identifies Christ as Messiah but also affirms that the way Christ becomes Messiah for anyone in particular is by trusting in him.[105]

Sixth, salvation-historically—and drawing to a head all that has been said in this essay—Jesus Christ is the Isaianic stone not only because he is the explicit object of new covenant trust but also because Christ recapitulates in himself all that was associated with the Isaianic stone.[106] Two important OT themes surface in Isa 28:16: temple (in the reference to the cornerstone, picked up again in Qumran) and Davidic promise (in the reference to Zion).[107] In Christ the cornerstone, the original purpose of the temple, the presence of a holy God in the midst of a sinful people, has been decisively accomplished. And in Christ the Son of David, the promised eternal Davidic king in Zion has been decisively installed. Christ is the integrative center of human history, the one without whom the biblical covenants, the tabernacle and temple, the Davidic monarchy—indeed, all of redemptive history—become disparate puzzle pieces with no meaningful organic inter-connection. As the consummate “stone,” Jesus Christ is the embodied realization of the “temple” that began in Eden and will be consummated in the Zion to come, the new earth, where all of God’s people will have free and direct access to the Son of David.[108] Christ is the stone par excellence, the living incarnation of all that toward which the Isaianic stone pointed.

God (for Isaiah) in Christ (for Paul) is a stone of stumbling for those who live out of the deceptive assurances of self-generated security. But those who counterintuitively look beyond themselves for such stability find themselves fastened firmly to the most unassailable refuge possible—Jesus Christ, risen and vindicated.[109]

Notes

1. Scripture references are taken from the ESV unless otherwise indicated.
2. In general accord with the argument of C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology (London: Nisbet, 1952), 126. The most noteworthy analysis of Rom 9:33 taking OT context into account is that of J. Ross Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul in Concert in the Letter to the Romans (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 136-57. Broadly speaking, two poles can be detected in the current state of study of Paul’s use of the OT, with much scholarship falling in between. On one side, Francis Watson argues that Paul did not possess his own free-floating theological system for which the OT served as mere validation; rather, the OT was itself generative of the apostle’s theology (Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2004], esp. 42-43, 528; idem, “Scripture in Pauline Theology: How Far Down Does It Go?” Journal of Theological Interpretation 2 [2008]: 181-92). At the other end of the spectrum is Christopher D. Stanley, who studies Paul’s use of the OT to determine how Paul pragmatically utilizes the OT to motivate thought/behavior modification in his readers on his way to resolving a particular “rhetorical urgency” (Arguing with Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of Paul [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2004], esp. 171-83; cf. James W. Aageson, “Scripture and Structure in the Development of the Argument in Romans 9-11,” CBQ 48 [1986]: 265-89). The present study falls generally under the former approach.
3. E.g., Anders Nygren, Commentary on Romans (trans. Carl C. Rasmussen; Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1949), 377-78; Thomas R. Schreiner, “Israel’s Failure to Attain Righteousness in Romans 9:30-10:3,” TJ (1991): 214; Brendan Byrne, Romans (SP 6; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1996), 310-11; Shiu-Lun Shum, Paul’s Use of Isaiah in Romans: A Comparative Study of Paul’s Letter to the Romans and the Sibylline and Qumran Sectarian Texts (WUNT 2/156; Tubingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2002), 212-19.
4. Because both Isaianic texts with which we will deal are found in Isaiah 1-39, we forego discussion of the compositional unity of the book. Those who take the form of the text to be formed across several centuries generally agree that the chapters with which we are concerned date from the eighth century (e.g., Marvin A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1-39 with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature [FOTL 16; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996], 51), even if only in seed form (e.g., Uwe Becker, Jesaja—von der Botschaft zum Buch [FRLANT 178; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997], 110-11).
5. לאבן נגף; ESV: “a stone of offense”; NASB: “a stone to strike”; NIV: “a stone that causes men to stumble”; NKJV, “a stone of stumbling.”
6. לצור מכשׁול; ESV: “a rock of stumbling”; NASB: “a rock to stumble over”; NIV: “a rock that makes them fall”; NKJV: “a rock of offense.”
7. There may be a wordplay between the audibly similar yet semantically opposite מקדשׁ (sanctuary) and מוקשׁ (snare). For other wordplays and instances of alliteration in vv. 12-15 see Edmond Jacob, Esaie 1-12 (CAT 8a; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1987), 130.
8. As Walter Brueggemann notes (Isaiah 1-39 [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1998], 78).
9. An unlikely textual emendation in v. 13 seeks to smooth out the contrast in vv. 12-13 between fear of conspiracy and Yahweh’s holiness; for discussion see John D. W. Watts, Isaiah 1-33 (WBC 24; Waco: Word, 1985), 119; Childs, Isaiah, 75} Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 1-12: A Commentary (trans. Thomas H. Trapp; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 355; Jorg Barthel, Prophetenwort und Geschichte: Die Jesajaiiberlieferung in Jes 6-8 und 28-31 (FAT 19; Tubingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1997), 216-17.
10. Cf. BDB 620. See also Num 8:19; 16:46, 47 (LXX 17:11,12); Josh 22:17. In all four of these latter instances a plague is clearly in view.
11. פח and מוקשׁ occur together also in Amos 3:5 but not in a way that sheds light on the present discussion.
12. Some relate the holiness of the sanctuary (מקדשׁ) here in 8:14 to the holiness (קדושׁ) depicted in 6:1-11 (e.g., Becker, Jesaja, 112; Barthel, Prophetenwort und Geschichte, 226).
13. So John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (trans. William Pringle; 2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 1:279-80; Mark Seifrid, “Romans,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (ed. D. A. Carson and G. K. Beale; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 651; R. T. France, Jesus and the Old Testament: His Application of Old Testament Passages to Himself and His Mission (repr.; Vancouver, B.C.: Regent College Publishing, 1998), 152; J. Ross Wagner, “Isaiah in Romans and Galatians,” in Isaiah in the New Testament (ed. Steve Moyise and Maarten J. J. Menken; The New Testament and the Scriptures of Israel; New York: T & T Clark, 2005), 122.
14. Jesaja, 112.
15. Cf. Wagner, Heralds, 140-41. The LXX text we have consulted is Joseph Ziegler, ed., Isaias (3d ed.; Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graeca 14; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983).
16. Isaiah 1-39,169.
17. Jesaja, 112.
18. Prophetenwort und Geschichte, 219 n. 14.
19. Wildberger, Isaiah 1-12, 359; Watts, Isaiah 1-33,121.
20. John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah (2 vols.; NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986, 1988), 1:234; Jacob, Esaie 1-12,131; Motyer, Isaiah, 95; Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1-39 (Int; Louisville: John Knox, 1993), 82-83. H. H. Drake Williams III detects messianic overtones in 8:14 but does not pursue the comparison (The Wisdom of the Wise: The Presence and Function of Scripture within 1 Cor. 1:18-3:23 [AGJU 49; Leiden: Brill, 2001], 60).
21. On the proposed historical reconstruction, see Ronald E. Clements, Isaiah 1-39 (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 230; Motyer, Isaiah, 20, 227; Childs, Isaiah, 208. Sweeney sees v. 16 as dating to Hezekiah and the eighth century despite seeing the final form of ch. 28 as a whole as a composite text from the fifth century (Isaiah 1-39, 367).
22. Oswalt, Isaiah, 1:296-627; cf. Motyer, Isaiah, 227.
23. See Oswalt, Isaiah, 1:501-606.
24. E.g., J. J. M. Roberts, “Yahweh’s Foundation in Zion (Isa 28:16),” JBL 106 (1987): 27.
25. For a full discussion see Roberts, “Yahweh’s Foundation,” 27-37.
26. So BDB 414; piel of יסד (for an earlier conjunction of יהוה, יוד, and ציון, see 14:32). It is syntactically perplexing why a third person perfect verb (the MT points יסד as יִסַּד) follows הנני, a first person suffix. Many (most strongly Roberts, “Yahweh’s Foundation,” 27-29) emend the MT pointing to participial form (יסֵד), which is what we find in Qumran (lQIsaa has the piel participle, lQIsab the qal participle) and which may be more in line with the sense of the LXX’s ἐμβαλῶ (Theodotion, Aquila, and Symmachus have the present participle θεμελιῶν) and the Vulgate’s ego mittam (first person singular future active indicative of mitto). The MT pointing remains slightly preferable, however, for three reasons: (1) It is the lectio difficilior. (2) Other similar syntactic constructions can be found in the relatively near context of Isaiah; 29:14 and 38:5, e.g., read הִנְנִי יוֹסִף, both of which are third person imperfects following “03n. (3) Though the LXX translates with a first person future (ἐμβαλῶ), it emphatically fronts the relative pronoun (ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἐμβαλῶ) in a way that directs attention not so much to the time of the foundation-laying but the agent (Yahweh)—precisely where the emphasis lies in the Hebrew if we retain the MT pointing (“Behold, I am the one who has founded . . .”) as well as in the Syriac of the Peshitta. See Leo Laberge, La Septante d’lsaie 28-33: Etude de tradition textuelle (Ottawa: Chez l’auteur, 1978), 10; Hans Hiibner, Gottes Ich und Israel: Zum Schriftgebrauch des Paulus in Romer 9-11 (FRLANT 136; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), 69; Calvin, Isaiah, 289; William H. Irwin, Isaiah 28-33: Translation with Philological Notes (BibOr 30; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1977), 30-31; Theobald, Studien zum Rbmerbrief, 338.
27. בחן: An OT hapax; BDB speaks of it as “approved for use as a foundation-stone” (103). Much has been written in pursuit of the etymology of the word, with little consensus; the most common conclusion is some association with an Egyptian loanword, though even here disagreement exists over which one (see Roberts, “Yahweh’s Foundation,” 30-32; cf. Clements, Isaiah 1-39, 231; Wildberger, Isaiah 28-39,30-31). Etymological concerns aside, the sense of the text is not in dispute: the בחןserved in some capacity as a foundation stone or a stone against the strength of which other stones were tested.
28. On this rendering see Roberts, “Yahweh’s Foundation,,, 34.
29. We deliberately bring out the thrice-used יסד (“I found . . . foundation, firmly founded”). See BDB 413-14; F. F. Bruce, “The Corner Stone,” ExpTim 84 (1973): 231.
30. Perhaps, implicitly, “who trusts in it” (the tested cornerstone); so most translations. See Roberts, “Yahweh’s Foundation,” 36. The LXX (except B) explicitly adds ἐπʼ αὐτῷ; see below.
31. חושׁ is used in 1QS 8:8, which says that the foundations “will not יחישׁו from their place.” Donald W. Parry and Emmanuel Tov translate as “shall neither be shaken nor swayed” (The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader [6 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2004-2005], 1:33; cf. Roberts, “Yahweh’s Foundation,” 36, who inappropriately applies this description to the foundation rather than the one trusting. Such an interpretation cuts against the sense of the syntax, which places Win at the end of the sentence, presumably as a modifier of המאמין; cf. LXX’s similar placement of οὐ μὴ καταισχυνθῇ; rightly Seitz, Isaiah, 209). Still, the overwhelming majority of instances of Win clearly refer to being in haste (see BDB 301), and the image of being in haste—”a hectic and feverish existence” (Oswalt, Isaiah, 1:519)—fits the context nicely.
32. Karlheinz Miiller, Anstofi und Gericht: Eine Studie zum judischen Hintergrund des paulinischen Skandalon-Begriffs (SANT 19; Munich: Kosel, 1969), 77; Seifrid, “Romans,” 651.
33. Wagner, Heralds, 145-51.
34. Thomas K. Cheyne, The Prophecies of Isaiah (2 vols.; 5th ed.; London: Kegan Paul, Trench, 1889), 1:166; Clements, Isaiah 1-39, 231; Seitz, Isaiah 1-39, 209.
35. Brueggemann, Isaiah 1-39, 226; Wildberger, Isaiah 28-39,42.
36. J. A. Alexander, Commentary on Isaiah (2 vols.; New York: Scribner’s, 1867), 1:454; Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah (3 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969), 2:288.
37. Douglas A. Oss, “The Interpretation of the ‘Stone’ Passage by Peter and Paul: A Comparative Study,” JETS 32 (1989): 188.
38. Isaiah 1-33, 370.
39. Isaiah, 233.
40. E.g., Brueggemann, Isaiah 1-39,226.
41. Isaiah, 209-10. Oswalt comments similarly (Isaiah, 1:518).
42. See Laberge, La Septante d’lsaie 28-33,10; Brueggemann, Isaiah 1-39, 226.
43. Perhaps the cornerstone’s inscription, a practice not uncommon in ancient architecture; see A. S. Herbert, Isaiah 1-39 (CBC; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 164; Clements, Isaiah 1-39, 231. Others (e.g., Oswalt, Isaiah, 1:519) are more cautious about such a claim.
44. Contra Clements, Isaiah 1-39, 231; rightly Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics (ed. John Bolt; trans. John Vriend; 4 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003-2008), 4:104.
45. Contra Alexander, Isaiah, 455; Watts, Isaiah 1-33,370.
46. Rightly Oswalt, Isaiah, 1:517; Childs, Isaiah, 208. Contra Hubner, who neglects the undertones of judgment in Isaiah 28 (Gottes Ich und Israel, 68-69); yet also contra Wildberger, who speaks of 28:16 as strictly judgment (Isaiah 28-39,41-42).
47. See Jeremias, “Λίθος,” TDNT 4:272-73; Barrett, “Fall and Responsibility,” 111-12; Seifrid, “Romans,” 652.
48. So N. T. Wright, “Romans” (NIB 10; Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), 650. We have followed the translation of Jacob Neusner in The Babylonian Talmud: A Translation and Commentary, Vol. 16: Sanhedrin (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2005), 186; cf. idem, Isaiah in Talmud and Midrash (Studies in Judaism; Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2007), 646.
49. We generally follow the translations of Parry and Tov, Dead Sea Scrolls Reader.
50. So Roberts, “Yahweh’s Foundation,” 31-32; Otto Betz, Offenbarung und Schriftforschung in der Qumransekte (WUNT 6; Tubingen: Mohr/Siebeck, I960), 158-61; Williams, Wisdom of the Wise, 82; Shum, Isaiah in Romans, 108-11.
51. Cf. Williams, Wisdom of the Wise, 83-84.
52. On temple imagery in IQS 8:1-10, see Seifrid, “Romans,” 652.
53. Wisdom of the Wise, 85.
54. James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 501.
55. The word “integral” is used in this way by E. Earle Ellis, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1957), 122; C. K. Barrett, “Romans 9.30-10.21: Fall and Responsibility of Israel,” in Die Israelfrage nach Rom 9-11 (ed. Lorenzo De Lorenzi; MRvB.BOA 3; Rome: Abtei von St Paul vor den Mauern, 1977), 99; Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 547; and Michael Bird, The Saving Righteousness of God: Studies on Paul, Justification, and the New Perspective (Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf & Stock, 2007), 149. J. R. Daniel Kirk (Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008], 161) calls chs. 9-11 climactic, though his attribution of this view to Moo for support is puzzling, as Moo explicitly states that “to call Rom. 9-11 the climax or center of the letter is going too far” (Romans, 551).
56. So James D. G. Dunn, Romans (2 vols.; WBC 38B; Waco: Word, 1988), 2:539; idem, Theology of Paul, 501 (occasionally Dunn describes 9:6 as the climax of the entire epistle [ibid., 169; cf. 502]); Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans (BECNT; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 491; Michael Theobald, Studien zum Romerbrief (WUNT 136; Tubingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2001), 335-36; Robert Jewett, Romans (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 571. Hubner emphasizes the “theologische Problematik” that Paul raises in 9:6 ff., which is not to be neglected by the more transparent preoccupation with ethnic Israel—though his assertion that “geht es nur sekundar um Israel, primar aber geht es um Gott” is probably overstated (Gottes Ich und Israel, 16; emphasis original).
57. Pierre Benoit, “Conclusion par mode de synthese,” in Die Israelfrage, 218. Also Moo, Romans, 548. As John Piper notes, taking due account of 9:1-5 helps prevent an ahistorical reading of the rest of ch. 9 (The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23 [2d ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993], 48).
58. On a move from an emphasis on divine sovereignty to human responsibility, see Barrett, “Fall and Responsibility,” 99-104; Paul Althaus, Der Brief an die Romer (13th ed.; NTD 6; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), 106; Hubner, Gottes Ich und Israel, 60; P. M-J. Lagrange, Saint Paul epitre aux Romains (5th ed.; EBib; Paris: Gabalda, 1950), 244-48; Stanislas Lyonnet, “Predestination et reprobation selon Rom 9,” in Etudes sur I’Epitre aux Romains (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1989), 274-97; Franz-J. Leenhardt, Uepitre de saint Paul aux Romains (CNT 2/6; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1995), 149; Simon Legasse, Uepitre de Paul aux Romains (LD Commentaires 10; Paris: Cerf, 2002), 628. Richard B. Hays’s suggestion that 9:30-10:21 is parenthetical to Romans 9-11 unhelpfully shifts the weight of these chapters to 9 and 11 (Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989], 75).
59. Gottes Ich und Israel, 149-60.
60. So Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (trans. J. Theodore Mueller; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1954), 121; Hubner, Gottes Ich und Israel, 15-17; Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 352; Dunn, Romans, 2:538-39; Moo, Romans, 573; Schreiner, Romans, 491.
61. Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 67.
62. We have altered the ESV’s interpretative translation “law that would lead to righteousness” (νόμους δικαιοςύνης) to “law of righteousness”; see fn. 67.
63. Several mss (אc D K P Ψ 81 614 Byz Lect itd syrp,h,pal goth arm) add νόμου after ἔργων, likely a scribal addition prompted by the existence of this full phrase in 3:20, 28. The shorter reading is better attested (P46א* A B G 1739 itar,b,f,g,mon,o vg copsa,bo). Cf. Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2d ed.; Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1994), 462-63.
64. Some mss (K P Ψ 88 326 614 1739 Byz Lect it dc vg syrh arm) add πᾶς after καί in the final clause of v. 33 (in accord with 10:11, the versions of which unanimously include πᾶς). Its exclusion in 9:33 is to be preferred (so א A B D G 81 1881 itd*,g syrp,pal copsa,bo goth eth); see Metzger, Textual Commentary, 463.
65. Gently denied by Moo, Romans, 621 n. 22; cautiously affirmed by Dunn, Romans, 2:580; confidently affirmed by most: e.g., Ulrich Wilckens, Die Brief an die Romer (3 vols.; 2d ed.; EKK 6; Zurich: Benziger, 1978), 2:211-12; Heinrich Schlier, Der Romerbrief: Kommentar (HTKNT 6; Leipzig: St. Benno, 1978), 306; Paul Meyer, “Romans 10:4 and the End of the Law,” in The Divine Helmsman: Studies on God’s Control of Human Events Presented to Lou H. Silberman (ed. James L. Crenshaw and Samuel Sandmel; New York: KTAV, 1980), 62-64; Frank Thielman, Paul and the Law: A Contextual Approach (Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity, 1994), 205-8; Leenhardt, Romains, 149; Byrne, Romans, 310; Schreiner, Romans, 536-37; Wagner, Heralds, 120-21, 124; Martin Brandl, Der Agon bei Paulus: Herkunft und Profil paulinischer Agonmetaphorik (WUNT 2/222; Tubingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2006), 286-88; David J. Southall, Rediscovering Righteousness in Romans: Personified dikaiosyne within Metaphoric and Narratorial Settings (WUNT 2/240; Tubingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2008), 159-65.
66. Understanding “works” here to refer fundamentally to obedience and not ethnic boundary markers is the most sensible reading in light of the last reference to ἔργα (9:12), in which works are set in parallel to doing “good or evil” (ἀγαθὸν ἢ φαῦλον, 9:11), as well as the next reference (11:6), in which “works” is set opposite “grace” as a way of eliminating any human reason for the remnant of Israel being “chosen” (cf. Deut 7:6-8; Rom 4:4-5; 1 Clem. 32:3-4). See Roland Bergmeier, Das Gesetz im Romerbrief und andere Studien zum Neuen Testament (WUNT 121; Tubingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2000), 76.
67. It is a widely acknowledged perplexity that Paul speaks here not of a “righteousness of law” (δικαιοςύνη νόμου) but a “law of righteousness” (νόμος δικαιοςύνης). The meaning is probably “the Mosaic law viewed as a witness to righteousness” (Douglas Moo, “‘Law,’ ‘Works of the Law,’ and Legalism in Paul,” WTJ 45 [1983]: 78 n. 22). For helpful discussions see C. E. B. Cranfield, “Some Notes on Romans 9:30-33,” in Jesus und Paulus: Festschrift fiir Werner Georg Kummel zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. E. Earle Ellis and Erich Grafier; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 36-38; Schlier, Romerbrief, 307; Hubner, Gottes Ich und Israel, 61-63, 65, whose 1984 opinion that attention to this odd phrase “hochstens am Rande diskutiert wird” (62) is probably no longer true.
68. T. David Gordon (“Why Israel Did Not Obtain Torah-Righteousness: A Translation Note on Rom 9:32,” WTJ 54 [1992]: 163-66) argues that the law, not the pursuit, is “not of faith but of works” (οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως ἀλλʼ ὡς ἐξ ἔργων). The difficulty in his exegesis is neglect of the cog (noted by Schreiner, Romans, 538-39). It is not the law itself (cf. Rom 7:7-12!) but the manner in which this law was pursued that was wrongheaded (also contra Wilckens, Brief an die Rοmer, 2:212; rightly Cranfield, “Romans 9:30-33,” 39-40; Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology [trans. John Richard de Witt; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975], 139; Bruce W. Longenecker, Eschatology and the Covenant: A Comparison of 4 Ezra and Romans 1-11 [JSNTSup 57; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1991], 216; Pierre Prigent, L’epttre de Paul aux Romains [Paris: Bayard, 2002], 136).
69. Wagner, Heralds, 120.
70. See esp. Hiibner, Gottes Ich und Israel, 66-69; Dietrich-Alex Koch, Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums: Untersuchungen zur Verwendung und zum Verstdndnis der Schrift bei Paulus (BHT 69; Tubingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1986), 59-60, 69-71; Christopher D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature (SNTSMS 69; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 119-25; Florian Wilk, Die Bedeutung des Jesajabuches fur Paulus (FRLANT 179; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 22-24, 31-34, 82-90, 162-69, 209-10, 220-26; Wagner, Heralds, 128-36.
71. So Koch, Schrift als Zeuge, 60,69.
72. Hiibner wonders if Paul employed an LXX tradition that had τίθημι (Gottes Ich und Israel, 68). Seifrid notes, however, that even in the LXX traditions that have come down to us, τίθημι occurs in the near context: e.g., 28:15,17 (“Romans,” 650).
73. See Schlier, Romerbrief, 307; Ellis, Paul’s Use, 89; Leonhard Goppelt, Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New (trans. Donald H. Madvig; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 154 n. 99; Hiibner, Gottes Ich und Israel, 66; Klyne Snodgrass, “The Use of the Old Testament in the New,” in The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New (ed. G. K. Beale; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 44; Seifrid, “Romans,” 652.
74. Paul’s Use, 101. Wagner argues that even if a pre-Pauline testimonium were in play here, this would not rule out the relevance of the Isaianic context for Paul’s employment of these texts (Heralds, 134-35).
75. E.g., Laberge, La Septante dTsa’ie 28-33,11.
76. Contra Oss, “‘Stone’ Passages,” 186,188.
77. Schrift als Zeuge, 59.
78. See Seifrid’s helpful comments (“Romans,” 652).
79. Lectures on Romans (ed. and trans. Wilhelm Pauck; LCC 15; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961), 285. Cf. Calvin, Isaiah, 290-91; H. C. G. Moule, The Epistle to the Romans (London: Pickering & Inglis, n.d.), 259-60; David M. Turpie, The Old Testament in the New (London: Williams & Norgate, 1868), 247-48.
80. See Roger Nicole, “New Testament Use of the Old Testament,” in Revelation and the Bible: Contemporary Evangelical Thought (ed. Carl F. H. Henry; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1958), 141-48; S. Lewis Johnson Jr., The Old Testament in the New: An Argument for Biblical Inspiration (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980), 11-12.
81. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 33; New York: Doubleday, 1993), 579.
82. Gottes Ich und Israel, 66; also 68-69.
83. Koch, Schrift als Zeuge, 133; Stanley, Language of Scripture, 133-34.
84. See Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time (trans. Floyd V. Filson; rev. ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), 81-83,108-9,131; and esp. idem, Salvation in History (trans. Sidney G. Sowers; New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 101, 116-17, 178. Cf. C. F. D. Moule, The Birth of the New Testament (London: Black, 1962), 69-70; G. K. Beale, “Did Jesus and His Followers Preach the Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? An Examination of the Presuppositions of Jesus’ and the Apostles’ Exegetical Method,” in Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts, 391-92.
85. Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol. 1: God, Christ, Mary and Grace (trans. Cornelius Ernst; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961), 88; cf. 123.
86. Well articulated by Adolf Schlatter, Romans: The Righteousness of God (trans. Siegfried S. Schatzmann; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995), 212. Cf. C. Thomas Rhyne, Faith Establishes the Law (SBLDS 55; Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1981), 101-2; Seifrid, “Romans,” 651.
87. Muller, Anstob und Gericht, 79-80; Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 4: The Great Awakening (ed. C. C. Goen; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 350-51; C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (2 vols.; ICC 32; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975, 1979), 2:511. It is also possible that Paul is reading Isaiah in light of Daniel 2, which speaks of a stone destroying earthly kingdoms and setting up God’s rule (vv. 34-35,44-45; see France, Jesus and the Old Testament, 98-99).
88. Muller, Anstofi und Gericht, 83; Wilk, Bedeutung des Jesajabuches, 89; Seifrid, “Romans,” 652, 653. Cf. Isa 28:11, which refers to being taught by foreigners.
89. On which see the comments of Koch, Schrift als Zeuge, 133; Stanley, Language of Scripture, 133-34,264; Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 176.
90. See Timo Laato, Paul and Judaism: An Anthropological Approach (trans. T. McElwain; South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 115; Atlanta: Scholars, 1995).
91. Helpfully articulated by Hubner, Gottes Ich und Israel, 70-71; Prigent, Romains, 137.
92. Exceptions include Hubner, Gottes Ich und Israel, 66; Wilk, Bedeutung des Jesajabuches, 89-90.
93. Noted by Seifrid, “Romans,” 650. Cf. Shum, Isaiah in Paul, 216-17.
94. Contra Longenecker, Eschatology and the Covenant, 217; Johann D. Kim, God, Israel, and the Gentiles: Rhetoric and Situation in Romans 9-11 (SBLDS 176; Atlanta: Scholars, 2000), 130; Per Jarle Bekken, The Word Is Near You: A Study of Deuteronomy 30:12-14 in Paul’s Letter to the Romans in a Jewish Context (BZNW 144; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), 159-62; James D. G. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul (rev. ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 11-12, 365, 372-73, 383-84; N. T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity, 2009), 243.
95. Rightly Ridderbos, Paul, 142; Shum, Isaiah in Paul, 217-18.
96. Adolf Schlatter, Der Glaube im Neuen Testament (4th ed.; Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1927), 345-48 (drawing primarily on Romans 4, though with reference to 9:31); Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:105-6; Wagner, Heralds, 151-53.
97. Brought out especially clearly by Cranfield, “Romans 9:30-33,” 42. Note also Wagner’s appropriate comments about the need to hold together Christology and theology—”For Paul, to identify the stone with Christ is not to push God off center stage; it is rather to specify more exactly the manner in which God has become a stumbling stone to some in Israel” (Heralds, 157).
98. So Calvin, Isaiah, 292; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:362; Goppelt, Typos, 128 n. 5; Ellis, Paul’s Use, 122; Muller, Anstofi und Gericht, 80; Schlier, Romerbrief, 307; Otto Kuss, Der Romerbrief (3 vols.; Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1963-1978), 3:743; Rhyne, Faith Establishes the Law, 102; E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1983), 37; Hans K. LaRondelle, The Israel of God in Prophecy: Principles of Prophetic Interpretation (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press, 1983), 99, 126; Hubner, Gottes Ich und Israel, 69; Koch, Schrift als Zeuge, 70; James W. Aageson, “Typology, Correspondence, and the Application of Scripture in Romans 9-11,” JSNT 31 (1987): 61; Schreiner, “Romans 9:30-10:3,” 214; Byrne, Romans, 310; Moo, Romans, 628; Mark A. Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Justification (New Studies in Biblical Theology 9; Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity, 2001), 131,158, 168; Wagner, Heralds, 155-57; Prigent, Romains, 136; Wright, “Romans,” 650; Stanislas Lyonnet, Etudes sur L’epitre aux Romains (2d ed.; AnBib 120; Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2003), 58; Bekken, Word Is Near You, 161; Seifrid, “Romans,” 651, 652, 654.
99. “Barrett, “Fall and Responsibility,” 112-13; Meyer, “Romans 10:4,” 64; Lloyd Gaston, Paul and the Torah (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1987), 129.
100. The stone is identified as: the gospel (Fitzmyer, Romans, 579; Jewett considers this reading a possibility [Romans, 613)]); the cross (J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980], 330); ethnic inclusivism (John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity [New York: Oxford University Press, 1985], 252); and the announcement of Jesus’ resurrection (Paul E. Dinter, “Paul and the Prophet Isaiah,” BTB 13 [1983]: 50).
101. Most LXX versions of Isa 28:16, as well as Paul and Peter—though not Vaticanus, Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus—add ἐπʼ αὐτῷ immediately after ὁ πιστεύων. While the LXX does somewhat shift the meaning of the MT in its addition of an explicit object of trust, Paul’s endorsement of such a move ought not to be seen as a contradiction but a christologically appropriate blossoming of the sense of the MT. See Lagrange, Romains, 250-51; Muller, Anstob und Gericht, 72-73.
102. D. A. Carson, “Mystery and Fulfillment: Toward a More Comprehensive Paradigm of Paul’s Understanding of the Old and the New,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism, Vol. 2: The Paradoxes of Paul (ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 407 n. 39. Cf. 1 Pet 2:4.
103. Bruce D. Chilton, The Isaiah Targum: Introduction, Translation, Apparatus and Notes (ArBib 11; Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1987). Cf. Muller, Anstob und Gericht, 78-79; Schlier, Romerbrief, 308.
104. Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 37. Though he does not explain exactly what he means by “legalism” (a common problem in discussions employing the term), Bird probably creates an unhelpful bifurcation when he says that “Israel’s biggest problem is not legalism but is their ‘stumbling’ (9:32-33) and ‘ignorance’ (10:3) of Christ” (Saving Righteousness, 150).
105. So Ridderbos, Paul, 142, 181; Aageson, “Application of Scripture,” 61-62; Moo, Romans, 628; Stephen Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The “Lutheran” Paul and His Critics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 310. Cf. Watson, “Scripture in Pauline Theology,” 190 n. 20.
106. By “salvation history” we mean “the totality of reality seen as history which interprets ostensibly immanent phenomena as the historically visible expression of God’s personal sovereign purpose” (Robert W. Yarbrough, The Salvation-Historical Fallacy? Reassessing the History of New Testament Theology [Leiden: Deo, 2004], 113).
107. See Roberts, “Yahweh’s Foundation,” 43-44; Watts, Isaiah 1-33, 370; Wildberger, Isaiah 28-39,41; Motyer, Isaiah, 233, Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:650-51.
108. See G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (New Studies in Biblical Theology 17; Downers Grove, 111.: Inter Varsity, 2004), 66-80, 245; Stephen T. Um, The Theme of Temple Christology in John’s Gospel (Library of New Testament Studies; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2006), 20-27, 51-55.
109. I am grateful to Dr. Greg Beale for his instructive comments on an early draft of this paper and to my dad, Ray Ortlund Jr., for giving me a living example of the kind of calm, self-abandoning trust in God spoken of in this paper.