Paragraph 11:7–10

11:7a

What then?: This is a rhetorical question. It introduces what Paul said in 11:7b. Translate it with that meaning. Here are some ways:

• As a rhetorical question. For example:

What does all this mean?
-or-
What shall we conclude then?
-or-
What then will we say?

• As a statement. For example:

This means that… (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
What all these things mean to say is that

See how you translated this question in 3:9 or 6:15, but note that in those verses another question follows.

11:7b

What Israel was seeking, it failed to obtain: Here the word What may refer to righteousness (9:31, 10:3–5) or something else. Your translation should imply righteousness or something similar.

seeking: There are several ways to interpret the Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as seeking :

(1) It means to search for something, as in the Berean Standard Bible.

(Berean Standard Bible, Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, New American Standard Bible, King James Version, English Standard Version, New American Bible, Revised Edition, Contemporary English Version, Revised English Bible)

(2) It means to search hard for something. For example:

sought so earnestly (New International Version)

(New International Version, New Living Translation (2004), NET Bible)

(3) It means to strive for something. For example:

striving for (God’s Word)

(God’s Word)

It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1), because many Greek lexicons and scholars support it.

obtain: Here this word refers to becoming the people they wanted to be. They wanted to be right with God and looked for the way to do that, but they did not achieve it. Here are other ways to translate this word:

attain (New American Bible, Revised Edition)
-or-
achieve (God’s Word)
-or-
succeed (New Century Version)

11:7c

the elect: The word elect refers to the people who are chosen. Here it refers to those whom God has chosen to save. Here are other ways to translate this word:

those who were chosen (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
the ones God has chosen (New Living Translation (2004))

Here this word probably refers only to the Jews whom God has chosen to believe in Jesus as the Christ/Messiah.

11:7d

The others were hardened: This clause is passive. Some languages must translate with an active clause. For example:

⌊God⌋ hardened the rest

The others: Here the word others refers to those who are not the elect (11:7c).

hardened: This word means “to cause someone to have difficulty in understanding (something),” or “to cause someone to be completely unwilling to learn and to accept new information.” Here are other ways to translate this word:

made stubborn and refused to listen to God (New Century Version)
-or-
made their minds closed

© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.