For if you were cut from a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into one that is cultivated, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
The apostle proposes here a plausible objection, which might be urged against the divine conduct in casting off the Jewish nation (Rom 11:1): "Hath God cast away his people? Is the rejection total and final? Are they all abandoned to wrath and ruin, and that eternal?
Commenting on Romans 11:1-32
For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree,.... As the apostle argues the possibility of bringing the Jews into a Gospel church state, from the power of God; so here the probability of it, or the easiness and likelihood of its being performed, from the ingrafting of the Gentiles; who were originally like an olive tree, which is wild by nature, grows in...
Verse 24. For if thou. If you who are Gentiles. Wert cut out of. Or, if thou wert of the cutting of the wild olive tree. Which is wild by nature. Which is uncultivated and unfruitful. That is, if you were introduced into a state of favour with God from a condition which was one of enmity and hostility to him.