The Jews know what it means to sell a birthright with Jacob and Esau. In 1 Samuel 8, we find a split in terms of the Kingdom of Israel and where the royal bloodline will now reside.
NIV 1 Samuel 8:7 And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.
There is a key word in verse 7 and that word is ‘rejected’ they rejected having God as their King. In Romans 11 we start to get a mirror image. Did God reject his people?
WEB Romans 11:1 I ask then, did God reject his people? May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
From Romans 11, we can draw some parallels with what happened in 1 Samuel 8 and expand on some of the implications of Israel’s treason(Rejecting God as King). With wanting to have a King like the rest of the nations. God gave them this warning. Consider the consequences of that warning and that Israel will end up selling their birthright. Like Esau did to Jacob for a bowl of stew. A sign that Israel sold their birthright is the fact. David of the tribe of Judah and no other tribe in Israel. Represents the royal bloodline for future Kings.
KJV 1 Samuel 8:9-20 Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. 10 And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. 11 And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. 12 And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. 13 And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. 14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. 15 And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. 16 And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. 17 He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. 18 And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day. 19 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; 20 That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.
With Israel selling their birthright they are now, are only a chosen people. If they come under the Throne of David. There is no kingly line, people, or land outside of the Throne of David. This is because of the rejecting God as King. The promise of their descendants inheriting the land is gone. Consider what the following verses might be saying about no longer having God as their King.
Verse 14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
Land gone, birthright sold.
Verse 13 And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
They have become slaves, birthright sold.
Verse 16 And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
They have become slaves, birthright sold.
With that background. We can now look at Romans 11.
WEB Romans 11:1-36 I ask then, did God reject his people? May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God didn’t reject his people, which he foreknew. Or don’t you know what the Scripture says about Elijah? How he pleads with God against Israel:
God did not reject his people. Yet we are heading to Elijah pleading with God against Israel.
3 “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have broken down your altars. I am left alone, and they seek my life.”1 Kings 19:10,14 4 But how does God answer him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”1 Kings 19:18
A remnant is reserved but with regards to Elijah with Israel and the prophets of Baal. The prophets of Baal were slaughtered.
KJV 1 Kings 18:21 And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.
KJV 1 Kings 18:40 And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.
You could say Elijah represents the consequences of what might happen if Israel does not follow God. Now, heading back to what Israel seeks. In 1 Samuel 8 that was a King like the other nations. Consider the question, Is the Lord be God that Elijah asked? We also get the same picture of a remnant reserved.
5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 6 And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. 7 What then? That which Israel seeks for, that he didn’t obtain, but the chosen ones obtained it, and the rest were hardened. 8 According as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, to this very day.” Deuteronomy 29:4; Isaiah 29:10
Israel’s eyes are shut – Verse 8 has similar language to Isaiah 44:18 and other sections of Isaiah 44 seem to dovetail into this passage.
Besides Elijah pleading to God against Israel. David is quoted here which comes from Psalm 69:22-23
9 David says,
“Let their table be made a snare, a trap,
a stumbling block, and a retribution to them.
10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see.
Always keep their backs bent.”Psalm 69:22,23
11 I ask then, did they stumble that they might fall? May it never be! But by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. 12 Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness?
Their fall? Is that by wanting to have a King like the rest of the nations?
13 For I speak to you who are Gentiles. Since then as I am an apostle to Gentiles, I glorify my ministry; 14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh, and may save some of them. 15 For if the rejection of them is the reconciling of the world, what would their acceptance be, but life from the dead?
There is that key word again in verse 15 rejection of them, instead of in 1 Samuel 8 they rejected God as King. If the root is holy, this determines the path that Israel now must take.
16 If the first fruit is holy, so is the lump. If the root is holy, so are the branches.
WEB Revelation 5:5 One of the elders said to me, “Don’t weep. Behold, the Lion who is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome: he who opens the book and its seven seals.
WEB Revelation 22:16 I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify these things to you for the assemblies. I am the root and the offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.”
This links us back to 1 Samuel 8 where David is anointed to be King.
17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the root and of the richness of the olive tree, 18 don’t boast over the branches. But if you boast, it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you.
Outside of the line, that is of the Lion who is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David. Branches were broken off.
19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.” 20 True; by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Don’t be conceited, but fear; 21 for if God didn’t spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22 See then the goodness and severity of God. Toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off. 23 They also, if they don’t continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
25 For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers,[a] of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, 26 and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written,
“There will come out of Zion the Deliverer,
and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
27 This is my covenant with them,
when I will take away their sins.”Isaiah 59:20-21; 27:9; Jeremiah 31:33-34
In the promised land, the covenant will be/was broken. A new covenant comes through David.
Deuteronomy 31:16-17 And the Lord said to Moses: “You are going to rest with your ancestors, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them. 17 And in that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many disasters and calamities will come on them, and in that day they will ask, ‘Have not these disasters come on us because our God is not with us?’
28 Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for your sake.
In a strange way, evil contains your blessings by the way you treat it. Matthew 5:46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For as you in time past were disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience, 31 even so these also have now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they may also obtain mercy. 32 For God has bound all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all.
33 Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”Isaiah 40:13
35 “Or who has first given to him,
and it will be repaid to him again?”Job 41:11
36 For of him, and through him, and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.