The basic picture in Romans 11 is that of a cultivated olive tree. The olive tree refers to Israel – you might say that it has an Abrahamic root!
Exile and judgment is described by the prophets as a "chopping down" of the tree. When God sends his people into exile, he sends his agents to cut down the tree – but trees are resilient – and you never know what will grow back.
I grew up in a Coastal Redwood forest. There was an old stump by our front walk that had been cut down years before the house was built. But it kept putting out suckers – and so my dad had me and my brother cut it back every year. When my parents sold the house in 1985, the new owner decided to stop fighting. Less than 40 years later, there is a massive 100 foot tree eating up the front walk!
So the fact that a tree is felled does not mean that the tree is gone forever!
Isaiah spoke of a shoot that would come forth from the stump of Jesse. because all the promises to Israel have their focus on the house of David – and, as Paul has been showing us throughout Romans, they all come to their fruition in Jesus Christ...
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