Detached Note to IX. 5.
The following is transcribed, with a few modifications, from the writer's Commentary on the Epistle in The Cambridge Bible:
["Who is over all, God blessed for ever.] The Greek may, with more or less facility, be translated (1) as in A.V.; or (2) 'who is God over all,' etc.; or (3) 'blessed for ever be He who is God over all' (i.e., the Eternal Father).... If we adopt (3) we take the Apostle to be led, by the mention of the Incarnation, to utter a sudden and solemn doxology to the God who gave that crowning mercy. In favour of this it is urged (by some entirely orthodox commentators, as H. A. W. Meyer) that St Paul nowhere else styles the Lord simply 'God,' but rather 'the Son of God,' etc. By this they do not mean to detract from the Lord's Deity; but they maintain that St Paul always so states that Deity, under divine guidance, as to mark the 'Subordination of the Son'—that Subordination which is not a difference of Nature, Power, or Eternity, but of Order; just such as is marked by the simple but profound words Father and Son.
"But on the other hand there is Tit. ii. 13, where the Greek is (at least) perfectly capable of the rendering, 'our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.' [There is Acts xx. 28, where the evidence is very strong for the reading, retained by the R.V. (text), 'the Church of God, which He purchased with His own blood.' And if St John is to be taken to report words exactly, in his narrative of the Resurrection, in an incident whose point is deeply connected with verbal precision, we have one of the first Apostles, within eight days of the Resurrection, addressing the Risen Lord (John xx. 28) as 'my God.' (We call attention to this as against the contention that only the latest developments of inspiration, represented in e.g. St John's Preamble to his Gospel, shew us Christ called explicitly God.)]
"If ... it is divinely true that 'the Word is God,' it is surely far from wonderful if here and there, in peculiar connexions, [St Paul] should so speak of Christ, even though guided to keep another phase of the truth habitually in view.
"Now, beyond all fair question, the Greek here is quite naturally rendered as in the A.V.; had it not been for historical controversy, probably, no other rendering would have been suggested. And lastly, and what is important, the context far rather suggests a lament (over the fall of Israel) than an ascription of praise. And what is most significant of all, it pointedly suggests some explicit allusion to the super-human Nature of Christ, by the words 'according to the flesh.' But if there is such an allusion, then it must lie in the words, 'over all, God.'"
It may be interesting to add the following note from Franz Delitzsch (Brief an die Römer in das Hebräische übersetzt und aus Talmud und Midrasch erläutert, Leipzig, 1870, p. 89):
"Christus, nach dem Fleisch, welcher ist Gott über alles, hochgelobet in Ewigkeit. Deshalb nämlich weil er Gott und Mensch in Einer Person ist. Er ist der andere David (דוד אחר), und ist Jahve unsere Gerechtigkeit (יהוה צדקנו Jer. xxiii. 6). Auch der Midrasch Mischle zu Spr. xix. 21 zählt ה׳ צדקנו neben דוד unter den Messiasnamen auf, und auch anderwärts bezeugen Talmud und Midrasch, dass der Messias יהוה heisst; denn 'Gott war in Christo und versöhnte die Welt mit ihm selber.' Paulus sagt im Grunde nichts anderes als was Jesaia ix. 5, wo die Zunz'sche Bibelübersetzung, der exegetischen Wahrheit die Ehre gebend, übersetzt: 'Man nennt seinen Namen: Wunder, Berather, starker Gott, ewiger Vater, Fürst des Friedens.' Der Messias ist und heisst אל גבור und אבי־עד, also obwohl nicht האלהים, doch אלהים (אל) לעולמים."
Delitzsch renders the close of ix. 5 thus:
וַאֲשֶׁר מֵהֶם יָצָא הַמָּשִׁיחַ לְפִי בְשָׂרוֹ אֲשֶׁר הוּא אֵל עַל־הַכֹּל מְבֹרָךְ לְעוֹל מִים אָמֵו
[152] For this rendering, rather than the alternative, "Blessed for ever be the God who is over all," see the reasons offered below, p. 261.
[153] Mal. i. 2, 3.—It is plain that "hatred" in such a connexion (and cp. Matt. vi. 24, Luke xiv. 26) need mean no more than relative repudiation. No personal animosity is in question, but a decisive rejection of a rival claim. See Grimm's N. T. Lexicon (Thayer), s.v. μισεῖν.
[154] Observe the vital personality of the phrase; "the Scripture speaks." Cp. Gal. iii. 8 for perhaps the strongest example of the kind.
[155] Cp. Psal. lxxxi. 12, and above, i. 24, 26.
[156] In the Hebrew, literally, "I will pity the not-pitied one" (feminine, of the idealized people or church; so in the Greek here, ἠγαπημένην). Divine "pity" is more than "akin to" divine "love."
[157] i. 10 (Hebrew, ii. 1).
[158] Ὑπέρ: with the thought of a lament over the ruined ones. The preposition appears here in its original and literal meaning.
[159] Isa. x. 22, 23: perhaps with an insertion of the phrase, "the number of," from Hos. i. 10. As to wording, he quotes freely from the Hebrew, more nearly from the Lxx. But the substance is identical as compared with both. Following considerable documentary evidence, we omit here the Greek words represented by "in righteousness; because a short work."
[160] The equivalent of the Lxx. for the "very small remnant" (שׂריד) of the Hebrew.
[161] For the seventh and last time he uses this characteristic phrase.
[162] Δέ: in slightly suggested contrast to the ideal of the Jew, a merited acceptance.
[163] Omit here the word δικαιοσύνης.
[164] Omit τοῦ νόμου.
[165] Omit γάρ.
[166] Omit πᾶς.