9:8. That is to say, not they that are the children of the flesh are the children of God: but they that are the children of the promise are accounted for the seed.
9:9. For this is the word of promise: According to this time will I come. And Sara shall have a son.
9:10. And not only she. But when Rebecca also had conceived at once of Isaac our father.
9:11. For when the children were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil (that the purpose of God according to election might stand):
Not yet born, etc… By this example of these twins, and the preference of the younger to the elder, the drift of the apostle is, to shew that God, in his election, mercy and grace, is not tied to any particular nation, as the Jews imagined; nor to any prerogative of birth, or any forgoing merits. For as, antecedently to his grace, he sees no merits in any, but finds all involved in sin, in the common mass of condemnation; and all children of wrath: there is no one whom he might not justly leave in that mass; so that whomsoever he delivers from it, he delivers in his mercy: and whomsoever he leaves in it, he leaves in his justice. As when, of two equally criminal, the king is pleased out of pure mercy to pardon one, whilst he suffers justice to take place in the execution of the other.
9:12. Not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger.
9:13. As it is written: Jacob I have loved: but Esau I have hated.
9:14. What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? God forbid!
9:15. For he saith to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy.
9:16. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.