Discovery BoxRomans 11:16-17 
Context11:16 If the first portion 1 of the dough offered is holy, then the whole batch is holy, and if the root is holy, so too are the branches. 2
11:17 Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among them and participated in 3 the richness of the olive root,
Romans 11:24
Context11:24 For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?
1 tn Grk “firstfruits,” a term for the first part of something that has been set aside and offered to God before the remainder can be used.
2 sn Most interpreters see Paul as making use of a long-standing metaphor of the olive tree (the root…the branches) as a symbol for Israel. See, in this regard, Jer 11:16, 19. A. T. Hanson, Studies in Paul’s Technique and Theology, 121-24, cites rabbinic use of the figure of the olive tree, and goes so far as to argue that Rom 11:17-24 is a midrash on Jer 11:16-19.
3 tn Grk “became a participant of.”
