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Romans 9:3

“Paul's Deep Sorrow for Israel”Romans 9:1–5

King James Version
For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:

Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain

KJV (with Strong's)
For G1063 I G1473 could wish G2172 that myself G846 were G1511 accursed G331 from G575 Christ G5547 for G5228 my G3450 brethren G80, my G3450 kinsmen G4773 according G2596 to the flesh G4561:

Bible text: King James Version with Strong's numbers · Public domain

Berean Standard Bible
For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my own flesh and blood,

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible · Public domain

American Standard Version
For I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren’s sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh:

Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain

World English Bible Messianic
For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Messiah for my brothers’ sake, my relatives according to the flesh,

Bible text: World English Bible, Messianic edition · Public domain

Geneva Bible (1599)
For I woulde wish my selfe to be separate from Christ, for my brethren that are my kinsemen according to the flesh,

Bible text: Geneva Bible (1599) · Public domain

Young's Literal Translation
for I was wishing, I myself, to be anathema from the Christ--for my brethren, my kindred, according to the flesh,

Bible text: Young's Literal Translation · Public domain

King James Version — Interlinear
18 Greek words
  1. ηὐχόμηνēuchomēnwas wishingG2172V-INI-1SVerb Imperfect Middle Or Passive Deponent Indicative 1st Singular
  2. γὰρgarforG1063CONJConjunction
  3. ἀνάθεμαanathemaa curseG331N-NSNNoun Nominative Singular Neuter
  4. εἶναιeinaito beG1511V-PANVerb Present Active Infinitive
  5. αὐτὸςautos[my]selfG846P-NSMPersonal pronoun Nominative Singular Masculine
  6. ἐγὼegōI myselfG1473P-1NSPersonal pronoun Nominative 1st Singular
  7. ἀπὸaposeparated fromG575PREPPreposition
  8. τοῦtou[the]G3588T-GSMDefinite article Genitive Singular Masculine
  9. ΧριστοῦChristouChristG5547N-GSM-TNoun Genitive Singular Masculine Title
  10. ὑπὲρhuperforG5228PREPPreposition
  11. τῶνtōntheG3588T-GPMDefinite article Genitive Plural Masculine
  12. ἀδελφῶνadelphōnbrothersG80N-GPMNoun Genitive Plural Masculine
  13. μουmouof mineG3165P-1GSPersonal pronoun Genitive 1st Singular
  14. τῶνtōntheG3588T-GPMDefinite article Genitive Plural Masculine
  15. συγγενῶνsungenōnkinsmenG4773A-GPMAdjective Genitive Plural Masculine
  16. μουmouof mineG3165P-1GSPersonal pronoun Genitive 1st Singular
  17. κατὰkataaccording toG2596PREPPreposition
  18. σάρκα·sarka[the] fleshG4561N-ASFNoun Accusative Singular Feminine
English is a literal word-by-word gloss of the Greek, not the KJV's wording. Why?

This is the original text the KJV's translators worked from — each Greek word with its own literal English meaning in this verse, prepared by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. The KJV translates whole sentences, not word by word, so its wording differs: one Greek word can become several English words, and the KJV may choose “charity” where the gloss reads “love”. Both are faithful — they answer different questions. For the KJV's own rendering, switch to the KJV text.

Words in [ ] are added by the English.

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This verse

Paul’s love for his kinsmen is so great that he could wish himself cut off from Christ under a curse, if that could bring them to salvation.

“For I could wish”

Gár gives the reason for the sorrow of verse 2. Eúchomai means to wish or to pray, and “could wish” puts it as a wish he would make if it were possible.

“that myself were accursed from Christ”

Anáthema, devoted to destruction, cut off from Christ and all his blessings. Christ alone truly became a curse for others (Galatians 3:13).

“for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:”

Sárx here means physical descent. These are his fellow Israelites, his own nation and blood.

Passage studyRomans 9:1–5

Paul’s Unceasing Sorrow for Israel

1I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 2That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 3For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 4Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 5Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

Summary

Paul has just ended Romans 8 with the great assurance that “neither death, nor life ... shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39). He turns at once to his own people, Israel, most of whom have rejected Jesus as their Messiah. He swears that he is telling the truth, says that his heart carries a great and unceasing sorrow for them, and says that he could wish himself cut off from Christ if it would save them. Then he lists what God had given them: the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the law, the service of God, the promises and the fathers, and last and greatest, Christ himself, who came from Israel as a man and is “over all, God blessed for ever.”

These five verses open the long discussion of God’s faithfulness to Israel in Romans 9–11. Before Paul argues anything about God’s choosing in Romans 9:6–29, he shows us his heart, and the hard teaching that follows comes from a man who loves the people he writes about.

Why does Paul open with an oath?

Paul is about to take up a painful subject: Israel’s unbelief, and the question of whether God has kept his promises to them. What he says could be heard as Paul turning his back on his own people, or as a charge that God had failed them. His readers in Rome were Jewish and Gentile believers, and how God’s promises to Israel stand beside the gospel was a live and often sore question between them. So before he says anything else, Paul assures them three times over that he means every word: “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost.”

These are the words of a solemn oath. Among the Jews an oath was a serious thing, often made in God’s name, and Paul speaks in that way here. He uses a similar oath elsewhere, appealing to God, who “knoweth that I lie not” (2 Corinthians 11:31). The verb for “say”, légō, is the ordinary word for speaking or relating something in words. Truth, alḗtheia, comes from a word meaning “unconcealed” and stands for what is real and true, so Paul is declaring that what follows is the plain fact of his heart. “In Christ” places his words within his union with Christ. He speaks as one who belongs to Christ and stands before him. “I lie not” then says the same thing again from the other side.

The witness of conscience and the Holy Ghost

Paul calls on a further witness. His conscience, syneídēsis, is the inner moral sense that judges a person’s own acts and motives. The verb for “bearing witness”, symmartyréō, joins sýn, “with”, to martyréō, “to bear witness”, and means to testify together with someone. Paul’s conscience adds its testimony to his own words, and it does so “in the Holy Ghost”, so that the Spirit himself stands behind this inner witness. Paul says something like it of every believer: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16). The Spirit guides believers “into all truth” (John 16:13), and John writes that “the Spirit is truth” (1 John 5:6).

Christ and the Holy Ghost are both named in this one verse, and the truth Paul speaks rests on God himself. In this he follows his Lord, who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) and who spoke to the world the things he had heard from the Father (John 8:26). The Spirit also works in a believer’s conscience, making it a trustworthy witness to the truth.

How deep is Paul’s sorrow?

“That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.” Heaviness, lýpē, is the general word for sadness or grief, and Paul calls his great. Sorrow, odýnē, is pain or anguish, grief that weighs a person down, and it is often a sharper word than lýpē. Continual, adiáleiptos, means unbroken or unceasing. This grief stays with Paul all the time, a constant ache. It is “in my heart”, kardía, and in Scripture the heart is the centre of a person, holding his thoughts, feelings and will. By setting two words for grief side by side, “great heaviness and continual sorrow”, Paul shows how heavy his burden is and how far down it reaches.

Paul grieves because his own kinsmen, who had received the covenants, the law, the temple service and the promises of the Messiah (verses 4 and 5), had for the most part rejected Jesus as their Messiah and were missing the salvation offered in him. Paul was a Jew himself and a former Pharisee, rooted in Israel’s history, and he felt this keenly. His people had been given every advantage and had stumbled at the very cornerstone of God’s plan. The same longing comes again in the next chapter: “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved” (Romans 10:1). Paul wept over those who live as “the enemies of the cross of Christ” (Philippians 3:18), and he carried the weakness of every believer as his own: “Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?” (2 Corinthians 11:29).

Grief that matches the heart of God

Paul’s sorrow matches the heart of God, “who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Jesus grieved in the same way over Jerusalem: “how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37). When he came near the city, he wept over its blindness (Luke 19:41–44). Isaiah calls him “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”, who “hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3–5). His whole mission, ending at the cross, came from the love with which “God so loved the world” (John 3:16). Paul’s grief is an echo of that love, and his long argument in these chapters comes from a pastor’s concern.

Does Paul’s sorrow mean God’s plan for Israel failed?

Paul’s grief opens his explanation that God’s word to Israel stands firm. In the verses that follow he shows that God’s promises rest on his own sovereign choice and grace (Romans 9:6–13). Later he explains that Israel’s hardening is partial, that it serves God’s larger plan to bring salvation to the Gentiles, and that it leads on to Israel’s restoration: “blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved” (Romans 11:25–26). The whole of Romans 11 sets out that hope. Paul grieves over unbelief, as God does, while God’s plan of salvation goes forward exactly as he intends.

Why would Paul wish himself accursed?

“For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” The “For”, gár, gives the reason for what came before, so this verse shows how great the sorrow of verse 2 is. The verb eúchomai means to wish, and also to pray to God, so the words carry the weight of a longing brought before God. “I could wish” puts it as a wish Paul would make if such a thing could be done.

Accursed, anáthema, means something under a religious ban, devoted to destruction. In the Greek Old Testament it often marks something set apart to God for destruction. To be “accursed from Christ” would be to be cut off from Christ and all his blessings under God’s curse, the very opposite of salvation. The contrast with the chapter before is sharp. Romans 8 ends in triumph with the love from which nothing can separate a believer, and the next thing Paul writes is that he could wish that very separation on himself for his people’s sake.

His brethren are his “kinsmen according to the flesh”. Here sárx, flesh, means physical descent, so Paul is speaking of his fellow Israelites, the people of his own blood and nation. For the Jews of his day kinship and national identity meant a great deal, and Paul, who spent his life bringing Gentiles into God’s family, still felt that tie deeply. In the next chapter he grieves that his people have “a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge”, and are seeking to establish their own righteousness (Romans 10:1–4).

Moses prayed in the same spirit after Israel made the golden calf: “Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written” (Exodus 32:32). Paul’s wish shows a love willing to bear a cost for the good of others, the love Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13. It also shows how serious unbelief is, and how great a loss it is for people who have received so much from God.

Did Paul really wish to be damned for his people?

Paul is saying how far his love would go: his longing for their salvation is so strong that, if it were possible, he would give up his own eternal good to secure it. It is an extreme way of speaking, used to measure his anguish. Salvation is God’s gift through Christ, and one person cannot hand it to another or forfeit it on another’s behalf, as Paul well knew.

What Paul could only wish, Christ truly did. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The Son came down from glory, took on human flesh and “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:5–8). There he bore separation from God in our place, to save his brethren, all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike. Paul’s love for his kinsmen is a faint echo of that love.

What had God given to Israel?

“Who are Israelites”. The name Israēlítēs means the descendants of Jacob, whom God named Israel, and Paul uses it for his own people as the ones who received God’s gifts. He lists six in verse 4 and adds two more in verse 5, the fathers and Christ. Each gift was God’s own, given to this one nation, and the list makes Israel’s present unbelief all the sadder.

Scripture speaks of Israel’s place in the same way elsewhere. Moses asked, “what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them” (Deuteronomy 4:7–8), and called Israel “an holy people unto the LORD thy God” (Deuteronomy 7:6). The psalmist says that God showed his word and statutes to Israel, and “He hath not dealt so with any nation” (Psalm 147:19–20). Paul had already written that the Jews’ chief advantage was that “unto them were committed the oracles of God” (Romans 3:1–2), and Jesus said that “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). God worked through this chosen nation to bring salvation to the world, and these gifts prepared the way for Christ.

The adoption and the glory

The adoption, huiothesía, is Israel’s place as God’s son among the nations. God told Pharaoh, “Israel is my son, even my firstborn” (Exodus 4:22). This was the adoption of a whole people, distinct from the adoption each believer receives through faith in Christ, whom God “predestinated ... unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself” (Ephesians 1:5). God sent his Son, “made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Galatians 4:4–5).

The glory is God’s visible presence among Israel, often called the Shekinah. When the tabernacle was finished, “the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:34), and his presence later dwelt in the temple. That glory is now seen in Christ, “the brightness of his glory” (Hebrews 1:3), the Word who “was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory ...)” (John 1:14).

The covenants and the giving of the law

The covenants are God’s solemn arrangements with Israel. The word diathḗkē means a disposition, covenant or will, and the plural tells us there were several: God’s covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12:1–3), his covenant with Israel at Sinai (Exodus 19:5–6), and his covenant with David (2 Samuel 7:12–16). Through them God set out his promises and his plan of redemption. Jeremiah foretold a new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31–34), and Jesus made it in his blood: “This cup is the new testament in my blood” (Luke 22:20). Hebrews calls it “a better covenant, which was established upon better promises” (Hebrews 8:6).

The giving of the law is God’s revelation of the law at Mount Sinai, beginning with the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20). It gave Israel God’s standard of righteousness and ordered their life as a nation and their worship. Its goal is Christ, who kept it perfectly: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Romans 10:4).

The service of God and the promises

The service of God, latreía, is the worship God appointed in the law of Moses, with its sacrifices and rites at the tabernacle and later at the temple. By it Israel drew near to God, sought atonement for sin and offered him their devotion. Christ completes it as the perfect High Priest and the one sacrifice, who “by his own blood ... entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:11–14).

The promises are God’s assurances to the patriarchs and prophets about Israel’s future, their land, their seed, and above all the coming of the Messiah and his kingdom. The word epangelía means an announcement or promise, used especially of God’s assurances of good. These promises gave Israel hope, and they are kept in Christ: “For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20). They were made “to Abraham and his seed”, and that seed “is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). Through the gospel the Gentiles too are “fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ” (Ephesians 3:6).

Christ came from Israel, and he is God over all

“Whose are the fathers” refers back to the Israelites. The fathers are the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who received God’s covenant promises. Then comes the greatest gift of all: “of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came.” Here sárx means Christ’s human nature and his physical descent. The Son of God was truly born into a human family, from this very nation. The Messiah was expected to come from Abraham’s seed, from Judah and from the house of David, and the promises to Abraham and to David that we met under verse 4 (Genesis 12:1–3, 2 Samuel 7:12–16) are fulfilled in him. Jewish believers would have heard this as the plain claim that Jesus is their Messiah by right of birth.

Because he shares our flesh and blood, he is our Kinsman-Redeemer. He could die, and “through death ... destroy him that had the power of death”, and he became “a merciful and faithful high priest” who is able to help those who are tempted (Hebrews 2:14–18).

Paul goes straight on to say who this man is: “who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.” The preposition epí, “over”, places Christ above everything and ruling it all. Theós is the common word for a deity, and in Scripture above all the name of the one true God, and here Paul gives it to Christ. Blessed, eulogētós, means worthy of praise, and in the New Testament it is said of God. “For ever” makes that praise eternal, and “Amen” seals the whole with a solemn yes. So the verse sets Christ’s human descent, “as concerning the flesh”, right beside his rule over all as God, and the wonder of the incarnation lies in the two together.

The rest of the New Testament says the same of him. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1), and “All things were made by him” (John 1:3). “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9), and he is the image of the invisible God, by whom all things were created and in whom all things consist (Colossians 1:15–17). He is the one who, being in the form of God, took the form of a servant (Philippians 2:5–8), and in him “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Both natures matter for our salvation. As a true man he could stand in our place, suffer, die and rise again. As God his sacrifice has infinite worth, enough to atone for sin and to conquer death. So the God who became man is the one we worship, blessed for ever.

Does Romans 9:5 call Christ God?

Romans 9:5 is one of the clearest places in the New Testament where Christ is called God. The words “who is over all, God blessed for ever” follow straight on from “Christ”, and the “who” refers back to him. Read word for word, the Greek says “the one being over all, God blessed for ever.” Some have punctuated the sentence differently, ending it after “flesh” so that the last words become a separate praise of the Father. The KJV follows the natural flow of the Greek and of Paul’s argument, in which the list of Israel’s gifts rises to its height in Christ himself. Other verses speak of him the same way, such as “the Word was God” (John 1:1) and “the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

A grieving love and a faithful God

These verses show us a heart shaped by the gospel. Paul had just written that nothing can separate him from the love of God, and the first thing that assurance brought out in him was grief for people who did not yet share it. He said so carefully and truthfully, in Christ and with the Holy Ghost as witness, and his love went as far as Moses’ prayer for Israel. The Saviour he served went further still. He wept over Jerusalem and became a curse in our place.

The list in verses 4 and 5 shows God’s faithfulness. Every gift on it came from him, given to one nation over many centuries, and every one of them pointed to Christ. Israel’s story shows that God’s gifts call for faith in the one they point to. For all who believe, those gifts reach us in him: adoption into God’s family, his glory seen in the face of his Son, a new covenant in his blood, and promises that are yea and amen in him.

And the passage ends in worship. Paul cannot name Christ without praising him as God over all, blessed for ever, and he closes with “Amen.” The one who came from Israel’s fathers as a man rules over everything, including the people Paul grieved for, and that is why his sorrow could sit alongside hope.

Last revised

Historical interpretation

Two Centuries of Reception

5 surviving comments on this verse. Each one is dated, so this reads as a timeline rather than a list.

5 quotes · AD 253–420
Ante-NicenePost-Nicene
300400

Select a marker to jump to its quote. Markers stagger vertically where authors wrote within a few decades of each other.

d. AD 253Origen of AlexandriaAnte-NiceneSourceCOMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
Why be surprised that the apostle desires to be cursed for his brethren’s sake, when he who is in the form of God emptied himself and took on the form of a servant and was made a curse for us? Why be surprised if, when Christ became a curse for his servants, one of his servants should become a curse for his brethren?
d. AD 258CyprianAnte-NiceneSourceTreatise XII Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews
That Christ is God. In Genesis: "And God said unto Jacob, Arise, and go up to the place of Bethel, and dwell there; and make there an altar to that God who appeared unto thee when thou reddest from the face of thy brother Esau." Also in Isaiah: "Thus saith the Lord, the God of Sabaoth, Egypt is wearied; and the merchandise of the Ethiopians, and the tall men of the Sabeans, shall pass over unto Thee, and shall be Thy servants; and shall walk after Thee bound with chains; and shall worship Thee, and shall pray to Thee, because God is in Thee, and there is no other God beside Thee. For Thou art God, and we knew it not, O God of Israel, our Saviour. They shall all be confounded and fear who oppose Thee, and shall fall into confusion." Likewise in the same: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God. Every channel shall be filled up, and every mountain and bill shall be made low, and all crooked places shall be made straight, and rough places plain; and the glory of the Lord shall be seen, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God, because the Lord hath spoken it." Moreover, in Jeremiah: This is our God, and no other shall be esteemed beside Him, who hath found all the way of knowledge, and hath given it to Jacob His son, and to Israel His beloved. After this He was seen upon earth, and He conversed with men." Also in Zechariah God says: "And they shall cross over through the narrow sea, and they shall smite the waves in the sea, and they shall dry up all the depths of the rivers; and all the haughtiness of the Assyrians shall be confounded, and the sceptre of Egypt shall be taken away. And I will strengthen them in the Lord their God, and in His name shall they glory, saith the Lord." Moreover, in Hosea the Lord saith: "I will not do according to the anger of mine indignation, I will not allow Ephraim to be destroyed: for I am God, and there is not a holy man in thee: and I will not enter into the city; I will go after God." Also in the forty-fourth Psalm: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: wherefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows." So, too, in the forty-fifth Psalm: "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, and I will be exalted in the earth." Also in the eighty-first Psalm: "They have not known, neither have they understood: they will walk on in darkness." Also in the sixty-seventh Psalm: "Sing unto God, sing praises unto His name: make a way for Him who goeth up into the west: God is His name." Also in the Gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word." Also in the same: "The Lord said to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands: and be not faithless, but believing. Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed." Also Paul to the Romans: "I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren and my kindred according to the flesh: who are Israel-ires: whose are the adoption, and the glory, and the covenant, and the appointment of the law, and the service (of God), and the promises; whose are the fathers, of whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is God over all, blessed for evermore." Also in the Apocalypse: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end I will give to him that is athirst, of the fountain of living water freely. He that overcometh shall possess these things, and their inheritance; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son." Also in the eighty-first Psalm: "God stood in the congregation of gods, and judging gods in the midst." And again in the same place: "I have said, Ye are gods; and ye are all the children of the Highest: but ye shall die like men." But if they who have been righteous, and have obeyed the divine precepts, may be called gods, how much more is Christ, the Son of God, God! Thus He Himself says in the Gospel according to John: "Is it not written in the law, that I said, Ye are gods? If He called them gods to whom the word of God was given, and the Scripture cannot be relaxed, do ye say to Him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, that thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God? But if I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, and ye will not believe me, believe the works, and know that the Father is in me, and I in Him." Also in the Gospel according to Matthew: "And ye shall call His name Emmanuel, which is, being interpreted, God with us."
d. AD 407John ChrysostomPost-NiceneSourceHomily on Romans 16
"That I have a great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ." What sayest thou, O Paul? from Christ, thy beloved One, from Whom neither kingdom nor hell, nor things visible nor intelligible, nor another world as great, would separate thee, is it from Him that thou wouldest now be accursed? What has happened? Hast thou changed, hast thou given over that love? No, he replies, fear not. Rather I have even made it more intense. How then is it that thou wouldest fain be accursed, and seekest a separation, and a removal to such a distance, that after it there is no possibility of finding a more distant one? Because I love Him exceedingly, he may reply.

How, pray, and in what manner? For the things seem a riddle. Or rather, if you will, let us learn what the curse is, and then we will question him upon these points, and shall understand this unspeakable and extraordinary love. What then is the curse? Hear his own words, "If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed." That is, let him be set apart from all, removed from all. For as in the case of a thing dedicated, which is set apart for God, no one would venture so much as to touch it with his hand or even to come near it; so too with a man who is put apart from the Church, in cutting him off from all, and removing him as far off as possible, he calls him by this name anathema in a contrary sense, thus with much fear denouncing to all men to keep apart from him, and to spring away from him.

And the answer he does not produce forthwith, it being a useful thing not to do so, but he first stops the disputant's mouth, saying as follows, for he does not say, it is impossible to answer questions of this kind, but that it is presumptuous to raise them. For our business is to obey what God does, not to be curious even if we do not know the reason of them. Wherefore he said, "Who art thou that repliest against God?" You see how very light he makes of him, how he bears down his swelling spirit! "Who art thou?" art thou a sharer of His power? nay, art thou sitting in judgment upon God? Why in comparison with Him thou canst not have a being even! nor this or that sort of being, but absolutely none! For the expression, "who art thou?" doth much more set him at naught than "thou art nothing." And he takes other ways of showing further his indignation in the question, and does not say, "Who art thou that" answerest "God?" but, "that repliest against," that is, that gainsayest, and that opposest.
d. AD 418PelagiusPost-NiceneSourcePELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
Paul wished this at one time, before he became a follower of Christ.… But after he recognized the truth, he abandoned those whom he used to love in this way, yet still they do not repent.
d. AD 420JeromePost-NiceneSourceLetter 121, Chapter 9
Why the Apostle Paul writes in the same Epistle to the Romans: I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites, to whom the adoption belongs, and the glory, and the testament, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises: Whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ, according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen. (Romans 9:3 et seqq.) Indeed, a valid question, how can the Apostle who said above: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? (Romans 8:35) And again: But I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39), now confirm under oath and say: I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost: That I have great sadness, and continual sorrow in my heart. For I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh. And so on. For if someone's love for God is so strong that he cannot be separated from His love, by neither the fear of death, nor the hope of life, nor persecution, nor hunger, nor nudity, nor danger, nor sword; and if Angels also, and Powers, both present and future, and all the Forces of heaven, and both the high and the deep, and every creature at once were to assail him, which cannot possibly be done: yet he would not be separated from the love of God, which he has in Christ Jesus: what is this great change, rather unheard-of prudence, that for the love of Christ, he would not want to have Christ? And lest we do not believe him, he swears and confirms in Christ, and calls his conscience as a witness, the Holy Spirit, that he has sadness, not light or casual, but great and unbelievable, and has sorrow in his heart, which does not sting for an hour and pass, but which continually remains in his heart. Where does this sadness lead? What profit is there in unceasing pain? Is it wished to be anathema from Christ, and to perish, so that others may be saved? But if we consider the voice of Moses asking God for the people of the Jews, and saying, "If thou wilt forgive them their sin, forgive; but if not, blot me out of thy book, which thou hast written" (Exod. 32. 31. 32), we will see the same feelings in Moses and Paul towards the flock entrusted to them. For a good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. But a hireling, who is not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and flees. And to say this same thing: I wished to be cursed by Christ; and erase me from your book which you have written. For those who are erased from the book of the living, and are not written with the just, are made anathema by the Lord. At the same time, see how great is the love of the Apostle for Christ, that he desires to die for him, and to perish alone, provided that the whole human race believes in him. To perish, however, not forever, but for the present. For whoever shall lose his life for Christ, shall save it (Matt. 10:39). Hence, he takes as an example the Forty-Third Psalm: For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter (Ps. 43:22). Therefore, the Apostle wishes to die in the flesh, so that others may be saved in the spirit; to pour out his blood so that many souls may be preserved. However, that anathema sometimes signifies slaying can be proved by many testimonies of the Old Testament. And lest we think the grief to be slight, and the cause of sorrow small, he joins it and says: For my brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh. When he calls them kinsmen and brethren according to the flesh, he shows that they are strangers to him in spirit. Whose adoption," he says, "is signified more significantly in Greek as ὑιοθεσία; these things were spoken of by the Lord: 'You are my firstborn son, Israel,' and 'I have begotten sons and exalted them' (Isaiah 1:2), but now he says, 'Alien sons have lied to me' (Psalm 17:46). And their glory is that they were chosen from all nations to be a special people of God, and their covenants, one in the letter and the other in the spirit, meant that those who once served ceremonies of the abolished Law in the flesh would afterwards serve in the spirit the commands of the eternal Gospel. And the law addresses both the new and the old Testament. And worship, that is, true religion. And promises; to fulfill whatever was promised to the fathers in their descendants. And (which is greater than all) from whom Christ was born of the Virgin Mary. And in order that we might know who this Christ is, he embraces the causes of his pain in one speech, who is blessed above all God forever, amen. And this great and such, is not received from those from whom he was born. And nevertheless, he praises the truth of judgement, so that the sentence of God may not seem displeasing to his kindred and brothers, and be either austere or excessive. In which, therefore, such great goods were present, he laments why so many evils are present now.
Source: Quotations drawn from early Church Fathers and historical Christian theologians (AD 100–1500). Some quotes address the surrounding passage context rather than this verse alone.

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