If the first fruit is holy, so is the lump. If the root is holy, so are the branches.
Parallel translations
- KJV For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
- BSB If the first part of the dough is holy, so is the whole batch; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
- NKJV For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
- NASB If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are as well.
- NLT And since Abraham and the other patriarchs were holy, their descendants will also be holy—just as the entire batch of dough is holy because the portion given as an offering is holy. For if the roots of the tree are holy, the branches will be, too.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
If the firstfruit and the root are holy, the whole lump and the branches are holy too.
Overview
Using two images, dough and tree, Paul argues that the patriarchs ('firstfruit'/'root') consecrate the people who descend from them, marking Israel as set apart for God's covenant purposes. The root imagery prepares for the olive tree allegory that follows. It affirms that God's covenant with the fathers still shapes his dealings with their offspring.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Prov 3:9Honor Yahweh with your substance, with the first fruits of all your increase:
- Ezek 44:30The first of all the first fruits of every thing, and every offering of everything, of all your offerings, shall be for the priest: you shall also give to the priests the first of your dough, to cause a blessing to rest on your house.
- Jas 1:18Of his own will he gave birth to us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
- Num 15:17–21Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
- Lev 23:10“Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘When you have come into the land which I give to you, and shall reap its harvest, then you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest:
- Jer 2:21Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a pure and faithful seed. How then have you turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine to me?
- Rom 11:17But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became partaker with them of the root and of the richness of the olive tree;
- Gen 17:7I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your offspring after you.
- Deut 18:4The first fruits of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him.
- Deut 26:10Now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, Yahweh, have given me.” You shall set it down before Yahweh your God, and worship before Yahweh your God.
- Exod 23:16And the feast of harvest, the first fruits of your labors, which you sow in the field; and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when you gather in your labors out of the field.
- Rev 14:4These are those who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed by Jesus from among men, the first fruits to God and to the Lamb.
- 1 Cor 7:14For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.
- Exod 23:19The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of Yahweh your God. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
- Exod 22:29“You shall not delay to offer from your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. “You shall give the firstborn of your sons to me.
- Neh 10:35–37and to bring the first fruits of our ground, and the first fruits of all fruit of all kinds of trees, year by year, to Yahweh’s house;
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Christ at the center
Paul unfolds the gospel in full: Christ our righteousness received by faith, the second Adam in whom many are made righteous, in whose death and resurrection we are buried and raised.
How Romans 11:16 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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