Paul stops to sum up where his argument has led. Barnes puts the question this way: what is the proper conclusion from this argument? Israel had been seeking something, yet as a people they had not received it. Gill explains that they sought "life and righteousness by their obedience to the law," not by faith in Christ. Paul's short question gathers Romans 11:1-6 into a plain verdict: some received what Israel sought, and the rest did not.

Paul answers at once in the same verse: "Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded" (Romans 11:7). He supports this from Scripture, "God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see" (Romans 11:8), and from David's words (Romans 11:9-10). Then he raises the next question his answer invites: "Have they stumbled that they should fall?" (Romans 11:11).

"The election" here means the chosen people themselves. Barnes notes that the abstract word may stand for "the elect," the chosen part of the people, and Gill calls them "the remnant among them, whom God had reserved for himself." This picks up Romans 11:4, where God told Elijah, "I have reserved to myself seven thousand men." The word "blinded" is the Greek epōrōthēsan. Barnes says it also means "were hardened," from a word for bones that grow hard after a break, or joints that become "callous or stiff."

This question shows God keeping His word to Israel even when most of the nation turned away. The remnant did not exist because they were better seekers; it existed "according to the election of grace" (Romans 11:5). Matthew Henry draws the conclusion: "If then this election was of grace, it could not be of works, either performed or foreseen."

But the hardening of "the rest" is not Paul's last word. He goes on to say it is "blindness in part" and lasts "until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in" (Romans 11:25). The God who kept a remnant is still at work for the whole.