Paul pauses to sum up. Barnes paraphrases the question as "What conclusion shall we draw from the previous train of remarks?" Paul has argued that God is free to show mercy as He wills and that the prophets foretold the calling of Gentiles and the saving of a remnant of Israel. Now he asks his readers to draw the conclusion with him, and the conclusion is surprising: the people who were not looking for righteousness found it.

Paul answers in the same breath: "That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith" (Romans 9:30). "But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness" (Romans 9:31). Barnes calls the Gentiles' justification "a matter of fact," and adds that it was what the prophet had predicted.

"What shall we say then?" is a phrase Paul uses again and again in Romans to move his argument forward (Romans 4:1; Romans 6:1; Romans 9:14). "Followed after" pictures someone chasing a goal. The Gentiles had not been pursuing a right standing with God through the law of Moses, yet they received it by faith. Gill stresses that what they attained was "not a righteousness of their own, not the righteousness of works."

This question opens one of the great surprises of the gospel. Righteousness came to people who were not chasing it, and it came "by faith." Matthew Henry writes that the Gentiles "knew not their guilt and misery, therefore were not careful to procure a remedy." Yet they received righteousness, not by becoming Jews, "but by embracing Christ, and believing in him."

This shows God's way of grace. Righteousness before God is His gift received by faith, not a prize won by the hardest runner. Paul makes the same point in Romans 10:3-4: Israel went about "to establish their own righteousness," but "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."