What Does Romans 11:27 Mean?
And this is my covenant to them, when I take away their shortcomings.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.THE KEY
The covenant is defined here by a release: the people’s misses are taken away.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now of a covenant whose action is to take away what has been missed. The misses are named, but their removal, not their permanence, is the promise.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a person’s misses must remain attached to them forever as their defining truth.
THE ROOT
ἀφέλωμαι
aphélōmai
GROWS FROM
ἀφαιρέω (aphairéō), from ἀπό (apó, away) + αἱρέω (hairéō, take, seize)
To remove or take away; ἀπό marks movement away.
“take away” in this verse is aphélōmai. The verb names removal: what is taken away no longer remains attached to the people named. The Greek wording echoes Isaiah’s phrase for taking away sin, making removal the covenant’s action.
ALSO GROWS
aphaíresis: removal, taking away
ἀφαίρεσις
Hebrews 10:4 uses this noun for the removal of sins, naming the same action as a thing accomplished.
hairéō: take, seize
αἱρέω
This is the taking within the compound; ἀπό turns it toward removal away.
ἁμαρτίας
hamartías
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτάνω
hamartánō
To miss or fail to reach.
“shortcomings” in this verse is hamartías. The plural names misses: failures to reach or hit the mark. Joined to “take away,” the verse treats these misses as removable, rather than as the covenant’s final definition of the people.
ALSO GROWS
hamartánō: miss, fail to attain
ἁμαρτάνω
The verb gives the image behind the noun: a missed aim or failure to reach.
hamártēma: a miss, fault, or misdeed
ἁμάρτημα
This related noun keeps the focus on a particular miss or its result.
διαθήκη
diathḗkē
GROWS FROM
διατίθημι
diatíthēmi
To set out, arrange, or establish by disposition.
The word for covenant belongs to a family built around setting something in place. Here, what is established is defined by an act of removal: the misses are taken away.
ALSO GROWS
diatíthemai: arrange, establish, make a covenant
διατίθεμαι
This verb shares the covenant word’s root and carries the sense of setting an arrangement in place.
diáthesis: arrangement, disposition
διάθεσις
This related noun makes the root’s sense of an established arrangement visible.
THE PATTERN
Covenant is expressed through God removing what stands against the people.
As far as the east is from the west, so far he puts our rebellions from us.I, even I, I AM, the one who wipes away your rebellion for my own sake, and I will not remember your missed marks.And their shortcomings and their breaking away I will remember no more.THE THREAD
By this, therefore, the crookedness of Jacob will be covered. And this is the whole fruit of removing his falling short. When he sets all the altar stones like shattered chalk, the poles and sun-pillars will not rise.The Greek wording of Isaiah uses the same verb as Romans 11:27 for “take away,” and names sin in the same clause. That shared wording shows the covenant’s removal as part of a pattern of taking the miss away.
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