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Bible Dictionaries
Grafting
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or The Greek word used (ἐγκεντρίζω) has two distinct meanings: (1) ‘goad’ or ‘spur on’ (cf. Acts 26:14, ‘It is hard for thee to kick against the goad [κέντρον]),’ and (2) ‘inoculate’ or ‘graft.’ The English word ‘graff’ is derived from the Gr. γράφειν, ‘to write,’ and means a slip of a cultivated tree inserted into a wild one, so called because of its resemblance to a pencil. In the NT the word occurs only in Romans 11:17-24 : St. Paul here follows the Prophets (cf. Jeremiah 11:16) in likening Israel to an olive tree (cf. article Olive). Its roots are the Patriarchs, the original branches are the Jews, and the branches of the wild olive which have been grafted in are the Gentile Christians. Some of the original branches have been broken off owing to their lack of faith, and by a wholly unnatural process shoots from a wild olive have been grafted into the cultivated stock. But this is no ground for self-adulation: all the blessings which the Gentiles derive come from the original stock into which they have been grafted through no merit of their own; let them beware, therefore, lest through pride and want of faith they also are cut off, for it would, on the one hand, be a much less violent proceeding to cut off the wild branches; which have been grafted in, than it was to cut off the original branches: while, on the other hand, it would be far easier and far more natural to graft the original cultivated branches back into the stock on which they grew than it was to graft the Gentiles, who are merely a slip cut from a wild olive, in amongst the branches of the cultivated olive. The olive, like most fruit trees, requires a graft from a cultivated tree if the fruit is to be of any value. A graft from a wild tree inserted into a cultivated stock would of course be useless, and such a process is never performed; hence the point of St. Paul’s comparison.
Literature.-Sanday-Headlam, Romans 5 (International Critical Commentary , 1902), pp. 319-330; Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) ii. 257f.; Encyclopaedia Biblica 3496; Hastings’ Single-vol. Dictionary of the Bible , p. 314; J. C. Geikie, The Holy Land and the Bible, 1903, p. 50; W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, 1910, p. 33.
P. S. P. Handcock.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Grafting'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/g/grafting.html. 1906-1918.
