Some exegetes connect the words, through the mercy shown to you
(toi humeteroi eleei) to the first part of Romans 11:31, meaning that the disobedience of the unbelieving Jews is connected in one way or another to the mercy shown to the Gentiles. However, Cranfield1 and others appeal to the symmetric structure of Romans 11:30–31 and to the parallels with the line of reasoning found in Romans 11:11b in order to connect the words toi humeteroi eleei to the second part of Romans 11:31 (through the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy
).
In Romans 11:30–31 Paul shows how God’s mercy can bring the dead back to life. The readers to whom the letter is addressed have indeed experienced it themselves: For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.
Because the Jews kept the gates closed for the gospel by virtue of their unbelief, the gospel spread and soon reached Antioch from where it travelled into the world, even as far as Rome. And where Gentiles were formerly disobedient to the Creator, they were now converted to the obedience of faith in the one God (see Romans 1:5).
Yet the same dynamic can now be applied to the Jews: so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.
The door that has been opened to the nations can now offer a new opening to a disobedient Israel. God’s mercy does not entail one-way traffic.2
30 For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience,