The Exodus is not the subject of Romans 9. Romans 8:31 through Romans 11 is about Election.
Your "context" is not accurate; thus your conclusions are wrong.
Pharoah showed resistance and unbelief in God's commands, and God chose not to change Pharoah's heart to believe and obey, for His own good reasons.
A hard heart is an unbelieving heart. "Primal antipathy" is the Godly curse of Total Depravity. The only remedy, is God's mercy and God only gives His mercy to whom He wills . . and it was not Pharoah. Romans 9:15-18
Pharoah was born an unbeliever, and God elected to leave Pharoah in his unbelief, in order to show His absolute sovereign power over him. Exodus 9:16
Romans 9 teaches divine Election of individuals versus Reprobation of individuals. (Romans 9:8-13)
Nothing national about the context of these chapters. God's workings with men is always personal, and according to His eternal purpose and good pleasure. Ephesians Chapter One.
Saying that we do not need to consult background scriptures is tantamount to saying we should not "search the scriptures" which Paul said was the noble enterprise of the Bereans. Remember, the scriptures they consulted were also in the OT. I suppose, instead of doing that it is better to consult commentaries of men like John Calvin as if they were the final authority. I, for one, prefer to follow the principles of sound hermeneutics and allow "
scripture to interpret scripture."
From looking at the text of Romans 9 it is clear that the general subject is the apostasy of the
nation Israel. Paul makes this the focus as early as verse 3:
my
brothers,[a] my
kinsmen according to the flesh. 4 They are
Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the
covenants, the
giving of the law, the
worship the (
system of sacrificial worship), and the
promises. 5 To them belong the
patriarchs, and from their
race, according to the flesh, is the Christ (
Romans 9:3-5)
His opening remarks concern his
kinsmen, which are a particular
race called
Israelites, who possess the
covenants (Abrahamic and Mosaic), the
law, the
worship system, and
the promises. It could not be more clear that he is entering into a discussion about the Jews.
Israel was called and chosen but they ended up out of God's will, disinherited from the promises of God. Paul makes the case that, despite appearances, God's purposes have not failed (
Romans 9:6a). Thus far he is talking about how God works through
peoples/nations.
Next, Paul discusses other examples of how God chooses people to carry out his purpose. He brings up the case of Esau and Jacob. Looking back to the time of their birth we find that when Rebecca was pregnant her twin sons seemed to be striving against one another in her womb. God Himself prophetically interprets this event.
I suppose if Calvin could have put his own words here He might have had God say something like, "two
individuals are fighting in your womb - one of the two I have
predestined to be
irrevocably damned and the other I have predestined to be
unconditionally saved." He might also have added, "even though they are
unborn fetuses I have already decided to hate one and love the other, not on the basis of anything about them but according to my 'sovereign' choice."
What the scripture actually says is,
“Two
nations are in your womb, and two
peoples from within you shall be divided; the
one shall be stronger than the other,
the older shall serve the younger.”
(
Genesis 25:23)
More evidence that the prophecy about Rebecca's children was not about them but about their descendants can be found in the last part "And the older shall serve the younger."
There is no evidence that Esau ever served his brother or that Jacob subjugated his brother's family. The prophecy to Rebecca was not about Esau and Jacob
as individuals but about the
two nations and
two peoples that would come from them. Jacob's descendants became the nation of Israel while Esau's became the nation of Edom. Between the two, God
chose Israel to be the spearhead of His redemptive plan (
Exodus 19:5-6). Even though Edom was not
chosenfor this purpose this does not mean they were always a nation of unbelievers or that they, as a people, were delivered over to Satan. For a very long time Edom was a center of wisdom in the Middle East (
Jeremiah 49:7)
It seems that you want to stay in Romans 9 and as far away from the scriptural ground for the chapter as possible. This is understandable. Romans 9 is familiar territory to the Calvinist, so much so that many cannot read the passage at all without donning the dark lenses of predeterminism first. Once that is done the meaning becomes certain. Still you cannot interpret Romans without understanding the OT scriptures upon which Paul's teaching is drawn.
