Isaiah asked this question in sorrow. He had brought God's message about the suffering Servant, and few received it (Isaiah 53:1-3). Barnes says Isaiah complains that his declarations about the Messiah had been rejected, and that the question form "is a mode of saying emphatically that few or none had done it." Paul quotes it to show that unbelief toward God's message was nothing new; the prophet had met it too. Barnes adds that it is not easy to tell whether this verse continues the objection Paul is answering or begins his reply: "it has been made a question whether this is to be regarded as a continuation of the objection of the Jew, or as a part of the answer of the apostle." He leans toward reading it as Paul's own admission that not all have obeyed.

The question carries its own sad answer: few have believed. Paul states that answer before he even quotes Isaiah: "they have not all obeyed the gospel" (Romans 10:16). He then draws the lesson: "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). The message must be heard, but hearing alone does not guarantee believing. John uses the same question of the crowds who saw Jesus' miracles, "yet they believed not on him" (John 12:37-38).

"Esaias" is the Greek form of the name Isaiah, used in the KJV New Testament. The Greek word for "report" is akoē, the same word translated "hearing" in Romans 10:17, "faith cometh by hearing." The word for "obeyed" is hupakouō, built from "under" and "to hear"; Thayer's lexicon gives its first sense as to listen, hearken. Isaiah 53:1 opens the prophet's great passage about the Servant who "is despised and rejected of men" (Isaiah 53:3).

God's word does not lose its truth when people refuse it. Isaiah asked this question centuries before Paul, and John and Paul both found it fitting again (John 12:38; Romans 10:16). Rejection of God's message is an old pattern, and Scripture itself foresaw it. Matthew Henry writes, "It is no strange thing, but it is a very sad and uncomfortable thing, for the ministers of Christ to bring the report of the gospel, and not to be believed in it."

The question also shows where the power lies. Gill notes that even when the gospel is rightly preached, "there is no success without the power of God attending it." Paul does not end in despair. In the next chapter he shows that God still keeps "a remnant according to the election of grace" (Romans 11:5).