With the association of the wild branches with the Christian gentiles, the idea that they were set in place of the "main top" branches that were cut off is perhaps significant. Verse 9 places the wild olive branches in the stead of the main top branches that were cut off. Returning to the association of this "main top," which was the leadership of Israel, we have the gentiles being not only grafted in, but grafted in to a position of leadership. This in-grafting would then foresee the shift in the emphasis of the covenant from the lineage of Abraham to the care of the adopted Christian bearers of that covenant. The covenant is now in the care of the adoptees, not the original inheritors.