Genesis 18:14

18:14 Is anything impossible ¹  for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.” ² 

Jeremiah 32:17

32:17 ‘Oh, Lord God, ³  you did indeed ⁴  make heaven and earth by your mighty power and great strength. ⁵  Nothing is too hard for you!

Luke 1:37

1:37 For nothing ⁶  will be impossible with God.”

Acts 26:8

26:8 Why do you people ⁷  think ⁸  it is unbelievable ⁹  that ¹⁰  God raises the dead?

Philippians 3:21

3:21 who will transform these humble bodies of ours ¹¹  into the likeness of his glorious body by means of that power by which he is able to subject all things to himself.

¹ tn The Hebrew verb פָּלָא (pala’) means “to be wonderful, to be extraordinary, to be surpassing, to be amazing.”

² sn Sarah will have a son. The passage brings God’s promise into clear focus. As long as it was a promise for the future, it really could be believed without much involvement. But now, when it seemed so impossible from the human standpoint, when the Lord fixed an exact date for the birth of the child, the promise became rather overwhelming to Abraham and Sarah. But then this was the Lord of creation, the one they had come to trust. The point of these narratives is that the creation of Abraham’s offspring, which eventually became Israel, is no less a miraculous work of creation than the creation of the world itself.

³ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” For an explanation of the rendering here see the study note on 1:6.

⁴ tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle normally translated “behold.” See the translator’s note on 1:6 for the usage of this particle.

⁵ tn Heb “by your great power and your outstretched arm.” See 21:5; 27:5 and the marginal note on 27:5 for this idiom.

⁶ tn In Greek, the phrase πᾶν ῥῆμα (pan rJhma, “nothing”) has an emphatic position, giving it emphasis as the lesson in the entire discussion. The remark is a call for faith.

⁷ tn The word “people” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate that the second person pronoun (“you”) is plural (others in addition to King Agrippa are being addressed).

⁸ tn BDAG 568 s.v. κρίνω 3 states, “τί ἄπιστον κρίνεται παρ᾿ ὑμῖν; why do you think it is incredible? Ac 26:8.” The passive construction (“why is it thought unbelievable…”) has been converted to an active one to simplify the translation.

⁹ tn Or “incredible.” BDAG 103 s.v. ἄπιστος 1 states, “unbelievable, incredible…τί ἄπιστον κρίνεται παρ᾿ ὑμῖν…; why does it seem incredible to you? Ac 26:8.”

¹⁰ tn Grk “if.” The first-class conditional construction, which assumes reality for the sake of argument, has been translated as indirect discourse.

¹¹ tn Grk “transform the body of our humility.”