Jeremiah 32:27

32:27 “I am the Lord, the God of all humankind. There is, indeed, nothing too difficult for me. ¹ 

Genesis 18:14

18:14 Is anything impossible ²  for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.” ³ 

Job 42:2

42:2 “I know that you can do all things;

no purpose of yours can be thwarted;

Luke 1:37

1:37 For nothing ⁴  will be impossible with God.”

Luke 18:27

18:27 He replied, “What is impossible ⁵  for mere humans ⁶  is possible for God.”

¹ tn Heb “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” The question is rhetorical expecting an emphatic negative answer (cf. E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 949, citing the parallel in Gen 18:14). The Hebrew particle “Behold” (הִנֵּה, hinneh) introduces the grounds for this rhetorical negative (cf. T. O. Lambdin, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew, 170, §135 [3]), i.e., “Since I am the Lord, the God of all mankind, there is indeed nothing too hard for me [or is there anything too hard for me?].”

² tn The Hebrew verb פָּלָא (pala’) means “to be wonderful, to be extraordinary, to be surpassing, to be amazing.”

³ 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.

⁴ 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.

⁵ sn The term impossible is in the emphatic position in the Greek text. God makes the impossible possible.

⁶ tn The plural Greek term ἄνθρωποις (anqrwpois) is used here in a generic sense, referring to both men and women (cf. NASB 1995 update, “people”). Because of the contrast here between mere mortals and God (“impossible for men…possible for God”) the phrase “mere humans” has been used in the translation.