Psalms 115:3

115:3 Our God is in heaven!

He does whatever he pleases! ¹ 

Psalms 135:6

135:6 He does whatever he pleases

in heaven and on earth,

in the seas and all the ocean depths.

Daniel 4:34-35

4:34 But at the end of the appointed time ²  I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked up ³  toward heaven, and my sanity returned to me.

I extolled the Most High,

and I praised and glorified the one who lives forever.

For his authority is an everlasting authority,

and his kingdom extends from one generation to the next.

4:35 All the inhabitants of the earth are regarded as nothing. ⁴ 

He does as he wishes with the army of heaven

and with those who inhabit the earth.

No one slaps ⁵  his hand

and says to him, ‘What have you done?’

Matthew 11:26

11:26 Yes, Father, for this was your gracious will. ⁶ 

Ephesians 1:9

1:9 He did this when he revealed ⁷  to us the secret ⁸  of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth ⁹  in Christ, ¹⁰ 

Ephesians 1:11

1:11 In Christ ¹¹  we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, ¹²  since we were predestined according to the one purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will

¹ sn He does whatever he pleases. Such sovereignty is characteristic of kings (see Eccl 8:3).

² tn Aram “days.”

³ tn Aram “lifted up my eyes.”

⁴ tc The present translation reads כְּלָא (kÿla’), with many medieval Hebrew MSS, rather than כְּלָה (kÿlah) of BHS.

⁵ tn Aram “strikes against.”

⁶ tn Grk “for (to do) thus was well-pleasing before you,” BDAG 325 s.v. ἔμπροσθεν 1.b.δ; speaking of something taking place “before” God is a reverential way of avoiding direct connection of the action to him.

⁷ tn Or “He did this by revealing”; Grk “making known, revealing.” Verse 9 begins with a participle dependent on “lavished” in v. 8; the adverbial participle could be understood as temporal (“when he revealed”), which would be contemporaneous to the action of the finite verb “lavished,” or as means (“by revealing”). The participle has been translated here with the temporal nuance to allow for means to also be a possible interpretation. If the translation focused instead upon means, the temporal nuance would be lost as the time frame for the action of the participle would become indistinct.

⁸ tn Or “mystery.” In the NT μυστήριον (musthrion) refers to a divine secret previously undisclosed.

⁹ tn Or “purposed,” “publicly displayed.” Cf. Rom 3:25.

¹⁰ tn Grk “in him”; the referent (Christ) has been specified in the translation for the sake of clarity.

¹¹ tn Grk “in whom,” as a continuation of the previous verse.

¹² tn Grk “we were appointed by lot.” The notion of the verb κληρόω (klhrow) in the OT was to “appoint a portion by lot” (the more frequent cognate verb κληρονομέω [klhronomew] meant “obtain a portion by lot”). In the passive, as here, the idea is that “we were appointed [as a portion] by lot” (BDAG 548 s.v. κληρόω 1). The words “God’s own” have been supplied in the translation to clarify this sense of the verb. An alternative interpretation is that believers receive a portion as an inheritance: “In Christ we too have been appointed a portion of the inheritance.” See H. W. Hoehner, Ephesians, 226-27, for discussion on this interpretive issue.