Ephesians 1:21

1:21 far above every rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

Genesis 14:19

14:19 He blessed Abram, saying,

“Blessed be Abram by ¹  the Most High God,

Creator ²  of heaven and earth. ³ 

Genesis 14:1

The Blessing of Victory for God’s People

14:1 At that time ⁴  Amraphel king of Shinar, ⁵  Arioch king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations ⁶ 

Genesis 29:11-12

29:11 Then Jacob kissed Rachel and began to weep loudly. ⁷  29:12 When Jacob explained ⁸  to Rachel that he was a relative of her father ⁹  and the son of Rebekah, she ran and told her father.

Psalms 95:3

95:3 For the Lord is a great God,

a great king who is superior to ¹⁰  all gods.

Isaiah 40:11-17

40:11 Like a shepherd he tends his flock;

he gathers up the lambs with his arm;

he carries them close to his heart; ¹¹ 

he leads the ewes along.

The Lord is Incomparable

40:12 Who has measured out the waters ¹²  in the hollow of his hand,

or carefully ¹³  measured the sky, ¹⁴ 

or carefully weighed ¹⁵  the soil of the earth,

or weighed the mountains in a balance,

or the hills on scales? ¹⁶ 

40:13 Who comprehends ¹⁷  the mind ¹⁸  of the Lord,

or gives him instruction as his counselor? ¹⁹ 

40:14 From whom does he receive directions? ²⁰ 

Who ²¹  teaches him the correct way to do things, ²² 

or imparts knowledge to him,

or instructs him in skillful design? ²³ 

40:15 Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket;

they are regarded as dust on the scales.

He lifts ²⁴  the coastlands ²⁵  as if they were dust.

40:16 Not even Lebanon could supply enough firewood for a sacrifice; ²⁶ 

its wild animals would not provide enough burnt offerings. ²⁷ 

40:17 All the nations are insignificant before him;

they are regarded as absolutely nothing. ²⁸ 

Isaiah 40:21-23

40:21 Do you not know?

Do you not hear?

Has it not been told to you since the very beginning?

Have you not understood from the time the earth’s foundations were made?

40:22 He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon; ²⁹ 

its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. ³⁰ 

He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, ³¹ 

and spreads it out ³²  like a pitched tent. ³³ 

40:23 He is the one who reduces rulers to nothing;

he makes the earth’s leaders insignificant.

Jeremiah 10:10-13

10:10 The Lord is the only true God.

He is the living God and the everlasting King.

When he shows his anger the earth shakes.

None of the nations can stand up to his fury.

10:11 You people of Israel should tell those nations this:

‘These gods did not make heaven and earth.

They will disappear ³⁴  from the earth and from under the heavens.’ ³⁵ 

10:12 The Lord is the one who ³⁶  by his power made the earth.

He is the one who by his wisdom established the world.

And by his understanding he spread out the skies.

10:13 When his voice thunders, ³⁷  the heavenly ocean roars.

He makes the clouds rise from the far-off horizons. ³⁸ 

He makes the lightning flash out in the midst of the rain.

He unleashes the wind from the places where he stores it. ³⁹ 

Daniel 4:34-35

4:34 But at the end of the appointed time ⁴⁰  I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked up ⁴¹  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. ⁴² 

He does as he wishes with the army of heaven

and with those who inhabit the earth.

No one slaps ⁴³  his hand

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

Daniel 5:18-23

5:18 As for you, O king, the most high God bestowed on your father Nebuchadnezzar a kingdom, greatness, honor, and majesty. ⁴⁴  5:19 Due to the greatness that he bestowed on him, all peoples, nations, and language groups were trembling with fear ⁴⁵  before him. He killed whom he wished, he spared ⁴⁶  whom he wished, he exalted whom he wished, and he brought low whom he wished. 5:20 And when his mind ⁴⁷  became arrogant ⁴⁸  and his spirit filled with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and his honor was removed from him. 5:21 He was driven from human society, his mind ⁴⁹  was changed to that of an animal, he lived ⁵⁰  with the wild donkeys, he was fed grass like oxen, and his body became damp with the dew of the sky, until he came to understand that the most high God rules over human kingdoms, and he appoints over them whomever he wishes.

5:22 “But you, his son ⁵¹  Belshazzar, have not humbled yourself, ⁵²  although you knew all this. 5:23 Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. You brought before you the vessels from his temple, and you and your nobles, together with your wives and concubines, drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone – gods ⁵³  that cannot see or hear or comprehend! But you have not glorified the God who has in his control ⁵⁴  your very breath and all your ways!

Matthew 6:13

6:13 And do not lead us into temptation, ⁵⁵  but deliver us from the evil one. ⁵⁶ 

Romans 11:36

11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever! Amen.

Revelation 4:8-11

4:8 Each one of the four living creatures had six wings ⁵⁷  and was full of eyes all around and inside. ⁵⁸  They never rest day or night, saying: ⁵⁹ 

“Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God, the All-Powerful, ⁶⁰ 

Who was and who is, and who is still to come!”

4:9 And whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, ⁶¹  and thanks to the one who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 4:10 the twenty-four elders throw themselves to the ground ⁶²  before the one who sits on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever, and they offer their crowns ⁶³  before his ⁶⁴  throne, saying:

4:11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God,

to receive glory and honor and power,

since you created all things,

and because of your will they existed and were created!” ⁶⁵ 

[14:19]  ¹ tn The preposition לְ (lamed) introduces the agent after the passive participle.

[14:19]  ² tn Some translate “possessor of heaven and earth” (cf. NASB). But cognate evidence from Ugaritic indicates that there were two homonymic roots ָקנָה (qanah), one meaning “to create” (as in Gen 4:1) and the other “to obtain, to acquire, to possess.” While “possessor” would fit here, “creator” is the more likely due to the collocation with “heaven and earth.”

[14:19]  ³ tn The terms translated “heaven” and “earth” are both objective genitives after the participle in construct.

[14:1]  ⁴ tn The sentence begins with the temporal indicator וַיְהִי (vayÿhi) followed by “in the days of.”

[14:1]  ⁵ sn Shinar (also in v. 9) is the region of Babylonia.

[14:1]  ⁶ tn Or “king of Goyim.” The Hebrew term גּוֹיִם (goyim) means “nations,” but a number of modern translations merely transliterate the Hebrew (cf. NEB “Goyim”; NIV, NRSV “Goiim”).

[29:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “and he lifted up his voice and wept.” The idiom calls deliberate attention to the fact that Jacob wept out loud.

[29:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “declared.”

[29:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “that he [was] the brother of her father.”

[95:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “above.”

[40:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in his bosom” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV), an expression which reflects closeness and protective care.

[40:12]  ¹² tn The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has מי ים (“waters of the sea”), a reading followed by NAB.

[40:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “with a span.” A “span” was the distance between the ends of the thumb and the little finger of the spread hand” (BDB 285 s.v. זֶרֶת).

[40:12]  ¹⁴ tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[40:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “or weighed by a third part [of a measure].”

[40:12]  ¹⁶ sn The implied answer to the rhetorical questions of v. 12 is “no one but the Lord. The Lord, and no other, created the world. Like a merchant weighing out silver or commodities on a scale, the Lord established the various components of the physical universe in precise proportions.

[40:13]  ¹⁷ tn Perhaps the verb is used metonymically here in the sense of “advises” (note the following line).

[40:13]  ¹⁸ tn In this context רוּחַ (ruakh) likely refers to the Lord’s “mind,” or mental faculties, rather than his personal Spirit (see BDB 925 s.v.).

[40:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “or [as] the man of his counsel causes him to know?”

[40:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “With whom did he consult, so that he gave discernment to him?”

[40:14]  ²¹ tn Heb “and taught him.” The vav (ו) consecutive with prefixed verbal form continues the previous line. The translation employs an interrogative pronoun for stylistic reasons.

[40:14]  ²² tn The phrase אֹרַח מִשְׁפָּט (’orakh mishpat) could be translated “path of justice” (so NASB, NRSV), but in this context, where creative ability and skill is in view, the phrase is better understood in the sense of “the way that is proper or fitting” (see BDB 1049 s.v. מִשְׁפָּט 6); cf. NIV, NCV “the right way.”

[40:14]  ²³ tn Heb “or the way of understanding causes him to know?”

[40:15]  ²⁴ tn Or “weighs” (NIV); NLT “picks up.”

[40:15]  ²⁵ tn Or “islands” (NASB, NIV, NLT).

[40:16]  ²⁶ tn The words “for a sacrifice” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[40:16]  ²⁷ sn The point is that not even the Lebanon forest could supply enough wood and animals for an adequate sacrifice to the Lord.

[40:17]  ²⁸ tn Heb “[as derived] from nothing and unformed.”

[40:22]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the circle of the earth” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[40:22]  ³⁰ tn The words “before him” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[40:22]  ³¹ tn The otherwise unattested noun דֹּק (doq), translated here “thin curtain,” is apparently derived from the verbal root דקק (“crush”) from which is derived the adjective דַּק (daq, “thin”; see HALOT 229 s.v. דקק). The nuance “curtain” is implied from the parallelism (see “tent” in the next line).

[40:22]  ³² tn The meaning of the otherwise unattested verb מָתַח (matakh, “spread out”) is determined from the parallelism (note the corresponding verb “stretch out” in the previous line) and supported by later Hebrew and Aramaic cognates. See HALOT 654 s.v. *מתה.

[40:22]  ³³ tn Heb “like a tent [in which] to live”; NAB, NASB “like a tent to dwell (live NIV, NRSV) in.”

[10:11]  ³⁴ tn Aram “The gods who did not make…earth will disappear…” The sentence is broken up in the translation to avoid a long, complex English sentence in conformity with contemporary English style.

[10:11]  ³⁵ tn This verse is in Aramaic. It is the only Aramaic sentence in Jeremiah. Scholars debate the appropriateness of this verse to this context. Many see it as a gloss added by a postexilic scribe which was later incorporated into the text. Both R. E. Clendenen (“Discourse Strategies in Jeremiah 10,” JBL 106 [1987]: 401-8) and W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:324-25, 334-35) have given detailed arguments that the passage is not only original but the climax and center of the contrast between the Lord and idols in vv. 2-16. Holladay shows that the passage is a very carefully constructed chiasm (see accompanying study note) which argues that “these” at the end is the subject of the verb “will disappear” not the attributive adjective modifying heaven. He also makes a very good case that the verse is poetry and not prose as it is rendered in the majority of modern English versions.

[10:12]  ³⁶ tn The words “The Lord is” are not in the text. They are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation here because of the possible confusion of who the subject is due to the parenthetical address to the people of Israel in v. 11. The first two verbs are participles and should not merely be translated as the narrative past. They are predicate nominatives of an implied copula intending to contrast the Lord as the one who made the earth with the idols which did not.

[10:13]  ³⁷ tn Heb “At the voice of his giving.” The idiom “to give the voice” is often used for thunder (cf. BDB 679 s.v. נָתַן Qal.1.x).

[10:13]  ³⁸ tn Heb “from the ends of the earth.”

[10:13]  ³⁹ tn Heb “he brings out the winds from his storehouses.”

[4:34]  ⁴⁰ tn Aram “days.”

[4:34]  ⁴¹ tn Aram “lifted up my eyes.”

[4:35]  ⁴² tc The present translation reads כְּלָא (kÿla’), with many medieval Hebrew MSS, rather than כְּלָה (kÿlah) of BHS.

[4:35]  ⁴³ tn Aram “strikes against.”

[5:18]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “royal greatness and majestic honor,” if the four terms are understood as a double hendiadys.

[5:19]  ⁴⁵ tn Aram “were trembling and fearing.” This can be treated as a hendiadys, “were trembling with fear.”

[5:19]  ⁴⁶ tn Aram “let live.” This Aramaic form is the aphel participle of חַיָה(khayah, “to live”). Theodotion and the Vulgate mistakenly take the form to be from מְחָא (mÿkha’, “to smite”).

[5:20]  ⁴⁷ tn Aram “heart.”

[5:20]  ⁴⁸ sn The point of describing Nebuchadnezzar as arrogant is that he had usurped divine prerogatives, and because of his immense arrogance God had dealt decisively with him.

[5:21]  ⁴⁹ tn Aram “heart.”

[5:21]  ⁵⁰ tn Aram “his dwelling.”

[5:22]  ⁵¹ tn Or “descendant”; or “successor.”

[5:22]  ⁵² tn Aram “your heart.”

[5:23]  ⁵³ tn Aram “which.”

[5:23]  ⁵⁴ tn Aram “in whose hand [are].”

[6:13]  ⁵⁵ tn Or “into a time of testing.”

[6:13]  ⁵⁶ tc Most mss (L W Θ 0233 ˹³ 33 Ï sy sa Didache) read (though some with slight variation) ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία καὶ ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν (“for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen”) here. The reading without this sentence, though, is attested by generally better witnesses (א B D Z 0170 ˹ pc lat mae Or). The phrase was probably composed for the liturgy of the early church and most likely was based on 1 Chr 29:11-13; a scribe probably added the phrase at this point in the text for use in public scripture reading (see TCGNT 13-14). Both external and internal evidence argue for the shorter reading.

[4:8]  ⁵⁷ tn Grk “six wings apiece,” but this is redundant with “each one” in English.

[4:8]  ⁵⁸ tn Some translations render ἔσωθεν (eswqen) as “under [its] wings,” but the description could also mean “filled all around on the outside and on the inside with eyes.” Since the referent is not available to the interpreter, the exact force is difficult to determine.

[4:8]  ⁵⁹ tn Or “They never stop saying day and night.”

[4:8]  ⁶⁰ tn On this word BDAG 755 s.v. παντοκράτωρ states, “the Almighty, All-Powerful, Omnipotent (One) only of God…(ὁ) κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ π. …Rv 1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7; 21:22.”

[4:9]  ⁶¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

[4:10]  ⁶² tn Grk “the twenty-four elders fall down.” BDAG 815 s.v. πίπτω 1.b.α.ב. has “fall down, throw oneself to the ground as a sign of devotion or humility, before high-ranking persons or divine beings.”

[4:10]  ⁶³ sn See the note on the word crown in Rev 3:11.

[4:10]  ⁶⁴ tn The pronoun “his” is understood from the demonstrative force of the article τοῦ (tou) before θρόνου (qronou).

[4:11]  ⁶⁵ tc The past tense of “they existed” (ἦσαν, hsan) and the order of the expression “they existed and were created” seems backwards both logically and chronologically. The text as it stands is the more difficult reading and seems to have given rise to codex A omitting the final “they were created,” 2329 replacing “they existed” (ἦσαν) with “have come into being” (ἐγένοντο, egeneto), and 046 adding οὐκ (ouk, “not”) before ἦσαν (“they did not exist, [but were created]”). Several mss (1854 2050 Ï^A sa) also attempt to alleviate the problem by replacing ἦσαν with “they are” (εἰσιν, eisin).