Isaiah 10:18

10:18 The splendor of his forest and his orchard

will be completely destroyed, ¹ 

as when a sick man’s life ebbs away. ² 

Isaiah 59:19

59:19 In the west, people respect ³  the Lord’s reputation; ⁴ 

in the east they recognize his splendor. ⁵ 

For he comes like a rushing ⁶  stream

driven on by wind sent from the Lord. ⁷ 

Romans 9:5

9:5 To them belong the patriarchs, ⁸  and from them, ⁹  by human descent, ¹⁰  came the Christ, ¹¹  who is God over all, blessed forever! ¹²  Amen.

Philippians 2:9-11

2:9 As a result God exalted him

and gave him the name

that is above every name,

2:10 so that at the name of Jesus

every knee will bow

– in heaven and on earth and under the earth –

2:11 and every tongue confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord

to the glory of God the Father.

Colossians 1:18

1:18 He is the head of the body, the church, as well as the beginning, the firstborn ¹³  from among the dead, so that he himself may become first in all things. ¹⁴ 

Hebrews 2:10

2:10 For it was fitting for him, for whom and through whom all things exist, ¹⁵  in bringing many sons to glory, to make the pioneer ¹⁶  of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

[10:18]  ¹ tn Heb “from breath to flesh it will destroy.” The expression “from breath to flesh” refers to the two basic components of a person, the immaterial (life’s breath) and the material (flesh). Here the phrase is used idiomatically to indicate totality.

[10:18]  ² tn The precise meaning of this line is uncertain. מָסַס (masas), which is used elsewhere of substances dissolving or melting, may here mean “waste away” or “despair.” נָסַס (nasas), which appears only here, may mean “be sick” or “stagger, despair.” See BDB 651 s.v. I נָסַס and HALOT 703 s.v. I נסס. One might translate the line literally, “like the wasting away of one who is sick” (cf. NRSV “as when an invalid wastes away”).

[59:19]  ³ tc Heb “fear.” A few medieval Hebrew mss read “see.”

[59:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “and they fear from the west the name of the Lord.”

[59:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “and from the rising of the sun his splendor.”

[59:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “narrow”; NAB, NIV, NRSV “pent-up.”

[59:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “the wind of the Lord drives it on.” The term רוּחַ (ruakh) could be translated “breath” here (see 30:28).

[9:5]  ⁸ tn Grk “of whom are the fathers.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[9:5]  ⁹ tn Grk “from whom.” Here the relative pronoun has been replaced by a personal pronoun.

[9:5]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “according to the flesh.”

[9:5]  ¹¹ tn Or “Messiah.” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed.”)

[9:5]  ¹² tn Or “the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever,” or “the Messiah. God who is over all be blessed forever!” or “the Messiah who is over all. God be blessed forever!” The translational difficulty here is not text-critical in nature, but is a problem of punctuation. Since the genre of these opening verses of Romans 9 is a lament, it is probably best to take this as an affirmation of Christ’s deity (as the text renders it). Although the other renderings are possible, to see a note of praise to God at the end of this section seems strangely out of place. But for Paul to bring his lament to a crescendo (that is to say, his kinsmen had rejected God come in the flesh), thereby deepening his anguish, is wholly appropriate. This is also supported grammatically and stylistically: The phrase ὁ ὢν (Jo wn, “the one who is”) is most naturally taken as a phrase which modifies something in the preceding context, and Paul’s doxologies are always closely tied to the preceding context. For a detailed examination of this verse, see B. M. Metzger, “The Punctuation of Rom. 9:5,” Christ and the Spirit in the New Testament, 95-112; and M. J. Harris, Jesus as God, 144-72.

[1:18]  ¹³ tn See the note on the term “firstborn” in 1:15. Here the reference to Jesus as the “firstborn from among the dead” seems to be arguing for a chronological priority, i.e., Jesus was the first to rise from the dead.

[1:18]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “in order that he may become in all things, himself, first.”

[2:10]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “for whom are all things and through whom are all things.”

[2:10]  ¹⁶ sn The Greek word translated pioneer is used of a “prince” or leader, the representative head of a family. It also carries nuances of “trailblazer,” one who breaks through to new ground for those who follow him. It is used some thirty-five times in the Greek OT and four times in the NT, always of Christ (Acts 3:15; 5:31; Heb 2:10; 12:2).