Isaiah 43:21

43:21 the people whom I formed for myself,

so they might praise me.” ¹ 

Isaiah 44:23

44:23 Shout for joy, O sky, for the Lord intervenes; ² 

shout out, you subterranean regions ³  of the earth.

O mountains, give a joyful shout;

you too, O forest and all your trees! ⁴ 

For the Lord protects ⁵  Jacob;

he reveals his splendor through Israel. ⁶ 

Isaiah 49:3

49:3 He said to me, “You are my servant,

Israel, through whom I will reveal my splendor.” ⁷ 

Ephesians 1:6

1:6 to the praise of the glory of his grace ⁸  that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son. ⁹ 

Ephesians 1:12

1:12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope ¹⁰  on Christ, ¹¹  would be to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 2:7

2:7 to demonstrate in the coming ages ¹²  the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward ¹³  us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:2

2:2 in which ¹⁴  you formerly lived ¹⁵  according to this world’s present path, ¹⁶  according to the ruler of the kingdom ¹⁷  of the air, the ruler of ¹⁸  the spirit ¹⁹  that is now energizing ²⁰  the sons of disobedience, ²¹ 

Ephesians 1:10

1:10 toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up ²²  all things in Christ – the things in heaven ²³  and the things on earth. ²⁴ 

[43:21]  ¹ tn Heb “[so] they might declare my praise.”

[44:23]  ² tn Heb “acts”; NASB, NRSV “has done it”; NLT “has done this wondrous thing.”

[44:23]  ³ tn Heb “lower regions.” This refers to Sheol and forms a merism with “sky” in the previous line. See Pss 63:9; 71:20.

[44:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “O forest and all the trees in it”; NASB, NRSV “and every tree in it.”

[44:23]  ⁵ tn Heb “redeems.” See the note at 41:14.

[44:23]  ⁶ tn That is, by delivering Israel. Cf. NCV “showed his glory when he saved Israel”; TEV “has shown his greatness by saving his people Israel.”

[49:3]  ⁷ sn This verse identifies the servant as Israel. This seems to refer to the exiled nation (cf. 41:8-9; 44:1-2, 21; 45:4; 48:20), but in vv. 5-6 this servant says he has been commissioned to reconcile Israel to God, so he must be distinct from the exiled nation. This servant is an ideal “Israel” who, like Moses of old, mediates a covenant for the nation (see v. 8), leads them out of bondage (v. 9a), and carries out God’s original plan for Israel by positively impacting the pagan nations (see v. 6b). By living according to God’s law, Israel was to be a model of God’s standards of justice to the surrounding nations (Deut 4:6-8). The sinful nation failed, but the servant, the ideal “Israel,” will succeed by establishing justice throughout the earth.

[1:6]  ⁸ tn Or “to the praise of his glorious grace.” Many translations translate δόξης τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ (doxh" th" carito" autou, literally “of the glory of his grace”) with τῆς χάριτος as an attributed genitive (cf., e.g., NIV, NRSV, ESV). The translation above has retained a literal rendering in order to make clear the relationship of this phrase to the other two similar phrases in v. 12 and 14, which affect the way one divides the material in the passage.

[1:6]  ⁹ tn Grk “the beloved.” The term ἠγαπημένῳ (hgaphmenw) means “beloved,” but often bears connotations of “only beloved” in an exclusive sense. “His dearly loved Son” picks up this connotation.

[1:12]  ¹⁰ tn Or “who had already hoped.”

[1:12]  ¹¹ tn Or “the Messiah.”

[2:7]  ¹² tn Or possibly “to the Aeons who are about to come.”

[2:7]  ¹³ tn Or “upon.”

[2:2]  ¹⁴ sn The relative pronoun which is feminine as is sins, indicating that sins is the antecedent.

[2:2]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “walked.”

[2:2]  ¹⁶ tn Or possibly “Aeon.”

[2:2]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “domain, [place of] authority.”

[2:2]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “of” (but see the note on the word “spirit” later in this verse).

[2:2]  ¹⁹ sn The ruler of the kingdom of the air is also the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience. Although several translations regard the ruler to be the same as the spirit, this is unlikely since the cases in Greek are different (ruler is accusative and spirit is genitive). To get around this, some have suggested that the genitive for spirit is a genitive of apposition. However, the semantics of the genitive of apposition are against such an interpretation (cf. ExSyn 100).

[2:2]  ²⁰ tn Grk “working in.”

[2:2]  ²¹ sn Sons of disobedience is a Semitic idiom that means “people characterized by disobedience.” However, it also contains a subtle allusion to vv. 4-10: Some of those sons of disobedience have become sons of God.

[1:10]  ²² tn The precise meaning of the infinitive ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι (anakefalaiwsasqai) in v. 10 is difficult to determine since it was used relatively infrequently in Greek literature and only twice in the NT (here and Rom 13:9). While there have been several suggestions, three deserve mention: (1) “To sum up.” In Rom 13:9, using the same term, the author there says that the law may be “summarized in one command, to love your neighbor as yourself.” The idea then in Eph 1:10 would be that all things in heaven and on earth can be summed up and made sense out of in relation to Christ. (2) “To renew.” If this is the nuance of the verb then all things in heaven and earth, after their plunge into sin and ruin, are renewed by the coming of Christ and his redemption. (3) “To head up.” In this translation the idea is that Christ, in the fullness of the times, has been exalted so as to be appointed as the ruler (i.e., “head”) over all things in heaven and earth (including the church). That this is perhaps the best understanding of the verb is evidenced by the repeated theme of Christ’s exaltation and reign in Ephesians and by the connection to the κεφαλή- (kefalh-) language of 1:22 (cf. Schlier, TDNT 3:682; L&N 63.8; M. Barth, Ephesians [AB 34], 1:89-92; contra A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians [WBC], 32-33).

[1:10]  ²³ tn Grk “the heavens.”

[1:10]  ²⁴ sn And the things on earth. Verse 10 ends with “in him.” The redundancy keeps the focus on Christ at the expense of good Greek style. Verse 11 repeats the reference with a relative pronoun (“in whom”) – again, at the expense of good Greek style. Although the syntax is awkward, the theology is rich. This is not the first time that a NT writer was so overcome with awe for his Lord that he seems to have lost control of his pen. Indeed, it happened frequently enough that some have labeled their christologically motivated solecisms an “apostolic disease.”