Nehemiah 9:5

9:5 The Levites – Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah – said, “Stand up and bless the LORD your God!”

“May you be blessed, O LORD our God, from age to age. ¹  May your glorious name ²  be blessed; may it be lifted up above all blessing and praise.

Psalms 41:13

41:13 The Lord God of Israel deserves praise ³ 

in the future and forevermore! ⁴ 

We agree! We agree! ⁵ 

Romans 1:25

1:25 They ⁶  exchanged the truth of God for a lie ⁷  and worshiped and served the creation ⁸  rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Romans 9:5

9:5 To them belong the patriarchs, ⁹  and from them, ¹⁰  by human descent, ¹¹  came the Christ, ¹²  who is God over all, blessed forever! ¹³  Amen.

Romans 9:1

Israel’s Rejection Considered

9:1 ¹⁴ I am telling the truth in Christ (I am not lying!), for my conscience assures me ¹⁵  in the Holy Spirit –

Romans 1:11

1:11 For I long to see you, so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift ¹⁶  to strengthen you,

Romans 1:17

1:17 For the righteousness ¹⁷  of God is revealed in the gospel ¹⁸  from faith to faith, ¹⁹  just as it is written, “The righteous by faith will live.” ²⁰ 

Romans 6:16

6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves ²¹  as obedient slaves, ²²  you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness? ²³ 

[9:5]  ¹ tc The MT reads here only “from age to age,” without the preceding words “May you be blessed, O LORD our God” which are included in the present translation. But apparently something has dropped out of the text. This phrase occurs elsewhere in the OT as a description of the Lord (see Ps 41:13; 106:48), and it seems best to understand it here in that light. The LXX adds “And Ezra said” at the beginning of v. 6 as a transition: “And Ezra said, ‘You alone are the LORD.” Without this addition (which is not included by most modern English translations) the speakers of vv. 9:5b-10:1 continue to be the Levites of v. 5a.

[9:5]  ² tn Heb “the name of your glory.”

[41:13]  ³ tn Heb “[be] blessed.” See Pss 18:46; 28:6; 31:21.

[41:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “from everlasting to everlasting.” See 1 Chr 16:36; Neh 9:5; Pss 90:2; 106:48.

[41:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “surely and surely” (אָמֵן וְאָמֵן [’amen vÿ’amen], i.e., “amen and amen”). This is probably a congregational response to the immediately preceding statement about the propriety of praising God.

[1:25]  ⁶ tn Grk “who.” The relative pronoun was converted to a personal pronoun and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[1:25]  ⁷ tn Grk “the lie.”

[1:25]  ⁸ tn Or “creature, created things.”

[9:5]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “from whom.” Here the relative pronoun has been replaced by a personal pronoun.

[9:5]  ¹¹ tn Grk “according to the flesh.”

[9:5]  ¹² tn Or “Messiah.” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed.”)

[9:5]  ¹³ 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.

[9:1]  ¹⁴ sn Rom 9:1–11:36. These three chapters are among the most difficult and disputed in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. One area of difficulty is the relationship between Israel and the church, especially concerning the nature and extent of Israel’s election. Many different models have been constructed to express this relationship. For a representative survey, see M. Barth, The People of God (JSNTSup), 22-27. The literary genre of these three chapters has been frequently identified as a diatribe, a philosophical discussion or conversation evolved by the Cynic and Stoic schools of philosophy as a means of popularizing their ideas (E. Käsemann, Romans, 261 and 267). But other recent scholars have challenged the idea that Rom 9–11 is characterized by diatribe. Scholars like R. Scroggs and E. E. Ellis have instead identified the material in question as midrash. For a summary and discussion of the rabbinic connections, see W. R. Stegner, “Romans 9.6-29 – A Midrash,” JSNT 22 (1984): 37-52.

[9:1]  ¹⁵ tn Or “my conscience bears witness to me.”

[1:11]  ¹⁶ sn Paul does not mean here that he is going to bestow upon the Roman believers what is commonly known as a “spiritual gift,” that is, a special enabling for service given to believers by the Holy Spirit. Instead, this is either a metonymy of cause for effect (Paul will use his own spiritual gifts to edify the Romans), or it simply means something akin to a blessing or benefit in the spiritual realm. It is possible that Paul uses this phrase to connote specifically the broader purpose of his letter, which is for the Romans to understand his gospel, but this seems less likely.

[1:17]  ¹⁷ tn The nature of the “righteousness” described here and the force of the genitive θεοῦ (“of God”) which follows have been much debated. (1) Some (e.g. C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans [ICC], 1:98) understand “righteousness” to refer to the righteous status given to believers as a result of God’s justifying activity, and see the genitive “of God” as a genitive of source (= “from God”). (2) Others see the “righteousness” as God’s act or declaration that makes righteous (i.e., justifies) those who turn to him in faith, taking the genitive “of God” as a subjective genitive (see E. Käsemann, Romans, 25-30). (3) Still others see the “righteousness of God” mentioned here as the attribute of God himself, understanding the genitive “of God” as a possessive genitive (“God’s righteousness”).

[1:17]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “in it”; the referent (the gospel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:17]  ¹⁹ tn Or “by faith for faith,” or “by faith to faith.” There are many interpretations of the phrase ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν (ek pistew" ei" pistin). It may have the idea that this righteousness is obtained by faith (ἐκ πίστεως) because it was designed for faith (εἰς πίστιν). For a summary see J. Murray, Romans (NICNT), 1:363-74.

[1:17]  ²⁰ sn A quotation from Hab 2:4.

[6:16]  ²¹ tn Grk “to whom you present yourselves.”

[6:16]  ²² tn Grk “as slaves for obedience.” See the note on the word “slave” in 1:1.

[6:16]  ²³ tn Grk “either of sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness.”