Discovery BoxPsalms 115:3
Context115:3 Our God is in heaven!
He does whatever he pleases! 1
Psalms 135:6
Context135:6 He does whatever he pleases
in heaven and on earth,
in the seas and all the ocean depths.
Proverbs 19:21
Context19:21 There are many plans 2 in a person’s mind, 3
but it 4 is the counsel 5 of the Lord which will stand.
Isaiah 14:24-27
Context14:24 6 The Lord who commands armies makes this solemn vow:
“Be sure of this:
Just as I have intended, so it will be;
just as I have planned, it will happen.
14:25 I will break Assyria 7 in my land,
I will trample them 8 underfoot on my hills.
Their yoke will be removed from my people,
the burden will be lifted from their shoulders. 9
14:26 This is the plan I have devised for the whole earth;
my hand is ready to strike all the nations.” 10
14:27 Indeed, 11 the Lord who commands armies has a plan,
and who can possibly frustrate it?
His hand is ready to strike,
and who can possibly stop it? 12
Isaiah 46:10
Context46:10 who announces the end from the beginning
and reveals beforehand 13 what has not yet occurred,
who says, ‘My plan will be realized,
I will accomplish what I desire,’
Daniel 4:35
Context4:35 All the inhabitants of the earth are regarded as nothing. 14
He does as he wishes with the army of heaven
and with those who inhabit the earth.
No one slaps 15 his hand
and says to him, ‘What have you done?’
Ephesians 1:9-11
Context1:9 He did this when he revealed 16 to us the secret 17 of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth 18 in Christ, 19 1:10 toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up 20 all things in Christ – the things in heaven 21 and the things on earth. 22 1:11 In Christ 23 we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, 24 since we were predestined according to the one purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will
[115:3] 1 sn He does whatever he pleases. Such sovereignty is characteristic of kings (see Eccl 8:3).
[19:21] 2 sn The plans (from the Hebrew verb חָשַׁב [khashav], “to think; to reckon; to devise”) in the human heart are many. But only those which God approves will succeed.
[19:21] 3 tn Heb “in the heart of a man” (cf. NAB, NIV). Here “heart” is used for the seat of thoughts, plans, and reasoning, so the translation uses “mind.” In contemporary English “heart” is more often associated with the seat of emotion than with the seat of planning and reasoning.
[19:21] 4 tn Heb “but the counsel of the
[19:21] 5 tn The antithetical parallelism pairs “counsel” with “plans.” “Counsel of the
[14:24] 6 sn Having announced the downfall of the Chaldean empire, the Lord appends to this prophecy a solemn reminder that the Assyrians, the major Mesopotamian power of Isaiah’s day, would be annihilated, foreshadowing what would subsequently happen to Babylon and the other hostile nations.
[14:25] 7 tn Heb “to break Assyria.”
[14:25] 8 tn Heb “him.” This is a collective singular referring to the nation, or a reference to the king of Assyria who by metonymy stands for the entire nation.
[14:25] 9 tn Heb “and his [i.e., Assyria’s] yoke will be removed from them [the people?], and his [Assyria’s] burden from his [the nation’s?] shoulder will be removed.” There are no antecedents in this oracle for the suffixes in the phrases “from them” and “from his shoulder.” Since the Lord’s land and hills are referred to in the preceding line and the statement seems to echo 10:27, it is likely that God’s people are the referents of the suffixes; the translation uses “my people” to indicate this.
[14:26] 10 tn Heb “and this is the hand that is outstretched over all the nations.”
[14:27] 11 tn Or “For” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV).
[14:27] 12 tn Heb “His hand is outstretched and who will turn it back?”
[46:10] 13 tn Or “from long ago”; KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV “from ancient times.”
[4:35] 14 tc The present translation reads כְּלָא (kÿla’), with many medieval Hebrew
[4:35] 15 tn Aram “strikes against.”
[1:9] 16 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.
[1:9] 17 tn Or “mystery.” In the NT μυστήριον (musthrion) refers to a divine secret previously undisclosed.
[1:9] 18 tn Or “purposed,” “publicly displayed.” Cf. Rom 3:25.
[1:9] 19 tn Grk “in him”; the referent (Christ) has been specified in the translation for the sake of clarity.
[1:10] 20 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] 21 tn Grk “the heavens.”
[1:10] 22 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.”
[1:11] 23 tn Grk “in whom,” as a continuation of the previous verse.
[1:11] 24 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.
