Psalms 8:3

8:3 When I look up at the heavens, which your fingers made,

and see the moon and the stars, which you set in place, ¹ 

Psalms 19:1-2

Psalm 19 ² 

For the music director; a psalm of David.

19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; ³ 

the sky displays his handiwork. ⁴ 

19:2 Day after day it speaks out; ⁵ 

night after night it reveals his greatness. ⁶ 

Numbers 23:23

23:23 For there is no spell against ⁷  Jacob,

nor is there any divination against Israel.

At this time ⁸  it must be said ⁹  of Jacob

and of Israel, ‘Look at ¹⁰  what God has done!’

Isaiah 40:26

40:26 Look up at the sky! ¹¹ 

Who created all these heavenly lights? ¹² 

He is the one who leads out their ranks; ¹³ 

he calls them all by name.

Because of his absolute power and awesome strength,

not one of them is missing.

Isaiah 45:8

45:8 O sky, rain down from above!

Let the clouds send down showers ¹⁴  of deliverance!

Let the earth absorb it ¹⁵  so salvation may grow, ¹⁶ 

and deliverance may sprout up ¹⁷  along with it.

I, the Lord, create it. ¹⁸ 

Isaiah 45:12

45:12 I made the earth,

I created the people who live ¹⁹  on it.

It was me – my hands ²⁰  stretched out the sky, ²¹ 

I give orders to all the heavenly lights. ²² 

Isaiah 45:18

45:18 For this is what the Lord says,

the one who created the sky –

he is the true God, ²³ 

the one who formed the earth and made it;

he established it,

he did not create it without order, ²⁴ 

he formed it to be inhabited –

“I am the Lord, I have no peer.

Jeremiah 10:12-13

10:12 The Lord is the one who ²⁵  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, ²⁶  the heavenly ocean roars.

He makes the clouds rise from the far-off horizons. ²⁷ 

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

He unleashes the wind from the places where he stores it. ²⁸ 

Ephesians 1:19-21

1:19 and what is the incomparable ²⁹  greatness of his power toward ³⁰  us who believe, as displayed in ³¹  the exercise of his immense strength. ³²  1:20 This power ³³  he exercised ³⁴  in Christ when he raised him ³⁵  from the dead and seated him ³⁶  at his right hand in the heavenly realms ³⁷  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.

[8:3]  ¹ tn Heb “when I see your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and stars which you established.” The verb “[and] see” is understood by ellipsis in the second half of the verse.

[19:1]  ² sn Psalm 19. The psalmist praises God for his self-revelation in the heavens and in the Mosaic law. The psalmist concludes with a prayer, asking the Lord to keep him from sinning and to approve of his thoughts and words.

[19:1]  ³ sn God’s glory refers here to his royal majesty and power.

[19:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “and the work of his hands the sky declares.” The participles emphasize the ongoing testimony of the heavens/sky.

[19:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “it gushes forth a word.” The “sky” (see v. 1b) is the subject of the verb. Though not literally speaking (see v. 3), it clearly reveals God’s royal majesty. The sun’s splendor and its movement across the sky is in view (see vv. 4-6).

[19:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “it [i.e., the sky] declares knowledge,” i.e., knowledge about God’s royal majesty and power (see v. 1). This apparently refers to the splendor and movements of the stars. The imperfect verbal forms in v. 2, like the participles in the preceding verse, combine with the temporal phrases (“day after day” and “night after night”) to emphasize the ongoing testimony of the sky.

[23:23]  ⁷ tn Or “in Jacob.” But given the context the meaning “against” is preferable. The words describe two techniques of consulting God; the first has to do with observing omens in general (“enchantments”), and the second with casting lots or arrows of the like (“divinations” [Ezek 21:26]). See N. H. Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers (NCB), 295-96.

[23:23]  ⁸ tn The form is the preposition “like, as” and the word for “time” – according to the time, about this time, now.

[23:23]  ⁹ tn The Niphal imperfect here carries the nuance of obligation – one has to say in amazement that God has done something marvelous or “it must be said.”

[23:23]  ¹⁰ tn The words “look at” are not in the Hebrew text but have been added in the translation for clarity.

[40:26]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Lift on high your eyes and see.”

[40:26]  ¹² tn The words “heavenly lights” are supplied in the translation for clarification. See the following lines.

[40:26]  ¹³ tn Heb “the one who brings out by number their host.” The stars are here likened to a huge army that the Lord leads out. Perhaps the next line pictures God calling roll. If so, the final line may be indicating that none of them dares “go AWOL.” (“AWOL” is a military acronym for “absent without leave.”)

[45:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “let the clouds drip with”; KJV “let the skies pour down.”

[45:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “open up” (so NASB); NIV, NLT “open wide.”

[45:8]  ¹⁶ tc The plural verb should be emended to a singular form. The vav (ו) ending is probably virtually dittographic (note the yod at the beginning of the following word).

[45:8]  ¹⁷ tc The Hiphil verb form (תַצְמִיחַ, tatsmiakh) should probably be emended to a Qal (תִצְמַח, titsmakh). The יח sequence at the end of the form is probably due to dittography (note the following יַחַד, yakhad).

[45:8]  ¹⁸ tn The masculine singular pronominal suffix probably refers back to יָשַׁע (yasha’, “salvation”).

[45:12]  ¹⁹ tn The words “who live” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[45:12]  ²⁰ tn Heb “I, even my hands”; NASB “I stretched out…with My hands”; NRSV “it was my hands that stretched out.” The same construction occurs at the beginning of v. 13.

[45:12]  ²¹ tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[45:12]  ²² tn Heb “and to all their host I commanded.” See the notes at 40:26.

[45:18]  ²³ tn Heb “he [is] the God.” The article here indicates uniqueness.

[45:18]  ²⁴ tn Or “unformed.” Gen 1:2 describes the world as “unformed” (תֹהוּ, tohu) prior to God’s creative work, but God then formed the world and made it fit for habitation.

[10:12]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ 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]  ²⁷ tn Heb “from the ends of the earth.”

[10:13]  ²⁸ tn Heb “he brings out the winds from his storehouses.”

[1:19]  ²⁹ tn Or “immeasurable, surpassing”

[1:19]  ³⁰ tn Or “for, to”

[1:19]  ³¹ tn Grk “according to.”

[1:19]  ³² tn Grk “according to the exercise of the might of his strength.”

[1:20]  ³³ tn Grk “which” (v. 20 is a subordinate clause to v. 19).

[1:20]  ³⁴ tn The verb “exercised” (the aorist of ἐνεργέω, energew) has its nominal cognate in “exercise” in v. 19 (ἐνέργεια, energeia).

[1:20]  ³⁵ tn Or “This power he exercised in Christ by raising him”; Grk “raising him.” The adverbial participle ἐγείρας (egeiras) could be understood as temporal (“when he raised [him]”), which would be contemporaneous to the action of the finite verb “he exercised” earlier in the verse, or as means (“by raising [him]”). 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.

[1:20]  ³⁶ tc The majority of mss, especially the Western and Byzantine mss (D F G Ψ Ï b r Ambst), have the indicative ἐκάθισεν (ekaqisen, “he seated”) for καθίσας (kaqisa", “when he seated, by seating”). The indicative is thus coordinate with ἐνήργησεν (enhrghsen, “he exercised”) and provides an additional statement to “he exercised his power.” The participle (found in Ì^92vid א A B 0278 33 81 1175 1505 1739 1881 2464 al), on the other hand, is coordinate with ἐγείρας (egeiras) and as such provides evidence of God’s power: He exercised his power by raising Christ from the dead and by seating him at his right hand. As intriguing as the indicative reading is, it is most likely an intentional alteration of the original wording, accomplished by an early “Western” scribe, which made its way in the Byzantine text.

[1:20]  ³⁷ sn Eph 1:19-20. The point made in these verses is that the power required to live a life pleasing to God is the same power that raised Christ from the dead. For a similar thought, cf. John 15:1-11.