Note 55 — Chapter XI
Reading edition
In Uganda, 1893.
[56] We attempt thus to represent the perfects, κεκένωται, κατήργηται.
[57] Read οὗ δὲ not οὗ γάρ.
[58] It is impossible to convey in English the point of the word ἔθνη here, with its faint reference to the Gentiles (in the sense common in later Judaism), spiritually "naturalized" among Abraham's descendants.
[59] Observe the characteristically fragmentary quotation, which assumes the reader's knowledge of the context—the context of the stars. Compare Heb. vi. 14, which similarly quotes Gen. xxii. 16, 17.
[60] Μὴ ἀσθενήσας:—we attempt to convey the thought, given by the aorist, that he then and there was "not weak."
[61] We render this clause as literally as possible. It is as if he would have written "On the promise of God he relied," but changed the expression to one more ample and more forcible. "His unbelief": τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ. Not that Abraham had unbelief actually, but he had it potentially; he might have disbelieved. In that sense unbelief was "his."
[62] Ἐνεδυναμώθη: the thought is of strength summoned at a crisis.