Home Up Herod General Scripture Pray THROUGH Jesus The Sabbath Top tips Collosians Bible Science Charisma Saviour 2007 Annual Meeting Lawyers Jesus' purpose

 

Home
Up
II             Predicate nominative frequency

 

I               The predicate nominative

θρόνος               σου                         θες                    ες           τν αἰῶνα το αἰῶνος,

The Throne           of you    [is]           the God                     into         the eon   of the eon

A straightforward translation might be rendered:

“God is your throne forever and ever” or

“Your divine throne endures for ever and ever” (which is after all what the original in Ps 45.6 had said about the King of Israel).

 

“God is your throne forever and ever” is recognized as a possible translation in the footnotes of NRSV and the TEV. 

What the does “God is your throne forever and ever” mean?  It was Wescott himself who said:

The LXX admits of two renderings:

1.       θες” can be taken as a vocative in both cases (Thy throne, O God, . . . therefore, O God, Thy God . . . ) or

2.       it can be taken as the subject (or the predicate) in the first case (God is Thy throne, or Thy throne is God . . . ), and in apposition to “ θες σου” in the second case (Therefore God, even Thy God . . . ). . . .

It is scarcely possible that [’Elohim] in the original can be addressed to the king. The presumption therefore is against the belief that “ θες” is a vocative in the LXX. Thus on the whole it seems best to adopt in the first clause the rendering:

God is Thy throne (or, Thy throne is God), that is ‘Thy kingdom is founded upon God, the immovable Rock.’”                                  

—The Epistle to the Hebrews (London, 1889), pp. 25, 26.

 

Wescott therefore takes the view that “ θες” is a predicate nominative. 

It makes sense and is in harmony with the rest of the scriptures.