Never again to return to decay must be translated with great care. What it really means is “never to die again.” A literal rendering of return to decay may imply that Jesus’ body had already decayed once and would not decay again. But obviously the reference here is to dying again, in contrast with Lazarus who was raised from the dead, then later died a normal death, and whose body decayed. However, Jesus was raised from the dead and then ascended.

I will give you the sacred and sure blessings that I promised to David is an extremely difficult expression to translate, as can be seen by the variety of ways that it has been rendered. While the Good News Translation, Dios Habla Hoy, and New English Bible have essentially the same rendering, the Revised Standard Version has “I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David,” Phillips “I shall (King James Version “will”) give you the sure mercies of David,” Jerusalem Bible “I shall give the sure and holy things promised to David,” and Moffatt “I will give you the holiness of David that fails not.” It is assumed that the quotation comes from the Septuagint of Isaiah 55.3, and in Greek it reads “I will give to you (plural) the holy things of David, the faithful things.” But what “the holy things” and “the faithful things” are is not made clear in the Septuagint passage, and this accounts for the different translations. As is indicated by the translations quoted above, some understand these to be “promises,” “decrees,” or “blessings”; and Moffatt takes the plural nouns in the sense of “the holiness” that David possessed. All in all it seems best to understand the words as referring to something that God had promised, perhaps to his blessings.

Not only is the exegesis of the clause I will give you the sacred and sure blessings difficult, but the rendering of this clause, following the Good News Translation and other translations, is almost equally complex. In the first place, one cannot “give blessings” in a number of languages. One may use a verb expression “to bless,” and one may thus render give … sure blessings as “most certainly bless you.” But how is one to introduce the concept of sacred … blessings? In a number of languages this is rendered as “bless you in a sacred way” or “bless you with sacred benefits.”

One must that you in this verse is plural and emphatic. One might expect it to refer only to Jesus, but the obvious reference here is to the blessings which come to those who put their trust in Jesus.

The clause that I promised to David may be translated as “just as I also promised David.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .