Long ago announced is rendered by most translations as “foretold.” Elsewhere in the New Testament this verb appears only in Acts 7.52.

Some such expression as long ago is essential in order to indicate clearly the flashback in this discourse structure. In some languages this is specifically “many generations ago” or even “many, many moons ago” (if “moon” is used as a general reference for time).

The concept of a secondary agent implied in God … announced by means of all the prophets is not easy to translate in some languages. In some instances one can more satisfactorily render this as “God caused the prophets to announce” or in other instances “God put into the mouths of all the prophets.” In still other cases the whole structure may be shifted, for example, “All the prophets announced because God told them to.”

He made it come true (see Phillips “this was how his words came true”) translates the literal statement, “he fulfilled it in this way” (see the comments at 1.16 where the same verb occurs). In other languages, however, this is normally a causative of occurrence, for example, “he made it to happen” or “he caused it to occur.”

The phrase in this way may be rendered as “just as it did,” such as “he caused it to happen just as it did.”

In some languages, however, the causative must be related to some concept of “order” or “command,” for example, “it happened just the way he had commanded it.” This does not mean, in the language in question, that God specifically ordered people to behave as they did. It is simply that in such languages some expression for “commanding” is the way in which secondary agency is expressed.

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 .