The Greek text underlining the translation of by means of the Holy Spirit you spoke through our ancestor David, your servant is not strictly grammatical nor entirely clear. In the textual commentary prepared by the UBS committee on the Greek text there is a detailed discussion of the grammatical and theological problems involved. But since most translations interpret the Greek text in essentially the same manner that the Good News Translation has done, no further discussion of the problem will be given here, except to mention that the textual committee considered this reading closer to what the author wrote than any of the other possibilities represented by the various manuscripts. For a different interpretation of the text, and for one which follows a slight emendation, see Moffatt: “who (that is, God) said to our fathers by the Holy Spirit through the lips of thy servant David.”

In verse 25a the semantic problems are acute because of the statement of instrument by means of the Holy Spirit and of secondary agency through our ancestor David. These problems become compounded with the appositional expression your servant and by the two verbs of speaking, one relating to God and the other to David. The Good News Translation has very effectively brought all of these together, but in many languages one cannot reproduce this type of coalesced utterance. A restructured form which may be useful for transfer into other languages may be “You caused our ancestor David to speak. He was your servant and the Holy Spirit inspired him when he said….” In some instances, to speak through another individual is represented as “you gave him the words to speak” and therefore one might say “By means of the Holy Spirit you gave our ancestor David, your servant, the words to speak when he said….”

The expression ancestor may be rendered as “our father of long ago,” “our father many generations ago,” or even “our great father.”

Since the immediately following expressions are questions rather than statements, it may be necessary to change the verb of speaking to one of “asking.”

The biblical quotation in these verses comes from Psalm 2.1-2 and follows the Septuagint. In the original context of Psalm 2 “his Messiah” was the king whom God had chosen for the people of Israel; in the present context his Messiah, of course, is Jesus.

A term for Gentiles may be expressed as “those who are not Jews” or simply “non-Jews.” In some languages one must employ “the other nations” or “the other tribes.” Sometimes “otherness” is more effectively rendered as “different,” therefore “the different people.”

A term for furious is often “exceedingly angry,” or idiomatically “their faces got very hot” or “their hearts were burning.” An expression for plot in vain is difficult to express without some type of goal. Therefore, in some languages it is necessary to add the goal from the end of verse 26, “plot against the Lord, but their plans will not succeed,” or “they make plans against the Lord, but their plans will not succeed,” or “they make plans against the Lord, but they will not be able to carry them out.”

The expression the peoples must be equivalent to the Gentiles. As such it may sometimes be rendered as “the different peoples.” If however, there is no way in which Gentiles can be referred to with two different phrases, a pronoun can be used in this last clause of verse 25, thus indicating that there is no real difference between the Gentiles and the peoples.

The phrase the kings of the earth must in many languages be “the rulers of the earth,” since the earth is substantially the location in which they rule—not the fact that they rule over the earth. On the other hand, if this is to be taken as “the kings of the lands,” then lands can be a semantic goal of the ruling.

The phrase prepared themselves is equivalent to “got themselves ready to fight.”

The first two lines of verse 26 are complete parallels in which kings and rulers are the subjects, while prepared themselves and met together constitute the parallel activities. The goal in each instance is the Lord and his Messiah. Therefore, this goal must be meaningfully attached to prepared themselves “against” and met together against, that is, “met together to fight.”

In this particular context the expression the Lord may need to be specified as “the Lord God,” so that the relationship of this to Messiah may be meaningful.

The phrase his Messiah may be translated in some languages as “the one whom he has specially chosen” or “the one whom he has designated.” Rarely can the concept of “anointing” be carried across.

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 .