And in his name will the Gentiles hope has no kinship whatsoever to the Hebrew text of Isaiah 42.4b: “and the coastlands wait for his law.” Except for the omission of a preposition, Matthew agrees word for word with the Septuagint.

In his name here means either “on him” (Good News Translation) or “in him” (New English Bible), since in such a context name clearly stands for the person.

Gentiles is best taken in the sense of “the nations” (New Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible) or “all peoples” (Good News Translation). Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates the entire verse: “All people will place their hope in him.”

In modern English, hope means to wait for and want something, but to not be completely sure that it will happen. But in the Bible the idea is usually that of placing one’s trust in and of having confidence in. Thus a good translation of this verse is “and all people (or, all nations) will put their trust in him” or “… will place their confidence in him.” If the question “confidence to do what?” must be answered, translators can say “all people will trust in him for their salvation,” “all nations will look for their salvation to come from him,” or “and it will be in him that all people will trust for their salvation.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .