Since Paul has just concluded that Abraham is the spiritual father of us all (v. 16), it is important that he be able to base this judgment on a passage of scripture, and he finds the appropriate passage in Genesis 17.5 I have made you father of many nations. The word rendered nations is the word which Paul customarily uses in the sense of “Gentiles.”
Though a number of languages employ a causative for an expression such as I have made you father (for example, “I have caused you to become father”), the same relationship may be expressed in other ways—for example, “many nations will be your children,” “the people of many nations will call you their father,” or, in direct discourse, “the people of many nations will say to you, You are our father.”
In Greek all of verse 17 is a continuation of the sentence begun at the first of verse 16. Following the scripture quotation there is a phrase which is difficult to fit in grammatically with the rest of the sentence, and so it has been understood in several different ways. The phrase to which reference is made is translated by the Good News Translation as in the sight of God and is related to the context by the inclusion of the words so the promise is good. Both An American Translation* (“the promise is guaranteed in the very sight of God”) and New English Bible (“this promise, then, was valid before God”) employ the same solution. On the other hand, a number of commentators understand this as a reference back to Abraham (see Jerusalem Bible “Abraham is our father in the eyes of God”). Phillips relates this to the idea of faith, and so translates: “this faith is valid because of the existence of God himself,” a conclusion which does not seem to be supported by other scholars. It is difficult to tell what this phrase means in the Revised Standard Version, since the construction is ambiguous and almost impossible to relate grammatically to the remainder of the sentence.
It is extremely difficult to translate in some languages the promise is good in the sight of God. This would seem to imply that God saw the promise as good, but since God himself had made the promise, such a relationship would appear to be strange. Accordingly, in some languages, the closest equivalent is “the promise is good because of God,” “because of who God is, his promise is valid,” or “his promise has strength.” The phrase in whom Abraham believed may then be rendered as “this is the God in whom Abraham believed.”
Paul’s words “calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Revised Standard Version) are to be taken as a reference to God’s creative power: whose command brings into being what did not exist. Viewed from Paul’s perspective, the man who believes turns his attention away from himself and to God, who is the source of all power and life.
Who brings the dead to life may be rendered as “who causes the dead to live again,” “who causes the dead to come back to life,” or “the one who causes those who were dead now to live.”
The final clause of verse 17, whose command brings into being what did not exist, is difficult for two reason. First, it must usually be translated as direct discourse following a verb such as command; and second, the content of the command is general rather than specific. Hence, two types of adaptations need to be made: first, to produce direct discourse, and, second, to employ more specific terms—for example, “and he commands, That which did not exist before must exist now.” In some languages, however, one cannot speak of existence apart from perception. The closest equivalent of nonexistence is “what has never been seen” and to exist is “to be seen.” Therefore, one may need to translate as “God commands, What people have never seen they can now see.” In other instances the equivalent of exist is “live,” and therefore one must translate: “God commands, That which never lived before lives now.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .