In Greek this verse begins with the relative pronoun “who,” which is made explicit as a reference to Abraham by the Good News Translation and others (so Jerusalem Bible and An American Translation*). In this verse appears an idiomatic expression (literally “beyond hope on hope”), which is interpreted in substantially the same way by all translations, though expressed somewhat differently in each. In keeping with a number of other translations, the Good News Translation transforms this noun phrase into a verb followed by a noun phrase, hoped, when there was no hope. In this context hoped is essentially the same as believed, and so what is meant is that Abraham continued to believe in God even when all grounds for human hope were gone. Paul is here pointing out, of course, that Abraham became the father of many nations simply because he believed and hoped in the one who said to him, Your descendants will be this many.

In many languages it is particularly difficult to find a satisfactory term for “hope,” largely because of the combination of somewhat diverse components expressed by this same term. Essentially, hope combines the components of “confidence,” “waiting,” and “favorable outcome,” and is expressed by a phrase in some languages, “to await expectantly for good,” “to wait with confidence for good,” or “to wait in one’s heart for desired things.” To combine hope with an attributive phrase such as when there was no hope makes this first sentence of verse 18 even more complex. This may be rendered, however, in some languages as “waited in confidence when there was no reason for him to wait this way.” In some languages believed and hoped are combined as “in expecting he believed strong against the thing that made him doubt.”

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 .