Is he not great who does these things?: The Greek text here is ambiguous. It is not clear whether the pronoun for he refers to the sun or to God as we discussed under question number 3 above. This rhetorical question can be translated “Is he not great who makes these things [that is, the earth, sky, and sun].” Contemporary English Version so interprets it, saying “God must be extremely strong to have created these things.” The Greek verb for does is in the present tense, but one would expect a reference to God’s creation to be in a past tense. However, that is not a conclusive proof against a reference to God here. In the next verse there is a textual problem that we must discuss at this point. In verse 35 Revised Standard Version has a footnote on “All God’s works,” saying that the Greek is literally “All the works.” God is not mentioned there in the Greek text. Near the end of verse 35 there occurs the phrase “with him.” There is a textual problem with this phrase, since many Greek manuscripts have a feminine pronoun here, saying “with her.” The pronoun “her” refers to “truth” (which is feminine in Greek). Considering that the paragraph continues speaking of truth (note especially “With her” in verse 39), we believe the best course is to work on the assumption that God is not mentioned until the climax in verse 40. This is certainly more satisfying from a literary point of view. So the rhetorical question Is not he great who does these things is better understood as referring to the sun, not to God (so Good News Bible, Revised English Bible). In verse 36 we will recommend the text “with her” instead of “with him” (so Good News Bible, Contemporary English Version, Revised English Bible). This question may be rendered “In order to do all this, the sun must be very great!”

But truth is great, and stronger than all things: For the meaning of truth as “reliability,” see our answer to question number 1 above. Here reliability is said to be great, like God, but also stronger than all things. In the story of the contest this is the first time that the expression stronger than all things is used, which is composed of the Greek adjective meaning “stronger” and the noun phrase meaning “all things.” Before this only a Greek verb meaning “to be stronger” was used. Not until now has the writer said that anyone or anything is stronger than all things. As discussed at 1 Esd 3.5, the problem with things is that one cannot, at least in English, refer to the king or to women as things. The Greek does not have a problem here, and many other languages will not either. We must beware of using any expression here which would include God (implying that reliability is greater than God), since the climax of the story is the affirmation that God is the most powerful of all forces. A model for this sentence that avoids this misunderstanding is “But reliability is great also, and it is the most powerful force on earth.”

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Esdras. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.