Paul closes his expression of thanks with a doxology, praising God for his greatness and goodness.

The wording of the first clause in Greek (literally, “to God and our Father”) presents some problems. It is possible to take the conjunction “and” in the explanatory sense: thus “to God, that is, our Father,” the latter term defining the former. The resultant rendering would be: “to God our Father” (Jerusalem Bible Bible en français courant Traduction œcuménique de la Bible cf. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). In view of the fact that both nouns share one article, the pronoun “our” should probably be taken with both nouns: to our God and Father (Good News Translation Revised Standard Version New English Bible New American Bible etc.). In some languages this coordinate construction must be rephrased as “to our God our Father,” deleting the conjunction and repeating the possessive pronoun.

The word glory in this context has the components of “praise” and “honor.” The expression forever and ever describes the duration in which men should praise God. In a number of languages this type of doxology can only be expressed as something which all people should do, for example, “All people should forever praise and honor our God, who is our Father,” In other languages the doxology may be expressed as “We should praise our God and Father forever and ever. Amen,” or “Let us give honor to our God our Father forever and ever. Amen.” “We” should be inclusive.

The expression Amen is a Hebrew form of affirmation meaning “truly” or “so be it.” It indicates solemn assent in prayers. The word may be transliterated if it is already known and used in the receptor language. Otherwise it may be translated as, for example, “surely this is true,” “this is certainly the way it should be,” or “so be it.”

Quoted with permission from Luo, I-Jin. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1977. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .