As in other places, the Good News Translation has marked this as a quotation from Scripture by introducing it with And another scripture says (literally “and”). For suggested restructurings, see note on 2.3.
The stone that will make people stumble is literally “a stone which causes stumbling.” The Good News Translation‘s rendering makes the stone the actor which makes people stumble. Some other translations make people the main actor: they stumble because they trip over the stone (for example, Jerusalem Bible “A stone to stumble over…”; Moffatt “A stone over which men stumble”; Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “Men knock themselves against it”). The rock that will make them fall (literally “a rock of stumbling”) is treated in the same way, for example, Knox “a boulder they stumble against.” These two expressions are parallel and convey the same meaning.
In a number of languages it is rather misleading to introduce the stone or the rock as the agent of the stumbling or falling. It may therefore be preferable to indicate that “this is the stone against which people will stumble and the rock over which they will fall.” In some instances stumble is more explicitly identified as “hitting one’s foot against and then falling.”
Technically, the term rendered stone refers to an object which is generally somewhat smaller than the term rendered rock. It is also frequently used of stone which has been shaped in order to be used in building, while the term rendered rock normally refers to bedrock or field stone. However, in this particular context the parallelism of the two clauses indicates clearly that no important distinction should be introduced, for in both instances the reference is to the Lord.
The cause of this stumbling is now mentioned: they did not believe in the word. They did not believe is literally “they disobeyed,” but unbelief and disobedience are very closely linked together, with the latter being an outward expression of the former. The word, as in 1.25, is the Word of God, or the gospel. They did not believe in the word may be rendered as “they did not believe in the message from God” or even “they did not put their trust in what God had said.”
Such was God’s will for them is literally “into which also they were destined.” “Into which” may refer either to stumbling or to disobedience, or perhaps to both. That God foreordains people to stumble is found elsewhere in the New Testament (for example, Rom 8.28-30; 1 Thes 5.9; Eph 1.12; Jude 4), although predestination as a doctrine is more positive than negative, referring primarily to the act of God foreordaining people to salvation rather than to reprobation. The question of why some people believe in Christ, and others do not, even when the message is preached to them, is so deep and so great that sometimes the doctrine of predestination seems to be the only logical answer.
It is possible to soften the statement here by interpreting “stumbling” not as predestined by God, but a logical result to people’s disobedience, for example, Phillips “they stumble at the word of God for in their hearts they are unwilling to obey it—which makes stumbling a foregone conclusion.” However attractive this is, it falls short of the intent of the verse, for it removes the difficult mystery that stumbling and disobedience play in the purpose and will of God, in much the same way that believing does.
Such was God’s will for them may be rendered as “this was what God had planned for them” or “what they did was in accordance with what God had planned.”
Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The First Letter from Peter. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .