that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations who are called by my name," says Yahweh who does this.
James quoted these words in the Council of Jerusalem, to show how the words of the prophet were in harmony with what Peter had related, how “God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His Name” Acts 15:14. He quotes the words as they stood in the version which was understood by the Gentiles who came from Antioch. In it the words are paraphrased, but the meaning remains the same. The Greek translators took away the metaphor, in order, probably, to make the meaning more intelligible to Greeks, and paraphrased the Hebrew words, imagining other words, as like as might be to the Hebrew. They render, “that the residue of men may seek, and all the nations upon whom My name is called.” The force of the prophecy lies in these last words, that “the Name of God should be called upon all nations.” James, then, quoted the words as they were familiar to his hearers, not correcting those which did not impair the meaning. The so doing, he shows us incidentally, that even imperfection of translation does not empty the fullness of God’s word. The words, “shall seek the Lord,” although not representing anything expressed here in the original, occur in the corresponding prophecy of Isaiah as to the root of Jesse, “In that day there shall be a root” (that is, a sucker from the root) “of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people, and to it shall the Gentiles seek” Isaiah 11:10. It may be, that James purposely uses the plural, “the words of the prophets,” in order to include, together with the prophet Amos, other prophets who had foretold the same thing. The statements, that the Jewish Church should inherit the Gentiles, that the Name of God should be called upon the Gentiles, and that the Gentiles should seek the Lord, are parts of one whole; that they should be called, that they should obey the call, and, obeying, he enrolled in the one family of God.