10. What did the Greek word proʹthe·sis literally mean, and how did the Jews use it in the Greek Septuagint?

¹⁰ Did the original Greek writer of the words in Ephesians 3:11 desire to bring out that God the Creator has a plan in connection with His Messiah? What did he mean when, in his letter written in first-century Greek, he used the word proʹthe·sis? It literally means a “setting forth or before,” thus a putting of something in view. That is why the Alexandrian Jews, when translating the inspired Hebrew Scriptures in Greek, used this Greek word in connection with the holy bread that was placed upon the golden table in the Holy compartment of the sacred tent of worship erected by the prophet Moses. This bread is ordinarily called the shewbread, but the Greek Septuagint Version speaks of it as the “loaves or cakes of presentation” (prothesis). So these loaves, by being set forth upon the golden table, were put on display, a fresh supply thereof on each weekly sabbath day.—2 Chronicles 4:19.

11. What, then, is the “proʹthe·sis” of God?

¹¹ The word proʹthe·sis was also used to mean a “statement,” or an “advance payment,” and, in grammar, it would mean a “preposition.” It was also used to mean a “prefixing,” or a “placing first.” Because the word was also used to mean an end or objective proposed, or a setting before oneself of something to be accomplished or to be achieved, it was used to mean “purpose.” (On this, see A Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell and Scott, Volume II, pages 1480-1481, reprint of 1948, under proʹthe·sis.) This latter meaning is recognized by the majority of the modern-language Bible translators. So the “proʹthe·sis” of God is his resolve, his primal decision, his purpose.d