Translating the participle -thelōn- in Rom. 9:22-23

Rom. 9:22-23
'What if God, wanting to show his wrath and make known his power, bore with much longsuffering vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
in order to make known the riches of his glory to vessels of mercy, prepared beforehand for glory.'

One of the most difficult translation issues is this passage is, what do we do with the participle, thelōn? (wanting/wishing/willing) There seems to be two most likely possibilities.

First Possibility - we translate it as causal, by adding the conjunctive though. This becomes,

although God wanted to show his wrath and make known his power, he [instead] bore with much longsuffering vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
in order to (1) make known the riches of his glory to vessels of mercy, prepared beforehand for glory.'

I.e. Everything leads up to the single purpose statement, - this is what God does, even though he didn't have to bear with vessels of wrath, he did so that he could show the riches of his glory to vessels of mercy; Even though he could have shown his wrath and made known his power, he didn't, so that he could show the riches of his glory to vessels of mercy.

Second Possibility - we translate it as concessive, by making the conjunctive, because. This becomes,

because God wanted to (1) show his wrath and (2) make known his power, he bore with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to [or because he wished] (3) make known the riches of his glory to vessels of mercy, prepared beforehand for glory.'

I.e.Thelōn translated this way means there are three purposes of God, (1) to show his wrath, (2) to show his power, and (3) to make know the riches of his glory to vessels of mercy.


The first translation seems to allow a natural progression to a single clause, which balances structurally within itself (whereas the second has two purposes of God through the vessels of wrath, and one through the vessels of mercy; structurally inbalanced.)

The second seems to contextually work better with Rom. 9 and allows a parallel with vv. 17-18, God raised Pharaoh up for the purpose of displaying his wrath - so with Pharaoh and the vessels of wrath, God withholds judgement to more fully display his glory, shown though wrath, power, and mercy. Also, on the note of structure, an argument could run along the lines of, 'the riches of glory shown to the vessels of mercy is a climatic purpose of God, therefore there is only one, whereas wrath and power are similar traits/purposes and progress to the climax of the final purpose to vessels of mercy.' - but that might be crud.

I believe the (at the moment) that the second translation is more likely, and fits better with the context of Rom. 9 - and this really is one of those verses which we must let context help determine the meaning as it starts which a conditional de (but what if?) - so 'what if mr Reader, God chose to act this way, have a look at what I've just said...what do you think?' (my quite dodgy Pauline statement).

If this is the case then God's purposes in bearing with vessels of wrath is that he wants to show his wrath, power and mercy.
Therefore.
God actually desires to show these traits, and uses his means to do so. (What are God's means? More on this later).