17:55 1 Now as Saul watched David going out to fight the Philistine, he asked Abner, the general in command of the army, “Whose son is this young man, Abner?” Abner replied, “As surely as you live, O king, I don’t know.”
20:3 Taking an oath, David again 2 said, “Your father is very much aware of the fact 3 that I have found favor with you, and he has thought, 4 ‘Don’t let Jonathan know about this, or he will be upset.’ But as surely as the Lord lives and you live, there is about one step between me and death!”
“Blessed be Abram by 10 the Most High God,
Creator 11 of heaven and earth. 12
2:4 This is the account 18 of the heavens and
the earth 19 when they were created – when the Lord God 20 made the earth and heavens. 21
4:1 Now 26 the man had marital relations with 27 his wife Eve, and she became pregnant 28 and gave birth to Cain. Then she said, “I have created 29 a man just as the Lord did!” 30
1 tc Most LXX
2 tc The LXX and the Syriac Peshitta lack the word “again.”
3 tn The infinitive absolute appears before the finite verb for emphasis.
4 tn Heb “said,” that is, to himself. So also in v. 25.
5 tn Heb “[By] the life of Pharaoh.”
6 tn Heb “and buy for us from there.” The word “grain,” the direct object of “buy,” has been supplied for clarity, and the words “from there” have been omitted in the translation for stylistic reasons.
7 tn Following the imperatives, the prefixed verbal form with prefixed vav expresses purpose of result.
8 tn The imperfect tense continues the nuance of the verb before it.
9 tn The word “other” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.
10 tn The preposition לְ (lamed) introduces the agent after the passive participle.
11 tn Some translate “possessor of heaven and earth” (cf. NASB). But cognate evidence from Ugaritic indicates that there were two homonymic roots ָקנָה (qanah), one meaning “to create” (as in Gen 4:1) and the other “to obtain, to acquire, to possess.” While “possessor” would fit here, “creator” is the more likely due to the collocation with “heaven and earth.”
12 tn The terms translated “heaven” and “earth” are both objective genitives after the participle in construct.
13 tn Heb “made war.”
14 sn On the geographical background of vv. 1-2 see J. P. Harland, “Sodom and Gomorrah,” The Biblical Archaeologist Reader, 1:41-75; and D. N. Freedman, “The Real Story of the Ebla Tablets, Ebla and the Cities of the Plain,” BA 41 (1978): 143-64.
15 tn Heb “on/in the seventh day.”
16 tn Heb “his work which he did [or “made”].”
17 tn The Hebrew term שָׁבַּת (shabbat) can be translated “to rest” (“and he rested”) but it basically means “to cease.” This is not a rest from exhaustion; it is the cessation of the work of creation.
18 tn The Hebrew phrase אֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת (’elle tolÿdot) is traditionally translated as “these are the generations of” because the noun was derived from the verb “beget.” Its usage, however, shows that it introduces more than genealogies; it begins a narrative that traces what became of the entity or individual mentioned in the heading. In fact, a good paraphrase of this heading would be: “This is what became of the heavens and the earth,” for what follows is not another account of creation but a tracing of events from creation through the fall and judgment (the section extends from 2:4 through 4:26). See M. H. Woudstra, “The Toledot of the Book of Genesis and Their Redemptive-Historical Significance,” CTJ 5 (1970): 184-89.
19 tn See the note on the phrase “the heavens and the earth” in 1:1.
20 sn Advocates of the so-called documentary hypothesis of pentateuchal authorship argue that the introduction of the name Yahweh (
21 tn See the note on the phrase “the heavens and the earth” in 1:1; the order here is reversed, but the meaning is the same.
22 tn The conjunction vav (ו) introduces a third disjunctive clause. The Hebrew word אֵד (’ed) was traditionally translated “mist” because of its use in Job 36:27. However, an Akkadian cognate edu in Babylonian texts refers to subterranean springs or waterways. Such a spring would fit the description in this context, since this water “goes up” and waters the ground.
23 tn Heb “was going up.” The verb is an imperfect form, which in this narrative context carries a customary nuance, indicating continual action in past time.
24 tn The perfect with vav (ו) consecutive carries the same nuance as the preceding verb. Whenever it would well up, it would water the ground.
25 tn The Hebrew word אֲדָמָה (’adamah) actually means “ground; fertile soil.”
26 tn The disjunctive clause (conjunction + subject + verb) introduces a new episode in the ongoing narrative.
27 tn Heb “the man knew,” a frequent euphemism for sexual relations.
28 tn Or “she conceived.”
29 tn Here is another sound play (paronomasia) on a name. The sound of the verb קָנִיתִי (qaniti, “I have created”) reflects the sound of the name Cain in Hebrew (קַיִן, qayin) and gives meaning to it. The saying uses the Qal perfect of קָנָה (qanah). There are two homonymic verbs with this spelling, one meaning “obtain, acquire” and the other meaning “create” (see Gen 14:19, 22; Deut 32:6; Ps 139:13; Prov 8:22). The latter fits this context very well. Eve has created a man.
30 tn Heb “with the