33:1 Jacob looked up 1 and saw that Esau was coming 2 along with four hundred men. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two female servants. 33:2 He put the servants and their children in front, with Leah and her children behind them, and Rachel and Joseph behind them. 3 33:3 But Jacob 4 himself went on ahead of them, and he bowed toward the ground seven times as he approached 5 his brother. 33:4 But Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, hugged his neck, and kissed him. Then they both wept. 33:5 When Esau 6 looked up 7 and saw the women and the children, he asked, “Who are these people with you?” Jacob 8 replied, “The children whom God has graciously given 9 your servant.” 33:6 The female servants came forward with their children and bowed down. 10 33:7 Then Leah came forward with her children and they bowed down. Finally Joseph and Rachel came forward and bowed down.
33:8 Esau 11 then asked, “What did you intend 12 by sending all these herds to meet me?” 13 Jacob 14 replied, “To find favor in your sight, my lord.” 33:9 But Esau said, “I have plenty, my brother. Keep what belongs to you.” 33:10 “No, please take them,” Jacob said. 15 “If I have found favor in your sight, accept 16 my gift from my hand. Now that I have seen your face and you have accepted me, 17 it is as if I have seen the face of God. 18 33:11 Please take my present 19 that was brought to you, for God has been generous 20 to me and I have all I need.” 21 When Jacob urged him, he took it. 22
33:12 Then Esau 23 said, “Let’s be on our way! 24 I will go in front of you.” 33:13 But Jacob 25 said to him, “My lord knows that the children are young, 26 and that I have to look after the sheep and cattle that are nursing their young. 27 If they are driven too hard for even a single day, all the animals will die. 33:14 Let my lord go on ahead of his servant. I will travel more slowly, at the pace of the herds and the children, 28 until I come to my lord at Seir.”
33:15 So Esau said, “Let me leave some of my men with you.” 29 “Why do that?” Jacob replied. 30 “My lord has already been kind enough to me.” 31
33:16 So that same day Esau made his way back 32 to Seir. 33:17 But 33 Jacob traveled to Succoth 34 where he built himself a house and made shelters for his livestock. That is why the place was called 35 Succoth. 36
33:18 After he left Paddan Aram, Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem in the land of Canaan, and he camped near 37 the city. 33:19 Then he purchased the portion of the field where he had pitched his tent; he bought it 38 from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of money. 39 33:20 There he set up an altar and called it “The God of Israel is God.” 40
22:19 Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set out together 41 for Beer Sheba where Abraham stayed. 42
46:1 So Israel began his journey, taking with him all that he had. 45 When he came to Beer Sheba 46 he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.
46:1 So Israel began his journey, taking with him all that he had. 47 When he came to Beer Sheba 48 he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.
19:3 But he urged 49 them persistently, so they turned aside with him and entered his house. He prepared a feast for them, including bread baked without yeast, and they ate.
1 tn Heb “and Jacob lifted up his eyes.”
2 tn Or “and look, Esau was coming.” By the use of the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”), the narrator invites the reader to view the scene through Jacob’s eyes.
3 sn This kind of ranking according to favoritism no doubt fed the jealousy over Joseph that later becomes an important element in the narrative. It must have been painful to the family to see that they were expendable.
4 tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Heb “until his drawing near unto his brother.” The construction uses the preposition with the infinitive construct to express a temporal clause.
6 tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Esau) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “lifted up his eyes.”
8 tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
9 tn The Hebrew verb means “to be gracious; to show favor”; here it carries the nuance “to give graciously.”
10 tn Heb “and the female servants drew near, they and their children and they bowed down.”
11 tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Esau) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
12 tn Heb “Who to you?”
13 tn Heb “all this camp which I met.”
14 tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
15 tn Heb “and Jacob said, ‘No, please.’” The words “take them” have been supplied in the translation for clarity, and the order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse rearranged for stylistic reasons.
16 tn The form is the perfect tense with a vav (ו) consecutive, expressing a contingent future nuance in the “then” section of the conditional sentence.
17 tn The verbal form is the preterite with a vav (ו) consecutive, indicating result here.
18 tn Heb “for therefore I have seen your face like seeing the face of God and you have accepted me.”
19 tn Heb “blessing.” It is as if Jacob is trying to repay what he stole from his brother twenty years earlier.
20 tn Or “gracious,” but in the specific sense of prosperity.
21 tn Heb “all.”
22 tn Heb “and he urged him and he took.” The referent of the first pronoun in the sequence (“he”) has been specified as “Jacob” in the translation for clarity.
23 tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Esau) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
24 tn Heb “let us travel and let us go.” The two cohortatives are used in combination with the sense, “let’s travel along, get going, be on our way.”
25 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
26 tn Heb “weak.”
27 tn Heb “and the sheep and the cattle nursing [are] upon me.”
28 tn Heb “and I, I will move along according to my leisure at the foot of the property which is before me and at the foot of the children.”
29 tn The cohortative verbal form here indicates a polite offer of help.
30 tn Heb “and he said, ‘Why this?’” The referent of the pronoun “he” (Jacob) has been specified for clarity, and the order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.
31 tn Heb “I am finding favor in the eyes of my lord.”
32 tn Heb “returned on his way.”
33 tn The disjunctive clause contrasts Jacob’s action with Esau’s.
34 sn But Jacob traveled to Succoth. There are several reasons why Jacob chose not to go to Mt. Seir after Esau. First, as he said, his herds and children probably could not keep up with the warriors. Second, he probably did not fully trust his brother. The current friendliness could change, and he could lose everything. And third, God did tell him to return to his land, not Seir. But Jacob is still not able to deal truthfully, probably because of fear of Esau.
35 tn Heb “why he called.” One could understand “Jacob” as the subject of the verb, but it is more likely that the subject is indefinite, in which case the verb is better translated as passive.
36 sn The name Succoth means “shelters,” an appropriate name in light of the shelters Jacob built there for his livestock.
37 tn Heb “in front of.”
38 tn The words “he bought it” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text v. 19 is one long sentence.
39 tn The Hebrew word קְשִׂיטָה (qÿsitah) is generally understood to refer to a unit of money, but the value is unknown. (However, cf. REB, which renders the term as “sheep”).
40 tn Heb “God, the God of Israel.” Rather than translating the name, a number of modern translations merely transliterate it from the Hebrew as “El Elohe Israel” (cf. NIV, NRSV, REB). It is not entirely clear how the name should be interpreted grammatically. One option is to supply an equative verb, as in the translation: “The God of Israel [is] God.” Another interpretive option is “the God of Israel [is] strong [or “mighty”].” Buying the land and settling down for a while was a momentous step for the patriarch, so the commemorative naming of the altar is significant.
41 tn Heb “and they arose and went together.”
42 tn Heb “and Abraham stayed in Beer Sheba. This has been translated as a relative clause for stylistic reasons.
43 sn The name Shibah (שִׁבְעָה, shiv’ah) means (or at least sounds like) the word meaning “oath.” The name was a reminder of the oath sworn by Isaac and the Philistines to solidify their treaty.
44 sn The name Beer Sheba (בְּאֵר שָׁבַע, bÿ’er shava’) means “well of an oath” or “well of seven.” According to Gen 21:31 Abraham gave Beer Sheba its name when he made a treaty with the Philistines. Because of the parallels between this earlier story and the account in 26:26-33, some scholars see chaps. 21 and 26 as two versions (or doublets) of one original story. However, if one takes the text as it stands, it appears that Isaac made a later treaty agreement with the people of the land that was similar to his father’s. Abraham dug a well at the site and named the place Beer Sheba; Isaac dug another well there and named the well Shibah. Later generations then associated the name Beer Sheba with Isaac, even though Abraham gave the place its name at an earlier time.
45 tn Heb “and Israel journeyed, and all that was his.”
46 sn Beer Sheba. See Gen 21:31; 28:10.
47 tn Heb “and Israel journeyed, and all that was his.”
48 sn Beer Sheba. See Gen 21:31; 28:10.
49 tn The Hebrew verb פָּצַר (patsar, “to press, to insist”) ironically foreshadows the hostile actions of the men of the city (see v. 9, where the verb also appears). The repetition of the word serves to contrast Lot to his world.