Genesis 14:13

14:13 A fugitive ¹  came and told Abram the Hebrew. ²  Now Abram was living by the oaks ³  of Mamre the Amorite, the brother ⁴  of Eshcol and Aner. (All these were allied by treaty ⁵  with Abram.) ⁶ 

Genesis 39:14

39:14 she called for her household servants and said to them, “See, my husband brought ⁷  in a Hebrew man ⁸  to us to humiliate us. ⁹  He tried to have sex with me, ¹⁰  but I screamed loudly. ¹¹ 

Philippians 3:5

3:5 I was circumcised on the eighth day, from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. I lived according to the law as a Pharisee. ¹² 

¹ tn Heb “the fugitive.” The article carries a generic force or indicates that this fugitive is definite in the mind of the speaker.

² sn E. A. Speiser (Genesis [AB], 103) suggests that part of this chapter came from an outside source since it refers to Abram the Hebrew. That is not impossible, given that the narrator likely utilized traditions and genealogies that had been collected and transmitted over the years. The meaning of the word “Hebrew” has proved elusive. It may be related to the verb “to cross over,” perhaps meaning “immigrant.” Or it might be derived from the name of Abram’s ancestor Eber (see Gen 11:14-16).

³ tn Or “terebinths.”

⁴ tn Or “a brother”; or “a relative”; or perhaps “an ally.”

⁵ tn Heb “possessors of a treaty with.” Since it is likely that the qualifying statement refers to all three (Mamre, Eshcol, and Aner) the words “all these” have been supplied in the translation to make this clear.

⁶ tn This parenthetical disjunctive clause explains how Abram came to be living in their territory, but it also explains why they must go to war with Abram.

⁷ tn The verb has no expressed subject, and so it could be treated as a passive (“a Hebrew man was brought in”; cf. NIV). But it is clear from the context that her husband brought Joseph into the household, so Potiphar is the apparent referent here. Thus the translation supplies “my husband” as the referent of the unspecified pronominal subject of the verb (cf. NEB, NRSV).

⁸ sn A Hebrew man. Potiphar’s wife raises the ethnic issue when talking to her servants about what their boss had done.

⁹ tn Heb “to make fun of us.” The verb translated “to humiliate us” here means to hold something up for ridicule, or to toy with something harmfully. Attempted rape would be such an activity, for it would hold the victim in contempt.

¹⁰ tn Heb “he came to me to lie with me.” Here the expression “lie with” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.

¹¹ tn Heb “and I cried out with a loud voice.”

¹² sn A Pharisee was a member of one of the most important and influential religious and political parties of Judaism in the time of Jesus. There were more Pharisees than Sadducees (according to Josephus, Ant. 17.2.4 [17.42] there were more than 6,000 Pharisees at about this time). Pharisees differed with Sadducees on certain doctrines and patterns of behavior. The Pharisees were strict and zealous adherents to the laws of the OT and to numerous additional traditions such as angels and bodily resurrection.