1 tn Heb “Asshur” (so NEB, NIV).
2 tn Heb “beginning.” E. A. Speiser, Genesis (AB), 67, suggests “mainstays,” citing Jer 49:35 as another text where the Hebrew noun is so used.
3 tn Or “Babylon.”
4 sn Erech (ancient Uruk, modern Warka), one of the most ancient civilizations, was located southeast of Babylon.
5 sn Akkad, or ancient Agade, was associated with Sargon and located north of Babylon.
6 tn No such place is known in Shinar (i.e., Babylonia). Therefore some have translated the Hebrew term כַלְנֵה (khalneh) as “all of them,” referring to the three previous names (cf. NRSV).
7 sn Shinar is another name for Babylonia.
8 tn The subject of the verb translated “went” is probably still Nimrod. However, it has also been interpreted that “Ashur went,” referring to a derivative power.
9 tn Heb “Asshur.”
10 sn Nineveh was an ancient Assyrian city situated on the Tigris River.
11 sn The name Rehoboth-Ir means “and broad streets of a city,” perhaps referring to a suburb of Nineveh.
12 sn Calah (modern Nimrud) was located twenty miles north of Nineveh.
13 tn The verb has no expressed subject and so can be rendered as a passive in the translation.
14 sn Babel. Here is the climax of the account, a parody on the pride of Babylon. In the Babylonian literature the name bab-ili meant “the gate of God,” but in Hebrew it sounds like the word for “confusion,” and so retained that connotation. The name “Babel” (בָּבֶל, bavel) and the verb translated “confused” (בָּלַל, balal) form a paronomasia (sound play). For the many wordplays and other rhetorical devices in Genesis, see J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis (SSN).
15 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
16 tn Or perhaps “from the east” (NRSV) or “in the east.”
17 tn Heb “in the land of Shinar.”
18 tn Heb “the son of ninety-nine years.”
19 tn Heb “circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin” (also in v. 25).
20 tn Heb “but also.”
21 tn Heb “blessing.” It is as if Jacob is trying to repay what he stole from his brother twenty years earlier.
22 tn Or “gracious,” but in the specific sense of prosperity.
23 tn Heb “all.”
24 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.
25 tn Aram “then.” What follows in v. 9 seems to be the preface of the letter, serving to identify the senders of the letter. The word “from” is not in the Aramaic text but has been supplied in the translation for clarity.
26 tn For the qere of the MT (דֶּהָיֵא, dehaye’, a proper name) it seems better to retain the Kethib דִּהוּא (dihu’, “that is”). See F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 25, §35; E. Vogt, Lexicon linguae aramaicae, 36.
27 tn Aram “Osnappar” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV), another name for Ashurbanipal.
28 tc The translation reads with the ancient versions the plural בְּקֻרְיַהּ (bÿquryah, “in the cities”) rather than the singular (“in the city”) of the MT.
29 tn Aram “beyond the river.” In Ezra this term is a technical designation for the region west of the Euphrates river.
30 tn Aram “house.”
31 tn Aram “by the might of my strength.”