Genesis 27:40

27:40 You will live by your sword

but you will serve your brother.

When you grow restless,

you will tear off his yoke

from your neck.” ¹ 

Genesis 27:2

27:2 Isaac ²  said, “Since ³  I am so old, I could die at any time. ⁴ 

Genesis 8:20-22

8:20 Noah built an altar to the Lord. He then took some of every kind of clean animal and clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. ⁵  8:21 And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma ⁶  and said ⁷  to himself, ⁸  “I will never again curse ⁹  the ground because of humankind, even though ¹⁰  the inclination of their minds ¹¹  is evil from childhood on. ¹²  I will never again destroy everything that lives, as I have just done.

8:22 “While the earth continues to exist, ¹³ 

planting time ¹⁴  and harvest,

cold and heat,

summer and winter,

and day and night will not cease.”

¹ sn You will tear off his yoke from your neck. It may be that this prophetic blessing found its fulfillment when Jerusalem fell and Edom got its revenge. The oracle makes Edom subservient to Israel and suggests the Edomites would live away from the best land and be forced to sustain themselves by violent measures.

² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Isaac) is specified in the translation for clarity.

³ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”) here introduces a logically foundational statement, upon which the coming instruction will be based.

⁴ tn Heb “I do not know the day of my death.”

⁵ sn Offered burnt offerings on the altar. F. D. Maurice includes a chapter on the sacrifice of Noah in The Doctrine of Sacrifice. The whole burnt offering, according to Leviticus 1, represented the worshiper’s complete surrender and dedication to the Lord. After the flood Noah could see that God was not only a God of wrath, but a God of redemption and restoration. The one who escaped the catastrophe could best express his gratitude and submission through sacrificial worship, acknowledging God as the sovereign of the universe.

⁶ tn The Lord “smelled” (וַיָּרַח, vayyarakh) a “soothing smell” (רֵיחַ הַנִּיהֹחַ, reakh hannihoakh). The object forms a cognate accusative with the verb. The language is anthropomorphic. The offering had a sweet aroma that pleased or soothed. The expression in Lev 1 signifies that God accepts the offering with pleasure, and in accepting the offering he accepts the worshiper.

⁷ tn Heb “and the Lord said.”

⁸ tn Heb “in his heart.”

⁹ tn Here the Hebrew word translated “curse” is קָלָל (qalal), used in the Piel verbal stem.

¹⁰ tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) can be used in a concessive sense (see BDB 473 s.v. כִּי), which makes good sense in this context. Its normal causal sense (“for”) does not fit the context here very well.

¹¹ tn Heb “the inclination of the heart of humankind.”

¹² tn Heb “from his youth.”

¹³ tn Heb “yet all the days of the earth.” The idea is “[while there are] yet all the days of the earth,” meaning, “as long as the earth exists.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “seed,” which stands here by metonymy for the time when seed is planted.