Genesis 29:14

29:14 Then Laban said to him, “You are indeed my own flesh and blood.” ¹  So Jacob ²  stayed with him for a month. ³ 

Genesis 29:2

29:2 He saw ⁴  in the field a well with ⁵  three flocks of sheep lying beside it, because the flocks were watered from that well. Now ⁶  a large stone covered the mouth of the well.

Genesis 19:13

19:13 because we are about to destroy ⁷  it. The outcry against this place ⁸  is so great before the Lord that he ⁹  has sent us to destroy it.”

Genesis 19:1

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

19:1 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening while ¹⁰  Lot was sitting in the city’s gateway. ¹¹  When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face toward the ground.

Genesis 11:1

The Dispersion of the Nations at Babel

11:1 The whole earth ¹²  had a common language and a common vocabulary. ¹³ 

Ephesians 5:30

5:30 for we are members of his body. ¹⁴ 

Hebrews 2:14

2:14 Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he likewise shared in ¹⁵  their humanity, ¹⁶  so that through death he could destroy ¹⁷  the one who holds the power of death (that is, the devil),

¹ tn Heb “indeed, my bone and my flesh are you.” The expression sounds warm enough, but the presence of “indeed” may suggest that Laban had to be convinced of Jacob’s identity before permitting him to stay. To be one’s “bone and flesh” is to be someone’s blood relative. For example, the phrase describes the relationship between Abimelech and the Shechemites (Judg 9:2; his mother was a Shechemite); David and the Israelites (2 Sam 5:1); David and the elders of Judah (2 Sam 19:12,); and David and his nephew Amasa (2 Sam 19:13, see 2 Sam 17:2; 1 Chr 2:16-17).

² tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ tn Heb “a month of days.”

⁴ tn Heb “and he saw, and look.” As in Gen 28:12-15, the narrator uses the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”) here and in the next clause to draw the reader into the story.

⁵ tn Heb “and look, there.”

⁶ tn The disjunctive clause (introduced by the noun with the prefixed conjunction) provides supplemental information that is important to the story.

⁷ tn The Hebrew participle expresses an imminent action here.

⁸ tn Heb “for their outcry.” The words “about this place” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁹ tn Heb “the Lord.” The repetition of the divine name has been replaced in the translation by the pronoun “he” for stylistic reasons.

¹⁰ tn The disjunctive clause is temporal here, indicating what Lot was doing at the time of their arrival.

¹¹ tn Heb “sitting in the gate of Sodom.” The phrase “the gate of Sodom” has been translated “the city’s gateway” for stylistic reasons.

¹² sn The whole earth. Here “earth” is a metonymy of subject, referring to the people who lived in the earth. Genesis 11 begins with everyone speaking a common language, but chap. 10 has the nations arranged by languages. It is part of the narrative art of Genesis to give the explanation of the event after the narration of the event. On this passage see A. P. Ross, “The Dispersion of the Nations in Genesis 11:1-9,” BSac 138 (1981): 119-38.

¹³ tn Heb “one lip and one [set of] words.” The term “lip” is a metonymy of cause, putting the instrument for the intended effect. They had one language. The term “words” refers to the content of their speech. They had the same vocabulary.

¹⁴ tc Most Western witnesses, as well as the majority of Byzantine mss and a few others (א² D F G Ψ 0278 0285^vid Ï lat), add the following words to the end of the verse: ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων αὐτοῦ (ek th" sarko" autou kai ek twn ostewn autou, “of his body and of his bones”). This is a (slightly modified) quotation from Gen 2:23a (LXX). The Alexandrian text is solidly behind the shorter reading (Ì⁴⁶ א* A B 048 33 81 1739* 1881 pc). Although it is possible that an early scribe’s eye skipped over the final αὐτοῦ, there is a much greater likelihood that a scribe added the Genesis quotation in order to fill out and make explicit the author’s incomplete reference to Gen 2:23. Further, on intrinsic grounds, it seems unlikely that the author would refer to the physical nature of creation when speaking of the “body of Christ” which is spiritual or mystical. Hence, as is often the case with OT quotations, the scribal clarification missed the point the author was making; the shorter reading stands as original.

¹⁵ tn Or “partook of” (this is a different word than the one in v. 14a).

¹⁶ tn Grk “the same.”

¹⁷ tn Or “break the power of,” “reduce to nothing.”