Genesis 30:29-31

30:29 “You know how I have worked for you,” Jacob replied, ¹  “and how well your livestock have fared under my care. ²  30:30 Indeed, ³  you had little before I arrived, ⁴  but now your possessions have increased many times over. ⁵  The Lord has blessed you wherever I worked. ⁶  But now, how long must it be before I do something for my own family too?” ⁷ 

30:31 So Laban asked, ⁸  “What should I give you?” “You don’t need to give me a thing,” ⁹  Jacob replied, ¹⁰  “but if you agree to this one condition, ¹¹  I will continue to care for ¹²  your flocks and protect them:

Deuteronomy 7:13-14

7:13 He will love and bless you, and make you numerous. He will bless you with many children, ¹³  with the produce of your soil, your grain, your new wine, your oil, the offspring of your oxen, and the young of your flocks in the land which he promised your ancestors to give you. 7:14 You will be blessed beyond all peoples; there will be no barrenness ¹⁴  among you or your livestock.

Deuteronomy 8:3

8:3 So he humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you with unfamiliar manna. ¹⁵  He did this to teach you ¹⁶  that humankind ¹⁷  cannot live by bread ¹⁸  alone, but also by everything that comes from the Lord’s mouth. ¹⁹ 

Deuteronomy 28:4

28:4 Your children ²⁰  will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.

¹ tn Heb “and he said to him, ‘You know how I have served you.’” The order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons, and the referent of the pronoun “he” (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “and how your cattle were with me.”

³ tn Or “for.”

⁴ tn Heb “before me.”

⁵ tn Heb “and it has broken out with respect to abundance.”

⁶ tn Heb “at my foot.”

⁷ tn Heb “How long [until] I do, also I, for my house?”

⁸ tn Heb “and he said.” The referent (Laban) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁹ tn The negated imperfect verbal form has an obligatory nuance.

¹⁰ tn The order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.

¹¹ tn Heb “If you do for me this thing.”

¹² tn Heb “I will return, I will tend,” an idiom meaning “I will continue tending.”

¹³ tn Heb “will bless the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

¹⁴ sn One of the ironies about the promises to the patriarchs concerning offspring was the characteristic barrenness of the wives of the men to whom these pledges were made (cf. Gen 11:30; 25:21; 29:31). Their affliction is in each case described by the very Hebrew word used here (עֲקָרָה, ’aqarah), an affliction that will no longer prevail in Canaan.

¹⁵ tn Heb “manna which you and your ancestors did not know.” By popular etymology the word “manna” comes from the Hebrew phrase מָן הוּא (man hu’), i.e., “What is it?” (Exod 16:15). The question remains unanswered to this very day. Elsewhere the material is said to be “white like coriander seed” with “a taste like honey cakes” (Exod 16:31; cf. Num 11:7). Modern attempts to associate it with various desert plants are unsuccessful for the text says it was a new thing and, furthermore, one that appeared and disappeared miraculously (Exod 16:21-27).

¹⁶ tn Heb “in order to make known to you.” In the Hebrew text this statement is subordinated to what precedes, resulting in a very long sentence in English. The translation makes this statement a separate sentence for stylistic reasons.

¹⁷ tn Heb “the man,” but in a generic sense, referring to the whole human race (“mankind” or “humankind”).

¹⁸ tn The Hebrew term may refer to “food” in a more general sense (cf. CEV).

¹⁹ sn Jesus quoted this text to the devil in the midst of his forty-day fast to make the point that spiritual nourishment is incomparably more important than mere physical bread (Matt 4:4; cf. Luke 4:4).

²⁰ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).