31:55 (32:1) 2 Early in the morning Laban kissed 3 his grandchildren 4 and his daughters goodbye and blessed them. Then Laban left and returned home. 5
31:1 Jacob heard that Laban’s sons were complaining, 6 “Jacob has taken everything that belonged to our father! He has gotten rich 7 at our father’s expense!” 8
10:37 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
4:10 When he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.
1 tn Heb “my sons and my daughters.” Here “sons” refers to “grandsons,” and has been translated “grandchildren” since at least one granddaughter, Dinah, was involved. The order has been reversed in the translation for stylistic reasons.
2 sn Beginning with 31:55, the verse numbers in the English Bible through 32:32 differ by one from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 31:55 ET = 32:1 HT, 32:1 ET = 32:2 HT, etc., through 32:32 ET = 32:33 HT. From 33:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.
3 tn Heb “and Laban got up early in the morning and he kissed.”
4 tn Heb “his sons.”
5 tn Heb “to his place.”
6 tn Heb “and he heard the words of the sons of Laban, saying.”
7 sn The Hebrew word translated “gotten rich” (כָּבוֹד, cavod) has the basic idea of “weight.” If one is heavy with possessions, then that one is wealthy (13:2). Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph all became wealthy when they left the promised land. Jacob’s wealth foreshadows what will happen to Israel when they leave the land of Egypt (Exod 12:35-38).
8 tn Heb “and from that which belonged to our father he has gained all this wealth.”
9 tn The Hebrew word עִיר (’ir) can refer to either a city or a town, depending on the size of the place. Given that this place was described by Lot later in this verse as a “little place,” the translation uses “town.”
10 tn Heb “Look, this town is near to flee to there. And it is little.”
11 tn Heb “Let me escape to there.” The cohortative here expresses Lot’s request.
12 tn Heb “Is it not little?”
13 tn Heb “my soul will live.” After the cohortative the jussive with vav conjunctive here indicates purpose/result.
14 tn Grk “he had many possessions.” This term (κτῆμα, kthma) is often used for land as a possession.
15 tn The words “the money” are not in the Greek text, but are implied. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.
16 sn The call for sacrifice comes with a promise of eternal reward: You will have treasure in heaven. Jesus’ call is a test to see how responsive the man is to God’s direction through him. Will he walk the path God’s agent calls him to walk? For a rich person who got it right, see Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10.
17 tn Grk “he”; the referent (the man who asked the question in v. 17) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
18 tn Grk “he had many possessions.” This term (κτῆμα, kthma) is often used for land as a possession.
19 tc The Western text (D it) and a few others have only καί (kai) here, rather than καὶ προσελθόντες Φαρισαῖοι (kai proselqonte" Farisaioi, here translated as “then some Pharisees came”). The longer reading, a specific identification of the subject, may have been prompted by the parallel in Matt 19:3. The fact that the
20 tn In Greek this phrase occurs at the end of the sentence. It has been brought forward to conform to English style.
21 tn The personal pronoun “his” is not in the Greek text, but is certainly implied and has been supplied in the English translation to clarify the sense of the statement (cf. “his wife” in 10:7).
22 tn The particle εἰ (ei) is often used to introduce both indirect and direct questions. Thus, another possible translation is to take this as an indirect question: “They asked him if it were lawful for a man to divorce his wife.” See BDF §440.3.