Genesis 46:3-7

46:3 He said, “I am God, ¹  the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. 46:4 I will go down with you to Egypt and I myself will certainly bring you back from there. ²  Joseph will close your eyes.” ³ 

46:5 Then Jacob started out ⁴  from Beer Sheba, and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob, their little children, and their wives in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent along to transport him. 46:6 Jacob and all his descendants took their livestock and the possessions they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and they went to Egypt. ⁵  46:7 He brought with him to Egypt his sons and grandsons, ⁶  his daughters and granddaughters – all his descendants.

Numbers 20:15

20:15 how our ancestors went down into Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time, ⁷  and the Egyptians treated us and our ancestors badly. ⁸ 

Deuteronomy 10:22

10:22 When your ancestors went down to Egypt, they numbered only seventy, but now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky. ⁹ 

Deuteronomy 26:5

26:5 Then you must affirm before the Lord your God, “A wandering ¹⁰  Aramean ¹¹  was my ancestor, ¹²  and he went down to Egypt and lived there as a foreigner with a household few in number, ¹³  but there he became a great, powerful, and numerous people.

Joshua 24:4

24:4 and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. To Esau I assigned Mount Seir, ¹⁴  while Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt.

¹ tn Heb “the God.”

² tn Heb “and I, I will bring you up, also bringing up.” The independent personal pronoun before the first person imperfect verbal form draws attention to the speaker/subject, while the infinitive absolute after the imperfect strongly emphasizes the statement: “I myself will certainly bring you up.”

³ tn Heb “and Joseph will put his hand upon your eyes.” This is a promise of peaceful death in Egypt with Joseph present to close his eyes.

⁴ tn Heb “arose.”

⁵ tn Heb “and they took their livestock and their possessions which they had acquired in the land of Canaan and they went to Egypt, Jacob and all his offspring with him.” The order of the clauses has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁶ tn The Hebrew text adds “with him” here. This is omitted in the translation because it is redundant in English style (note the same phrase earlier in the verse).

⁷ tn Heb “many days.”

⁸ tn The verb רָעַע (ra’a’) means “to act or do evil.” Evil here is in the sense of causing pain or trouble. So the causative stem in our passage means “to treat wickedly.”

⁹ tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

¹⁰ tn Though the Hebrew term אָבַד (’avad) generally means “to perish” or the like (HALOT 2-3 s.v.; BDB 1-2 s.v.; cf. KJV “a Syrian ready to perish”), a meaning “to go astray” or “to be lost” is also attested. The ambivalence in the Hebrew text is reflected in the versions where LXX Vaticanus reads ἀπέβαλεν (apebalen, “lose”) for a possibly metathesized reading found in Alexandrinus, Ambrosianus, ἀπέλαβεν (apelaben, “receive”); others attest κατέλειπεν (kateleipen, “leave, abandon”). “Wandering” seems to suit best the contrast with the sedentary life Israel would enjoy in Canaan (v. 9) and is the meaning followed by many English versions.

¹¹ sn A wandering Aramean. This is a reference to Jacob whose mother Rebekah was an Aramean (Gen 24:10; 25:20, 26) and who himself lived in Aram for at least twenty years (Gen 31:41-42).

¹² tn Heb “father.”

¹³ tn Heb “sojourned there few in number.” The words “with a household” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and for clarity.

¹⁴ tn Heb “I gave to Esau Mount Seir to possess it.”