8:1 But God remembered 10 Noah and all the wild animals and domestic animals that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to blow over 11 the earth and the waters receded.
30:35 So that day Laban 20 removed the male goats that were streaked or spotted, all the female goats that were speckled or spotted (all that had any white on them), and all the dark-colored lambs, and put them in the care 21 of his sons.
31:1 Jacob heard that Laban’s sons were complaining, 22 “Jacob has taken everything that belonged to our father! He has gotten rich 23 at our father’s expense!” 24
41:8 In the morning he 32 was troubled, so he called for 33 all the diviner-priests 34 of Egypt and all its wise men. Pharaoh told them his dreams, 35 but no one could interpret 36 them for him. 37
1 tn For the first time in the narrative proper the verb “create” (בָּרָא, bara’) appears. (It is used in the summary statement of v. 1.) The author wishes to underscore that these creatures – even the great ones – are part of God’s perfect creation. The Hebrew term תַנִּינִם (tanninim) is used for snakes (Exod 7:9), crocodiles (Ezek 29:3), or other powerful animals (Jer 51:34). In Isa 27:1 the word is used to describe a mythological sea creature that symbolizes God’s enemies.
2 tn Or “fashioned.” To harmonize the order of events with the chronology of chapter one, some translate the prefixed verb form with vav (ו) consecutive as a past perfect (“had formed,” cf. NIV) here. (In chapter one the creation of the animals preceded the creation of man; here the animals are created after the man.) However, it is unlikely that the Hebrew construction can be translated in this way in the middle of this pericope, for the criteria for unmarked temporal overlay are not present here. See S. R. Driver, A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew, 84-88, and especially R. Buth, “Methodological Collision between Source Criticism and Discourse Analysis,” Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics, 138-54. For a contrary viewpoint see IBHS 552-53 §33.2.3 and C. J. Collins, “The Wayyiqtol as ‘Pluperfect’: When and Why,” TynBul 46 (1995): 117-40.
3 tn The imperfect verb form is future from the perspective of the past time narrative.
3 tn The Hebrew construction uses the independent personal pronoun, followed by a suffixed form of הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”) and the a participle used with an imminent future nuance: “As for me, look, I am going to bring.”
4 tn Heb “the flood, water.”
5 tn The verb שָׁחָת (shakhat, “to destroy”) is repeated yet again, only now in an infinitival form expressing the purpose of the flood.
6 tn The Hebrew construction here is different from the previous two; here it is רוּחַ חַיִּים (ruakh khayyim) rather than נֶפֶשׁ הַיָּה (nefesh khayyah) or נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים (nishmat khayyim). It refers to everything that breathes.
4 tn The verb “entered” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
5 tn Heb “every bird, every wing.”
5 tn The Hebrew word translated “remembered” often carries the sense of acting in accordance with what is remembered, i.e., fulfilling covenant promises (see B. S. Childs, Memory and Tradition in Israel [SBT], especially p. 34).
6 tn Heb “to pass over.”
6 tn Heb “and fear of you and dread of you will be upon every living creature of the earth and upon every bird of the sky.” The suffixes on the nouns “fear” and “dread” are objective genitives. The animals will fear humans from this time forward.
7 tn Heb “into your hand are given.” The “hand” signifies power. To say the animals have been given into the hands of humans means humans have been given authority over them.
7 tn Heb “which [is] between me and between you.”
8 tn Heb “all flesh.”
9 tn Heb “to destroy.”
10 tn Heb “all flesh.”
8 tn The verb has no expressed subject and so can be rendered as a passive in the translation.
9 sn Babel. Here is the climax of the account, a parody on the pride of Babylon. In the Babylonian literature the name bab-ili meant “the gate of God,” but in Hebrew it sounds like the word for “confusion,” and so retained that connotation. The name “Babel” (בָּבֶל, bavel) and the verb translated “confused” (בָּלַל, balal) form a paronomasia (sound play). For the many wordplays and other rhetorical devices in Genesis, see J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis (SSN).
9 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Laban) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
10 tn Heb “and he gave [them] into the hand.”
10 tn Heb “and he heard the words of the sons of Laban, saying.”
11 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).
12 tn Heb “and from that which belonged to our father he has gained all this wealth.”
11 tn In the protasis (“if” section) of this conditional clause, the imperfect verbal form has a customary nuance – whatever he would say worked to Jacob’s benefit.
12 tn Heb “speckled” (twice this verse). The word “animals” (after the first occurrence of “speckled”) and “offspring” (after the second) have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. The same two terms (“animals” and “offspring”) have been supplied after the two occurrences of “streaked” later in this verse.
12 tn Heb “lift up (now) your eyes and see.”
13 tn Heb “going up on,” that is, mounting for intercourse.
13 tn Heb “drove,” but this is subject to misunderstanding in contemporary English.
14 tn Heb “and he led away all his cattle and all his moveable property which he acquired, the cattle he obtained, which he acquired in Paddan Aram to go to Isaac his father to the land of Canaan.”
14 tn Heb “all which they were doing there, he was doing.” This probably means that Joseph was in charge of everything that went on in the prison.
15 tn Heb “his spirit.”
16 tn Heb “he sent and called,” which indicates an official summons.
17 tn The Hebrew term חַרְטֹם (khartom) is an Egyptian loanword (hyr-tp) that describes a class of priests who were skilled in such interpretations.
18 tn The Hebrew text has the singular (though the Samaritan Pentateuch reads the plural). If retained, the singular must be collective for the set of dreams. Note the plural pronoun “them,” referring to the dreams, in the next clause. However, note that in v. 15 Pharaoh uses the singular to refer to the two dreams. In vv. 17-24 Pharaoh seems to treat the dreams as two parts of one dream (see especially v. 22).
19 tn “there was no interpreter.”
20 tn Heb “for Pharaoh.” The pronoun “him” has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.