3:14 The Lord God said to the serpent, 5
“Because you have done this,
cursed 6 are you above all the wild beasts
and all the living creatures of the field!
On your belly you will crawl 7
and dust you will eat 8 all the days of your life.
17:23 Abraham took his son Ishmael and every male in his household (whether born in his house or bought with money) 16 and circumcised them 17 on that very same day, just as God had told him to do.
30:35 So that day Laban 22 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 23 of his sons.
36:6 Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, all the people in his household, his livestock, his animals, and all his possessions which he had acquired in the land of Canaan and went to a land some distance away from 24 Jacob his brother
1 tn The text uses הִנֵּה (hinneh), often archaically translated “behold.” It is often used to express the dramatic present, the immediacy of an event – “Look, this is what I am doing!”
2 sn G. J. Wenham (Genesis [WBC], 1:34) points out that there is nothing in the passage that prohibits the man and the woman from eating meat. He suggests that eating meat came after the fall. Gen 9:3 may then ratify the postfall practice of eating meat rather than inaugurate the practice, as is often understood.
3 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.
4 tn The imperfect verb form is future from the perspective of the past time narrative.
5 sn Note that God asks no question of the serpent, does not call for confession, as he did to the man and the woman; there is only the announcement of the curse. The order in this section is chiastic: The man is questioned, the woman is questioned, the serpent is cursed, sentence is passed on the woman, sentence is passed on the man.
6 tn The Hebrew word translated “cursed,” a passive participle from אָרָר (’arar), either means “punished” or “banished,” depending on how one interprets the following preposition. If the preposition is taken as comparative, then the idea is “cursed [i.e., punished] are you above [i.e., more than] all the wild beasts.” In this case the comparative preposition reflects the earlier comparison: The serpent was more shrewd than all others, and so more cursed than all others. If the preposition is taken as separative (see the note on the word “ground” in 4:11), then the idea is “cursed and banished from all the wild beasts.” In this case the serpent is condemned to isolation from all the other animals.
7 tn Heb “go”; “walk,” but in English “crawl” or “slither” better describes a serpent’s movement.
8 sn Dust you will eat. Being restricted to crawling on the ground would necessarily involve “eating dust,” although that is not the diet of the serpent. The idea of being brought low, of “eating dust” as it were, is a symbol of humiliation.
7 tn The words “bring out” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
8 tn Following the Hiphil imperative, “bring out,” the three perfect verb forms with vav (ו) consecutive carry an imperatival nuance. For a discussion of the Hebrew construction here and the difficulty of translating it into English, see S. R. Driver, A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew, 124-25.
9 tn Heb “and let them swarm in the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”
9 tn Heb “which [is] between me and between you.”
10 tn Heb “all flesh.”
11 tn Heb “to destroy.”
12 tn Heb “all flesh.”
11 tn Heb “Ishmael his son and all born in his house and all bought with money, every male among the men of the house of Abraham.”
12 tn Heb “circumcised the flesh of their foreskin.” The Hebrew expression is somewhat pleonastic and has been simplified in the translation.
13 tn Heb “pass through.”
14 tn Or “every black lamb”; Heb “and every dark sheep among the lambs.”
15 tn Heb “and the spotted and speckled among the goats.”
16 tn Heb “and it will be my wage.” The referent collective singular pronoun (“it) has been specified as “these animals” in the translation for clarity.
15 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Laban) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
16 tn Heb “and he gave [them] into the hand.”
17 tn Heb “from before.”