Genesis 14:10

14:10 Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits. ¹  When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell into them, ²  but some survivors ³  fled to the hills. ⁴ 

Genesis 32:8

32:8 “If Esau attacks one camp,” ⁵  he thought, ⁶  “then the other camp will be able to escape.” ⁷ 

Genesis 7:23

7:23 So the Lord ⁸  destroyed ⁹  every living thing that was on the surface of the ground, including people, animals, creatures that creep along the ground, and birds of the sky. ¹⁰  They were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived. ¹¹ 

Genesis 42:38

42:38 But Jacob ¹²  replied, “My son will not go down there with you, for his brother is dead and he alone is left. ¹³  If an accident happens to him on the journey you have to make, then you will bring down my gray hair ¹⁴  in sorrow to the grave.” ¹⁵ 

Genesis 47:18

47:18 When that year was over, they came to him the next year and said to him, “We cannot hide from our ¹⁶  lord that the money is used up and the livestock and the animals belong to our lord. Nothing remains before our lord except our bodies and our land.

¹ tn Heb “Now the Valley of Siddim [was] pits, pits of tar.” This parenthetical disjunctive clause emphasizes the abundance of tar pits in the area through repetition of the noun “pits.”

² tn Or “they were defeated there.” After a verb of motion the Hebrew particle שָׁם (sham) with the directional heh (שָׁמָּה, shammah) can mean “into it, therein” (BDB 1027 s.v. שָׁם).

³ tn Heb “the rest.”

⁴ sn The reference to the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah must mean the kings along with their armies. Most of them were defeated in the valley, but some of them escaped to the hills.

⁵ tn Heb “If Esau comes to one camp and attacks it.”

⁶ tn Heb “and he said, ‘If Esau comes to one camp and attacks it.” The Hebrew verb אָמַר (’amar) here represents Jacob’s thought or reasoning, and is therefore translated “he thought.” The order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁷ tn Heb “the surviving camp will be for escape.” The word “escape” is a feminine noun. The term most often refers to refugees from war.

⁹ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁰ tn Heb “wiped away” (cf. NRSV “blotted out”).

¹¹ tn Heb “from man to animal to creeping thing and to the bird of the sky.”

¹² tn The Hebrew verb שָׁאָר (sha’ar) means “to be left over; to survive” in the Niphal verb stem. It is the word used in later biblical texts for the remnant that escapes judgment. See G. F. Hasel, “Semantic Values of Derivatives of the Hebrew Root só’r,” AUSS 11 (1973): 152-69.

¹³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁴ sn The expression he alone is left meant that (so far as Jacob knew) Benjamin was the only surviving child of his mother Rachel.

¹⁵ sn The expression bring down my gray hair is figurative, using a part for the whole – they would put Jacob in the grave. But the gray head signifies a long life of worry and trouble.

¹⁶ tn Heb “to Sheol,” the dwelling place of the dead.

¹⁷ tn Heb “my.” The expression “my lord” occurs twice more in this verse.