Genesis 18:10

18:10 One of them ¹  said, “I will surely return ²  to you when the season comes round again, ³  and your wife Sarah will have a son!” ⁴  (Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, not far behind him. ⁵ 

Genesis 21:2-3

21:2 So Sarah became pregnant ⁶  and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the appointed time that God had told him. 21:3 Abraham named his son – whom Sarah bore to him – Isaac. ⁷ 

Job 14:13

The Possibility of Another Life

14:13 “O that ⁸  you would hide me in Sheol, ⁹ 

and conceal me till your anger has passed! ¹⁰ 

O that you would set me a time ¹¹ 

and then remember me! ¹² 

Acts 1:7

1:7 He told them, “You are not permitted to know ¹³  the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.

¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (one of the three men introduced in v. 2) has been specified in the translation for clarity. Some English translations have specified the referent as the Lord (cf. RSV, NIV) based on vv. 1, 13, but the Hebrew text merely has “he said” at this point, referring to one of the three visitors. Aside from the introductory statement in v. 1, the incident is narrated from Abraham’s point of view, and the suspense is built up for the reader as Abraham’s elaborate banquet preparations in the preceding verses suggest he suspects these are important guests. But not until the promise of a son later in this verse does it become clear who is speaking. In v. 13 the Hebrew text explicitly mentions the Lord.

² tn The Hebrew construction is emphatic, using the infinitive absolute with the imperfect tense.

³ tn Heb “as/when the time lives” or “revives,” possibly referring to the springtime.

⁴ tn Heb “and there will be (הִנֵּה, hinneh) a son for Sarah.”

⁵ tn This is the first of two disjunctive parenthetical clauses preparing the reader for Sarah’s response (see v. 12).

⁶ tn Or “she conceived.”

⁷ tn Heb “the one born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.” The two modifying clauses, the first introduced with an article and the second with the relative pronoun, are placed in the middle of the sentence, before the name Isaac is stated. They are meant to underscore that this was indeed an actual birth to Abraham and Sarah in fulfillment of the promise.

⁸ tn The optative mood is introduced here again with מִי יִתֵּן (mi yitten), literally, “who will give?”

⁹ sn Sheol in the Bible refers to the place where the dead go. But it can have different categories of meaning: death in general, the grave, or the realm of the departed spirits [hell]. A. Heidel shows that in the Bible when hell is in view the righteous are not there – it is the realm of the departed spirits of the wicked. When the righteous go to Sheol, the meaning is usually the grave or death. See chapter 3 in A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and the Old Testament Parallels.

¹⁰ tn The construction used here is the preposition followed by the infinitive construct followed by the subjective genitive, forming an adverbial clause of time.

¹¹ tn This is the same word used in v. 5 for “limit.”

¹² tn The verb זָכַר (zakhar) means more than simply “to remember.” In many cases, including this one, it means “to act on what is remembered,” i.e., deliver or rescue (see Gen 8:1, “and God remembered Noah”). In this sense, a prayer “remember me” is a prayer for God to act upon his covenant promises.

¹³ tn Grk “It is not for you to know.”