Genesis 18:14

18:14 Is anything impossible ¹  for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.” ² 

Genesis 26:2

26:2 The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; ³  settle down in the land that I will point out to you. ⁴ 

Genesis 31:39

31:39 Animals torn by wild beasts I never brought to you; I always absorbed the loss myself. ⁵  You always made me pay for every missing animal, ⁶  whether it was taken by day or at night.

Genesis 47:5

47:5 Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you.

¹ tn The Hebrew verb פָּלָא (pala’) means “to be wonderful, to be extraordinary, to be surpassing, to be amazing.”

² sn Sarah will have a son. The passage brings God’s promise into clear focus. As long as it was a promise for the future, it really could be believed without much involvement. But now, when it seemed so impossible from the human standpoint, when the Lord fixed an exact date for the birth of the child, the promise became rather overwhelming to Abraham and Sarah. But then this was the Lord of creation, the one they had come to trust. The point of these narratives is that the creation of Abraham’s offspring, which eventually became Israel, is no less a miraculous work of creation than the creation of the world itself.

³ sn Do not go down to Egypt. The words echo Gen 12:10, which reports that “Abram went down to Egypt,” but state the opposite.

⁴ tn Heb “say to you.”

⁵ tn The imperfect verbal form indicates that this was a customary or typical action.

⁶ tn Heb “from my hand you exacted it.” The imperfect verbal form again indicates that this was a customary or typical action. The words “for every missing animal” are supplied in the translation for clarity; the following clause in Hebrew, “stolen by day or stolen by night,” probably means “stolen by wild beasts” and refers to the same animals “torn by wild beasts” in the previous clause, although it may refer to animals stolen by people. The translation used here, “missing,” is ambiguous enough to cover either eventuality.