26:7 When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he replied, “She is my sister.” 8 He was afraid to say, “She is my wife,” for he thought to himself, 9 “The men of this place will kill me to get 10 Rebekah because she is very beautiful.”
44:1 He instructed the servant who was over his household, “Fill the sacks of the men with as much food as they can carry and put each man’s money in the mouth of his sack.
45:1 Joseph was no longer able to control himself before all his attendants, 16 so he cried out, “Make everyone go out from my presence!” No one remained 17 with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers.
1 tn Heb “who have not known.” Here this expression is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.
2 tn Heb “according to what is good in your eyes.”
3 tn Heb “shadow.”
4 sn This chapter portrays Lot as a hypocrite. He is well aware of the way the men live in his city and is apparently comfortable in the midst of it. But when confronted by the angels, he finally draws the line. But he is nevertheless willing to sacrifice his daughters’ virginity to protect his guests. His opposition to the crowds leads to his rejection as a foreigner by those with whom he had chosen to live. The one who attempted to rescue his visitors ends up having to be rescued by them.
5 tn Heb “And it was when he saw the nose ring and the bracelets on the arms of his sister.” The word order is altered in the translation for the sake of clarity.
6 tn Heb “and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying.”
7 tn Heb “and look, he was standing.” The disjunctive clause with the participle following the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) invites the audience to view the scene through Laban’s eyes.
9 sn Rebekah, unlike Sarah, was not actually her husband’s sister.
10 tn Heb “lest.” The words “for he thought to himself” are supplied because the next clause is written with a first person pronoun, showing that Isaac was saying or thinking this.
11 tn Heb “kill me on account of.”
13 tn The verb has no expressed subject, and so it could be treated as a passive (“a Hebrew man was brought in”; cf. NIV). But it is clear from the context that her husband brought Joseph into the household, so Potiphar is the apparent referent here. Thus the translation supplies “my husband” as the referent of the unspecified pronominal subject of the verb (cf. NEB, NRSV).
14 sn A Hebrew man. Potiphar’s wife raises the ethnic issue when talking to her servants about what their boss had done.
15 tn Heb “to make fun of us.” The verb translated “to humiliate us” here means to hold something up for ridicule, or to toy with something harmfully. Attempted rape would be such an activity, for it would hold the victim in contempt.
16 tn Heb “he came to me to lie with me.” Here the expression “lie with” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.
17 tn Heb “and I cried out with a loud voice.”
17 tn Heb “all the ones standing beside him.”
18 tn Heb “stood.”