Genesis 28:1-6

28:1 So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him, “You must not marry a Canaanite woman! 28:2 Leave immediately for Paddan Aram! Go to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and find yourself a wife there, among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. 28:3 May the sovereign God bless you! May he make you fruitful and give you a multitude of descendants! Then you will become a large nation. 28:4 May he give you and your descendants the blessing he gave to Abraham so that you may possess the land God gave to Abraham, the land where you have been living as a temporary resident.” 28:5 So Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean and brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

28:6 Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him off to Paddan Aram to find a wife there. 10  As he blessed him, 11  Isaac commanded him, “You must not marry a Canaanite woman.” 12 


tn Heb “you must not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.”

tn Heb “Arise! Go!” The first of the two imperatives is adverbial and stresses the immediacy of the departure.

tn Heb “El Shaddai.” See the extended note on the phrase “sovereign God” in Gen 17:1.

tn Heb “and make you fruitful and multiply you.” See Gen 17:6, 20 for similar terminology.

tn The perfect verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here indicates consequence. The collocation הָיָה + preposition לְ (hayah + lÿ) means “become.”

tn Heb “an assembly of peoples.”

tn Heb “and may he give to you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your offspring with you.” The name “Abraham” is an objective genitive here; this refers to the blessing that God gave to Abraham.

tn The words “the land” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

tn Heb “the land of your sojournings,” that is, the land where Jacob had been living as a resident alien, as his future descendants would after him.

10 tn Heb “to take for himself from there a wife.”

11 tn The infinitive construct with the preposition and the suffix form a temporal clause.

12 tn Heb “you must not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.”