Genesis 31:41

31:41 This was my lot ¹  for twenty years in your house: I worked like a slave ²  for you – fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks, but you changed my wages ten times!

Genesis 34:12

34:12 You can make the bride price and the gift I must bring very expensive, ³  and I’ll give ⁴  whatever you ask ⁵  of me. Just give me the young woman as my wife!”

Exodus 22:16-17

Moral and Ceremonial Laws

22:16 ⁶ “If a man seduces a virgin ⁷  who is not engaged ⁸  and has sexual relations with her, he must surely endow ⁹  her to be his wife. 22:17 If her father refuses to give her to him, he must pay money for the bride price of virgins.

Exodus 22:2

22:2 “If a thief is caught ¹⁰  breaking in ¹¹  and is struck so that he dies, there will be no blood guilt for him. ¹² 

Exodus 3:14

3:14 God said to Moses, “I am that I am.” ¹³  And he said, “You must say this ¹⁴  to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Hosea 3:2

3:2 So I paid fifteen shekels of silver and about seven bushels of barley ¹⁵  to purchase her.

Hosea 12:12

Jacob in Aram, Israel in Egypt, and Ephraim in Trouble

12:12 Jacob fled to the country of Aram,

then Israel worked ¹⁶  to acquire a wife;

he tended sheep to pay for her.

¹ tn Heb “this to me.”

² tn Heb “served you,” but in this accusatory context the meaning is more “worked like a slave.”

³ tn Heb “Make very great upon me the bride price and gift.” The imperatives are used in a rhetorical manner. Shechem’s point is that he will pay the price, no matter how expensive it might be.

⁴ tn The cohortative expresses Shechem’s resolve to have Dinah as his wife.

⁵ tn Heb “say.”

⁶ sn The second half of the chapter records various laws of purity and justice. Any of them could be treated in an expository way, but in the present array they offer a survey of God’s righteous standards: Maintain the sanctity of marriage (16-17); maintain the purity of religious institutions (18-20), maintain the rights of human beings (21-28), maintain the rights of Yahweh (29-31).

⁷ tn This is the word בְּתוּלָה (bÿtulah); it describes a young woman who is not married or a young woman engaged to be married; in any case, she is presumed to be a virgin.

⁸ tn Or “pledged” for marriage.

⁹ tn The verb מָהַר (mahar) means “pay the marriage price,” and the related noun is the bride price. B. Jacob says this was a proposal gift and not a purchase price (Exodus, 700). This is the price paid to her parents, which allowed for provision should there be a divorce. The amount was usually agreed on by the two families, but the price was higher for a pure bride from a noble family. Here, the one who seduces her must pay it, regardless of whether he marries her or not.

¹⁰ tn Heb “found” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).

¹¹ tn The word בַּמַּחְתֶּרֶת (bammakhteret) means “digging through” the walls of a house (usually made of mud bricks). The verb is used only a few times and has the meaning of dig in (as into houses) or row hard (as in Jonah 1:13).

¹² tn The text has “there is not to him bloods.” When the word “blood” is put in the plural, it refers to bloodshed, or the price of blood that is shed, i.e., blood guiltiness.

¹³ tn The verb form used here is אֶהְיֶה (’ehyeh), the Qal imperfect, first person common singular, of the verb הָיָה (haya, “to be”). It forms an excellent paronomasia with the name. So when God used the verb to express his name, he used this form saying, “I am.” When his people refer to him as Yahweh, which is the third person masculine singular form of the same verb, they say “he is.” Some commentators argue for a future tense translation, “I will be who I will be,” because the verb has an active quality about it, and the Israelites lived in the light of the promises for the future. They argue that “I am” would be of little help to the Israelites in bondage. But a translation of “I will be” does not effectively do much more except restrict it to the future. The idea of the verb would certainly indicate that God is not bound by time, and while he is present (“I am”) he will always be present, even in the future, and so “I am” would embrace that as well (see also Ruth 2:13; Ps 50:21; Hos 1:9). The Greek translation of the OT used a participle to capture the idea, and several times in the Gospels Jesus used the powerful “I am” with this significance (e.g., John 8:58). The point is that Yahweh is sovereignly independent of all creation and that his presence guarantees the fulfillment of the covenant (cf. Isa 41:4; 42:6, 8; 43:10-11; 44:6; 45:5-7). Others argue for a causative Hiphil translation of “I will cause to be,” but nowhere in the Bible does this verb appear in Hiphil or Piel. A good summary of the views can be found in G. H. Parke-Taylor, Yahweh, the Divine Name in the Bible. See among the many articles: B. Beitzel, “Exodus 3:14 and the Divine Name: A Case of Biblical Paronomasia,” TJ 1 (1980): 5-20; C. D. Isbell, “The Divine Name ehyeh as a Symbol of Presence in Israelite Tradition,” HAR 2 (1978): 101-18; J. G. Janzen, “What’s in a Name? Yahweh in Exodus 3 and the Wider Biblical Context,” Int 33 (1979): 227-39; J. R. Lundbom, “God’s Use of the Idem per Idem to Terminate Debate,” HTR 71 (1978): 193-201; A. R. Millard, “Yw and Yhw Names,” VT 30 (1980): 208-12; and R. Youngblood, “A New Occurrence of the Divine Name ‘I AM,’” JETS 15 (1972): 144-52.

¹⁴ tn Or “Thus you shall say” (also in the following verse). The word “must” in the translation conveys the instructional and imperatival force of the statement.

¹⁵ tc The LXX reads “a homer of barley and a measure of wine,” a reading followed by some English translations (e.g., NRSV, NLT).

¹⁶ tn Heb “served” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “earned a wife.”