Genesis 32:4

32:4 He commanded them, “This is what you must say to my lord Esau: ‘This is what your servant ¹  Jacob says: I have been staying with Laban until now.

Genesis 31:8

31:8 If he said, ²  ‘The speckled animals ³  will be your wage,’ then the entire flock gave birth to speckled offspring. But if he said, ‘The streaked animals will be your wage,’ then the entire flock gave birth to streaked offspring.

Genesis 15:5

15:5 The Lord ⁴  took him outside and said, “Gaze into the sky and count the stars – if you are able to count them!” Then he said to him, “So will your descendants be.”

Genesis 22:5

22:5 So he ⁵  said to his servants, “You two stay ⁶  here with the donkey while ⁷  the boy and I go up there. We will worship ⁸  and then return to you.” ⁹ 

Genesis 31:37

31:37 When you searched through all my goods, did you find anything that belonged to you? ¹⁰  Set it here before my relatives and yours, ¹¹  and let them settle the dispute between the two of us! ¹² 

Genesis 24:30

24:30 When he saw the bracelets on his sister’s wrists and the nose ring ¹³  and heard his sister Rebekah say, ¹⁴  “This is what the man said to me,” he went out to meet the man. There he was, standing ¹⁵  by the camels near the spring.

Genesis 45:9

45:9 Now go up to my father quickly ¹⁶  and tell him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: “God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; do not delay!

Genesis 50:17

50:17 ‘Tell Joseph this: Please forgive the sin of your brothers and the wrong they did when they treated you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sin of the servants of the God of your father.” When this message was reported to him, Joseph wept. ¹⁷ 

¹ sn Your servant. The narrative recounts Jacob’s groveling in fear before Esau as he calls his brother his “lord,” as if to minimize what had been done twenty years ago.

² tn In the protasis (“if” section) of this conditional clause, the imperfect verbal form has a customary nuance – whatever he would say worked to Jacob’s benefit.

³ tn Heb “speckled” (twice this verse). The word “animals” (after the first occurrence of “speckled”) and “offspring” (after the second) have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. The same two terms (“animals” and “offspring”) have been supplied after the two occurrences of “streaked” later in this verse.

³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn Heb “And Abraham.” The proper name has been replaced in the translation by the pronoun (“he”) for stylistic reasons.

⁵ tn The Hebrew verb is masculine plural, referring to the two young servants who accompanied Abraham and Isaac on the journey.

⁶ tn The disjunctive clause (with the compound subject preceding the verb) may be circumstantial and temporal.

⁷ tn This Hebrew word literally means “to bow oneself close to the ground.” It often means “to worship.”

⁸ sn It is impossible to know what Abraham was thinking when he said, “we will…return to you.” When he went he knew (1) that he was to sacrifice Isaac, and (2) that God intended to fulfill his earlier promises through Isaac. How he reconciled those facts is not clear in the text. Heb 11:17-19 suggests that Abraham believed God could restore Isaac to him through resurrection.

⁵ tn Heb “what did you find from all the goods of your house?”

⁶ tn Heb “your relatives.” The word “relatives” has not been repeated in the translation here for stylistic reasons.

⁷ tn Heb “that they may decide between us two.”

⁶ 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.

⁷ tn Heb “and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying.”

⁸ 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.

⁷ tn Heb “hurry and go up.”

⁸ tn Heb “and Joseph wept when they spoke to him.”