1 tn Heb “blessing.” It is as if Jacob is trying to repay what he stole from his brother twenty years earlier.
2 tn Or “gracious,” but in the specific sense of prosperity.
3 tn Heb “all.”
4 tn Heb “and he urged him and he took.” The referent of the first pronoun in the sequence (“he”) has been specified as “Jacob” in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Heb “and she spoke to him according to these words, saying.”
6 sn That Hebrew slave. Now, when speaking to her husband, Potiphar’s wife refers to Joseph as a Hebrew slave, a very demeaning description.
7 tn Heb “came to me to make fun of me.” The statement needs no explanation because of the connotations of “came to me” and “to make fun of me.” See the note on the expression “humiliate us” in v. 14.
9 tn Heb “all the food.”
10 tn Heb “under the hand of Pharaoh.”
11 tn Heb “[for] food in the cities.” The noun translated “food” is an adverbial accusative in the sentence.
12 tn The perfect with vav (ו) consecutive carries the same force as the sequence of jussives before it.
13 tn Heb “How did I sin against you that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin?” The expression “great sin” refers to adultery. For discussion of the cultural background of the passage, see J. J. Rabinowitz, “The Great Sin in Ancient Egyptian Marriage Contracts,” JNES 18 (1959): 73, and W. L. Moran, “The Scandal of the ‘Great Sin’ at Ugarit,” JNES 18 (1959): 280-81.
14 tn Heb “Deeds which should not be done you have done to me.” The imperfect has an obligatory nuance here.