68:6 God settles those who have been deserted in their own homes; 1
he frees prisoners and grants them prosperity. 2
But sinful rebels live in the desert. 3
21:6 Sarah said, “God has made me laugh. 5 Everyone who hears about this 6 will laugh 7 with me.” 21:7 She went on to say, 8 “Who would 9 have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have given birth to a son for him in his old age!”
25:21 Isaac prayed to 10 the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.
30:22 Then God took note of 11 Rachel. He paid attention to her and enabled her to become pregnant. 12 30:23 She became pregnant 13 and gave birth to a son. Then she said, “God has taken away my shame.” 14
30:1 When Rachel saw that she could not give Jacob children, she 15 became jealous of her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children 16 or I’ll die!”
2:5 Now 17 no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field 18 had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 19
54:1 “Shout for joy, O barren one who has not given birth!
Give a joyful shout and cry out, you who have not been in labor!
For the children of the desolate one are more numerous
than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord.
“Rejoice, O barren woman who does not bear children; 29
break forth and shout, you who have no birth pains,
because the children of the desolate woman are more numerous
than those of the woman who has a husband.” 30
1 tn Heb “God causes the solitary ones to dwell in a house.” The participle suggests this is what God typically does.
2 tn Heb “he brings out prisoners into prosperity.” Another option is to translate, “he brings out prisoners with singing” (cf. NIV). The participle suggests this is what God typically does.
3 tn Or “in a parched [land].”
4 tn The parenthetical disjunctive clause underscores how miraculous this birth was. Abraham was 100 years old. The fact that the genealogies give the ages of the fathers when their first son is born shows that this was considered a major milestone in one’s life (G. J. Wenham, Genesis [WBC], 2:80).
5 tn Heb “Laughter God has made for me.”
6 tn The words “about this” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
7 sn Sarah’s words play on the name “Isaac” in a final triumphant manner. God prepared “laughter” (צְחֹק, ysÿkhoq ) for her, and everyone who hears about this “will laugh” (יִצְחַק, yitskhaq ) with her. The laughter now signals great joy and fulfillment, not unbelief (cf. Gen 18:12-15).
8 tn Heb “said.”
9 tn The perfect form of the verb is used here to describe a hypothetical situation.
10 tn The Hebrew verb עָתַר (’atar), translated “prayed [to]” here, appears in the story of God’s judgment on Egypt in which Moses asked the
11 tn Heb “remembered.”
12 tn Heb “and God listened to her and opened up her womb.” Since “God” is the subject of the previous clause, the noun has been replaced by the pronoun “he” in the translation for stylistic reasons
13 tn Or “conceived.”
14 tn Heb “my reproach.” A “reproach” is a cutting taunt or painful ridicule, but here it probably refers by metonymy to Rachel’s barren condition, which was considered shameful in this culture and was the reason why she was the object of taunting and ridicule.
15 tn Heb “Rachel.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“she”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.
16 tn Heb “sons.”
17 tn Heb “Now every sprig of the field before it was.” The verb forms, although appearing to be imperfects, are technically preterites coming after the adverb טֶּרֶם (terem). The word order (conjunction + subject + predicate) indicates a disjunctive clause, which provides background information for the following narrative (as in 1:2). Two negative clauses are given (“before any sprig…”, and “before any cultivated grain” existed), followed by two causal clauses explaining them, and then a positive circumstantial clause is given – again dealing with water as in 1:2 (water would well up).
18 tn The first term, שִׂיחַ (siakh), probably refers to the wild, uncultivated plants (see Gen 21:15; Job 30:4,7); whereas the second, עֵשֶׂב (’esev), refers to cultivated grains. It is a way of saying: “back before anything was growing.”
19 tn The two causal clauses explain the first two disjunctive clauses: There was no uncultivated, general growth because there was no rain, and there were no grains because there was no man to cultivate the soil.
20 tn The passive means that the prayer was heard by God.
21 tn Grk “a son, and you”; καί (kai) has not been translated. Instead a semicolon is used in the translation for stylistic reasons.
22 tn Grk “you will call his name John.” The future tense here functions like a command (see ExSyn 569-70). This same construction occurs in v. 31.
23 tn Grk “This will be joy and gladness.”
24 tn Or “because of.”
25 tn “At his birth” is more precise as the grammatical subject (1:58), though “at his coming” is a possible force, since it is his mission, as the following verses note, that will really bring joy.
26 tn Grk “before.”
27 tn Grk “and he”; because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun in the translation.
28 tn Grk “even from his mother’s womb.” While this idiom may be understood to refer to the point of birth (“even from his birth”), Luke 1:41 suggests that here it should be understood to refer to a time before birth.
29 tn The direct object “children” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied for clarity. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.
30 tn Grk “because more are the children of the barren one than of the one having a husband.”