Discovery Box1 Chronicles 7:23
Context7:23 He had sexual relations with his wife; she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. Ephraim 1 named him Beriah because tragedy had come to his family. 2
Genesis 3:16
Context3:16 To the woman he said,
“I will greatly increase 3 your labor pains; 4
with pain you will give birth to children.
You will want to control your husband, 5
but he will dominate 6 you.”
Genesis 35:18
Context35:18 With her dying breath, 7 she named him Ben-Oni. 8 But his father called him Benjamin instead. 9
Genesis 35:1
Context35:1 Then God said to Jacob, “Go up at once 10 to Bethel 11 and live there. Make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” 12
Genesis 4:21
Context4:21 The name of his brother was Jubal; he was the first of all who play the harp and the flute.
[7:23] 1 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Ephraim) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
[7:23] 2 tn Heb “because in tragedy there had come to his house.” The preposition prefixed to רָעָה (ra’ah) should probably be omitted. The Hebrew noun רָעָה (“tragedy”) should be understood as the subject of the feminine verb form that follows.
[3:16] 3 tn The imperfect verb form is emphasized and intensified by the infinitive absolute from the same verb.
[3:16] 4 tn Heb “your pain and your conception,” suggesting to some interpreters that having a lot of children was a result of the judgment (probably to make up for the loss through death). But the next clause shows that the pain is associated with conception and childbirth. The two words form a hendiadys (where two words are joined to express one idea, like “good and angry” in English), the second explaining the first. “Conception,” if the correct meaning of the noun, must be figurative here since there is no pain in conception; it is a synecdoche, representing the entire process of childbirth and child rearing from the very start. However, recent etymological research suggests the noun is derived from a root הרר (hrr), not הרה (hrh), and means “trembling, pain” (see D. Tsumura, “A Note on הרוֹן (Gen 3,16),” Bib 75 [1994]: 398-400). In this case “pain and trembling” refers to the physical effects of childbirth. The word עִצְּבוֹן (’itsÿvon, “pain”), an abstract noun related to the verb (עָצַב, ’atsav), includes more than physical pain. It is emotional distress as well as physical pain. The same word is used in v. 17 for the man’s painful toil in the field.
[3:16] 5 tn Heb “and toward your husband [will be] your desire.” The nominal sentence does not have a verb; a future verb must be supplied, because the focus of the oracle is on the future struggle. The precise meaning of the noun תְּשׁוּקָה (tÿshuqah, “desire”) is debated. Many interpreters conclude that it refers to sexual desire here, because the subject of the passage is the relationship between a wife and her husband, and because the word is used in a romantic sense in Song 7:11 HT (7:10 ET). However, this interpretation makes little sense in Gen 3:16. First, it does not fit well with the assertion “he will dominate you.” Second, it implies that sexual desire was not part of the original creation, even though the man and the woman were told to multiply. And third, it ignores the usage of the word in Gen 4:7 where it refers to sin’s desire to control and dominate Cain. (Even in Song of Songs it carries the basic idea of “control,” for it describes the young man’s desire to “have his way sexually” with the young woman.) In Gen 3:16 the
[3:16] 6 tn The Hebrew verb מָשַׁל (mashal) means “to rule over,” but in a way that emphasizes powerful control, domination, or mastery. This also is part of the baser human nature. The translation assumes the imperfect verb form has an objective/indicative sense here. Another option is to understand it as having a modal, desiderative nuance, “but he will want to dominate you.” In this case, the
[35:18] 7 tn Heb “in the going out of her life, for she was dying.” Rachel named the child with her dying breath.
[35:18] 8 sn The name Ben-Oni means “son of my suffering.” It is ironic that Rachel’s words to Jacob in Gen 30:1, “Give me children or I’ll die,” take a different turn here, for it was having the child that brought about her death.
[35:18] 9 tn The disjunctive clause is contrastive.
[35:1] 10 tn Heb “arise, go up.” The first imperative gives the command a sense of urgency.
[35:1] 11 map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.
[35:1] 12 sn God is calling on Jacob to fulfill his vow he made when he fled from…Esau (see Gen 28:20-22).
