Genesis 28:1-22

28:1 So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him, “You must not marry a Canaanite woman! ¹  28:2 Leave immediately ²  for Paddan Aram! Go to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and find yourself a wife there, among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. 28:3 May the sovereign God ³  bless you! May he make you fruitful and give you a multitude of descendants! ⁴  Then you will become ⁵  a large nation. ⁶  28:4 May he give you and your descendants the blessing he gave to Abraham ⁷  so that you may possess the land ⁸  God gave to Abraham, the land where you have been living as a temporary resident.” ⁹  28:5 So Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean and brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

28:6 Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him off to Paddan Aram to find a wife there. ¹⁰  As he blessed him, ¹¹  Isaac commanded him, “You must not marry a Canaanite woman.” ¹²  28:7 Jacob obeyed his father and mother and left for Paddan Aram. 28:8 Then Esau realized ¹³  that the Canaanite women ¹⁴  were displeasing to ¹⁵  his father Isaac. 28:9 So Esau went to Ishmael and married ¹⁶  Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Abraham’s son Ishmael, along with the wives he already had.

Jacob’s Dream at Bethel

28:10 Meanwhile Jacob left Beer Sheba and set out for Haran. 28:11 He reached a certain place ¹⁷  where he decided to camp because the sun had gone down. ¹⁸  He took one of the stones ¹⁹  and placed it near his head. ²⁰  Then he fell asleep ²¹  in that place 28:12 and had a dream. ²²  He saw ²³  a stairway ²⁴  erected on the earth with its top reaching to the heavens. The angels of God were going up and coming down it 28:13 and the Lord stood at its top. He said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of your father Isaac. ²⁵  I will give you and your descendants the ground ²⁶  you are lying on. 28:14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, ²⁷  and you will spread out ²⁸  to the west, east, north, and south. All the families of the earth will pronounce blessings on one another ²⁹  using your name and that of your descendants. ³⁰  28:15 I am with you! ³¹  I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you!”

28:16 Then Jacob woke up ³²  and thought, ³³  “Surely the Lord is in this place, but I did not realize it!” 28:17 He was afraid and said, “What an awesome place this is! This is nothing else than the house of God! This is the gate of heaven!”

28:18 Early ³⁴  in the morning Jacob ³⁵  took the stone he had placed near his head ³⁶  and set it up as a sacred stone. ³⁷  Then he poured oil on top of it. 28:19 He called that place Bethel, ³⁸  although the former name of the town was Luz. 28:20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God is with me and protects me on this journey I am taking and gives me food ³⁹  to eat and clothing to wear, 28:21 and I return safely to my father’s home, ⁴⁰  then the Lord will become my God. 28:22 Then this stone ⁴¹  that I have set up as a sacred stone will be the house of God, and I will surely ⁴²  give you back a tenth of everything you give me.” ⁴³ 

Genesis 5:27

5:27 The entire lifetime of Methuselah was 969 years, and then he died.

Genesis 11:11

11:11 And after becoming the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other ⁴⁴  sons and daughters.

Genesis 11:24-25

11:24 When Nahor had lived 29 years, he became the father of Terah. 11:25 And after he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

Genesis 25:7-8

25:7 Abraham lived a total of ⁴⁵  175 years. 25:8 Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man who had lived a full life. ⁴⁶  He joined his ancestors. ⁴⁷ 

Genesis 35:28

35:28 Isaac lived to be 180 years old. ⁴⁸ 

Genesis 50:26

50:26 So Joseph died at the age of 110. ⁴⁹  After they embalmed him, his body ⁵⁰  was placed in a coffin in Egypt.

Exodus 6:4

6:4 I also established my covenant with them ⁵¹  to give them the land of Canaan, where they were living as resident foreigners. ⁵² 

Exodus 7:7

7:7 Now Moses was eighty years old and Aaron was eighty-three years old when they spoke to Pharaoh.

Deuteronomy 34:7

34:7 Moses was 120 years old when he died, but his eye was not dull ⁵³  nor had his vitality ⁵⁴  departed.

Joshua 24:29

An Era Ends

24:29 After all this ⁵⁵  Joshua son of Nun, the Lord’s servant, died at the age of one hundred ten.

Joshua 24:2

24:2 Joshua told all the people, “Here is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘In the distant past your ancestors ⁵⁶  lived beyond the Euphrates River, ⁵⁷  including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor. They worshiped ⁵⁸  other gods,

Joshua 19:32-35

Naphtali’s Tribal Lands

19:32 The sixth lot belonged to the tribe of Naphtali ⁵⁹  by its clans. 19:33 Their border started at Heleph and the oak of Zaanannim, went to Adami Nekeb, Jabneel and on to Lakkum, ⁶⁰  and ended at the Jordan River. ⁶¹  19:34 It turned westward to Aznoth Tabor, extended from there to Hukok, touched Zebulun on the south, Asher on the west, and the Jordan ⁶²  on the east. 19:35 The fortified cities included Ziddim, Zer, Hammath, Rakkath, Kinnereth,

Job 8:8-9

8:8 “For inquire now of the former ⁶³  generation,

and pay attention ⁶⁴  to the findings ⁶⁵ 

of their ancestors; ⁶⁶ 

8:9 For we were born yesterday ⁶⁷  and do not have knowledge,

since our days on earth are but a shadow. ⁶⁸ 

Job 42:16-17

42:16 After this Job lived 140 years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 42:17 And so Job died, old and full of days.

[28:1]  ¹ tn Heb “you must not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.”

[28:2]  ² tn Heb “Arise! Go!” The first of the two imperatives is adverbial and stresses the immediacy of the departure.

[28:3]  ³ tn Heb “El Shaddai.” See the extended note on the phrase “sovereign God” in Gen 17:1.

[28:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “and make you fruitful and multiply you.” See Gen 17:6, 20 for similar terminology.

[28:3]  ⁵ tn The perfect verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here indicates consequence. The collocation הָיָה + preposition לְ (hayah + lÿ) means “become.”

[28:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “an assembly of peoples.”

[28:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “and may he give to you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your offspring with you.” The name “Abraham” is an objective genitive here; this refers to the blessing that God gave to Abraham.

[28:4]  ⁵ tn The words “the land” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[28:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “the land of your sojournings,” that is, the land where Jacob had been living as a resident alien, as his future descendants would after him.

[28:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “to take for himself from there a wife.”

[28:6]  ⁶ tn The infinitive construct with the preposition and the suffix form a temporal clause.

[28:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “you must not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.”

[28:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “saw.”

[28:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “the daughters of Canaan.”

[28:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “evil in the eyes of.”

[28:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “took for a wife.”

[28:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “the place.” The article may indicate simply that the place is definite in the mind of the narrator. However, as the story unfolds the place is transformed into a holy place. See A. P. Ross, “Jacob’s Vision: The Founding of Bethel,” BSac 142 (1985): 224-37.

[28:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “and he spent the night there because the sun had gone down.”

[28:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he took from the stones of the place,” which here means Jacob took one of the stones (see v. 18).

[28:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and he put [it at] the place of his head.” The text does not actually say the stone was placed under his head to serve as a pillow, although most interpreters and translators assume this. It is possible the stone served some other purpose. Jacob does not seem to have been a committed monotheist yet (see v. 20-21) so he may have believed it contained some spiritual power. Note that later in the story he anticipates the stone becoming the residence of God (see v. 22). Many cultures throughout the world view certain types of stones as magical and/or sacred. See J. G. Fraser, Folklore in the Old Testament, 231-37.

[28:11]  ¹² tn Heb “lay down.”

[28:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “and dreamed.”

[28:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and look.” The scene which Jacob witnessed is described in three clauses introduced with הִנֵּה (hinneh). In this way the narrator invites the reader to witness the scene through Jacob’s eyes. J. P. Fokkelman points out that the particle goes with a lifted arm and an open mouth: “There, a ladder! Oh, angels! and look, the Lord himself” (Narrative Art in Genesis [SSN], 51-52).

[28:12]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew noun סֻלָּם (sullam, “ladder, stairway”) occurs only here in the OT, but there appears to be an Akkadian cognate simmiltu (with metathesis of the second and third consonants and a feminine ending) which has a specialized meaning of “stairway, ramp.” See H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena (SBLDS), 34. For further discussion see C. Houtman, “What Did Jacob See in His Dream at Bethel? Some Remarks on Genesis 28:10-22,” VT 27 (1977): 337-52; J. G. Griffiths, “The Celestial Ladder and the Gate of Heaven,” ExpTim 76 (1964/65): 229-30; and A. R. Millard, “The Celestial Ladder and the Gate of Heaven,” ExpTim 78 (1966/67): 86-87.

[28:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.” The Hebrew word for “father” can typically be used in a broader sense than the English word, in this case referring to Abraham (who was Jacob’s grandfather). For stylistic reasons and for clarity, the words “your father” are supplied with “Isaac” in the translation.

[28:13]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew term אֶרֶץ (’erets) can mean “[the] earth,” “land,” “region,” “piece of ground,” or “ground” depending on the context. Here the term specifically refers to the plot of ground on which Jacob was lying, but at the same time this stands by metonymy for the entire land of Canaan.

[28:14]  ¹¹ tn This is the same Hebrew word translated “ground” in the preceding verse.

[28:14]  ¹² tn The verb is singular in the Hebrew; Jacob is addressed as the representative of his descendants.

[28:14]  ¹³ tn Theoretically the Niphal stem can be translated either as passive or reflexive/reciprocal. (The Niphal of “bless” is only used in formulations of the Abrahamic covenant. See Gen 12:2; 18:18; 28:14.) Traditionally the verb is taken as passive here, as if Jacob were going to be a channel or source of blessing. But in other formulations of the Abrahamic covenant (see Gen 22:18; 26:4) the Hitpael replaces this Niphal form, suggesting a translation “will bless (i.e., pronounce blessings upon) themselves/one another.” The Hitpael of “bless” is used with a reflexive/reciprocal sense in Deut 29:18; Ps 72:17; Isa 65:16; Jer 4:2. Gen 28:14 predicts that Jacob will be held up as a paradigm of divine blessing and that people will use his name in their blessing formulae (see Gen 12:2 and 18:18 as well, where Abram/Abraham receives this promise). For examples of blessing formulae utilizing an individual as an example of blessing see Gen 48:20 and Ruth 4:11.

[28:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and they will pronounce blessings by you, all the families of the earth, and by your offspring.”

[28:15]  ¹² tn Heb “Look, I [am] with you.” The clause is a nominal clause; the verb to be supplied could be present (as in the translation) or future, “Look, I [will be] with you” (cf. NEB).

[28:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “woke up from his sleep.” This has been simplified in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[28:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “said.”

[28:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and he got up early…and he took.”

[28:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[28:18]  ¹⁶ tn See the note on this phrase in v. 11.

[28:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “standing stone.”

[28:19]  ¹⁵ tn The name Bethel means “house of God” in Hebrew (see v. 17).

[28:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “bread,” although the term can be used for food in general.

[28:21]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and I return in peace to the house of my father.”

[28:22]  ¹⁸ tn The disjunctive clause structure (conjunction + noun/subject) is used to highlight the statement.

[28:22]  ¹⁹ tn The infinitive absolute is used before the finite verb for emphasis.

[28:22]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and all which you give to me I will surely give a tenth of it to you.” The disjunctive clause structure (conjunction + noun/object) highlights this statement as well.

[11:11]  ¹⁹ tn The word “other” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.

[25:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and these are the days of the years of the lifetime of Abraham that he lived.” The normal genealogical formula is expanded here due to the importance of the life of Abraham.

[25:8]  ²¹ tn Heb “old and full.”

[25:8]  ²² tn Heb “And he was gathered to his people.” In the ancient Israelite view he joined his deceased ancestors in Sheol, the land of the dead.

[35:28]  ²² tn Heb “And the days of Isaac were one hundred and eighty years.”

[50:26]  ²³ tn Heb “son of a hundred and ten years.”

[50:26]  ²⁴ tn Heb “he.”

[6:4]  ²⁴ tn The statement refers to the making of the covenant with Abraham (Gen 15 and following) and confirming it with the other patriarchs. The verb הֲקִמֹתִי (haqimoti) means “set up, establish, give effect to, conclude” a covenant agreement. The covenant promised the patriarchs a great nation, a land – Canaan, and divine blessing. They lived with those promises, but now their descendants were in bondage in Egypt. God’s reference to the covenant here is meant to show the new revelation through redemption will start to fulfill the promises and show what the reality of the name Yahweh is to them.

[6:4]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the land of their sojournings.” The noun מְגֻרִים (mÿgurim) is a reminder that the patriarchs did not receive the promises. It is also an indication that those living in the age of promise did not experience the full meaning of the name of the covenant God. The “land of their sojournings” is the land of Canaan where the family lived (גּרוּ, garu) as foreigners, without owning property or having the rights of kinship with the surrounding population.

[34:7]  ²⁵ tn Or “dimmed.” The term could refer to dull appearance or to dimness caused by some loss of visual acuity.

[34:7]  ²⁶ tn Heb “sap.” That is, he was still in possession of his faculties or liveliness.

[24:29]  ²⁶ tn Heb “after these things.”

[24:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “your fathers.”

[24:2]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the river,” referring to the Euphrates. This has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[24:2]  ²⁹ tn Or “served.”

[19:32]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the sixth lot came out for the sons of Naphtali, for the sons of Naphtali.”

[19:33]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and their border was from Heleph, from the oak of Zaanannim, and Adami Nekeb, and Jabneel to Lakkum.”

[19:33]  ³⁰ tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied for clarity.

[19:34]  ³⁰ tc The MT reads “Judah, the Jordan”; the LXX omits “Judah.” Perhaps there was a town named Judah, distinct from the tribe of Judah, located near the northern end of the Jordan.

[8:8]  ³¹ sn Bildad is not calling for Job to trace through the learning of antiquity, but of the most recent former generation. Hebrews were fond of recalling what the “fathers” had taught, for each generation recalled what their fathers had taught.

[8:8]  ³² tn The verb כוֹנֵן (khonen, from כּוּן, kun) normally would indicate “prepare yourself” or “fix” one’s heart on something, i.e., give attention to it. The verb with the ל (lamed) preposition after it does mean “to think on” or “to meditate” (Isa 51:13). But some commentators wish to change the כּ (kaf) to a בּ (bet) in the verb to get “to consider” (from בִּין, bin). However, M. Dahood shows a connection between כּנן (knn) and שׁאל (sh’l) in Ugaritic (“Hebrew-Ugaritic Lexicography,” Bib 46 [1965]: 329).

[8:8]  ³³ tn The Hebrew has “the search of their fathers,” but the word is probably intended to mean what that observation or search yielded (so “search” is a metonymy of cause).

[8:8]  ³⁴ tn Heb “fathers.”

[8:9]  ³² tn The Hebrew has “we are of yesterday,” the adverb functioning as a predicate. Bildad’s point is that they have not had time to acquire great knowledge because they are recent.

[8:9]  ³³ tn E. Dhorme (Job, 116) observes that the shadow is the symbol of ephemeral things (14:2; 17:7; Ps 144:4). The shadow passes away quickly (116).