Genesis 46:1-34

The Family of Jacob goes to Egypt

46:1 So Israel began his journey, taking with him all that he had. ¹  When he came to Beer Sheba ²  he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. 46:2 God spoke to Israel in a vision during the night ³  and said, “Jacob, Jacob!” He replied, “Here I am!” 46:3 He said, “I am God, ⁴  the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. 46:4 I will go down with you to Egypt and I myself will certainly bring you back from there. ⁵  Joseph will close your eyes.” ⁶ 

46:5 Then Jacob started out ⁷  from Beer Sheba, and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob, their little children, and their wives in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent along to transport him. 46:6 Jacob and all his descendants took their livestock and the possessions they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and they went to Egypt. ⁸  46:7 He brought with him to Egypt his sons and grandsons, ⁹  his daughters and granddaughters – all his descendants.

46:8 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt – Jacob and his sons:

Reuben, the firstborn of Jacob.

46:9 The sons of Reuben:

Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.

46:10 The sons of Simeon:

Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar,

and Shaul (the son of a Canaanite woman).

46:11 The sons of Levi:

Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

46:12 The sons of Judah:

Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah

(but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan).

The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.

46:13 The sons of Issachar:

Tola, Puah, ¹⁰  Jashub, ¹¹  and Shimron.

46:14 The sons of Zebulun:

Sered, Elon, and Jahleel.

46:15 These were the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan Aram, along with Dinah his daughter. His sons and daughters numbered thirty-three in all. ¹² 

46:16 The sons of Gad:

Zephon, ¹³  Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli.

46:17 The sons of Asher:

Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, and Serah their sister.

The sons of Beriah were Heber and Malkiel.

46:18 These were the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter. She bore these to Jacob, sixteen in all.

46:19 The sons of Rachel the wife of Jacob:

Joseph and Benjamin.

46:20 Manasseh and Ephraim were born to Joseph in the land of Egypt. Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, ¹⁴  bore them to him.

46:21 The sons of Benjamin: ¹⁵ 

Bela, Beker, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim and Ard.

46:22 These were the sons of Rachel who were born to Jacob, fourteen in all.

46:23 The son of Dan: Hushim. ¹⁶ 

46:24 The sons of Naphtali:

Jahziel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem.

46:25 These were the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to Rachel his daughter. She bore these to Jacob, seven in all.

46:26 All the direct descendants of Jacob who went to Egypt with him were sixty-six in number. (This number does not include the wives of Jacob’s sons.) ¹⁷  46:27 Counting the two sons ¹⁸  of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt, all the people of the household of Jacob who were in Egypt numbered seventy. ¹⁹ 

46:28 Jacob ²⁰  sent Judah before him to Joseph to accompany him to Goshen. ²¹  So they came to the land of Goshen. 46:29 Joseph harnessed his chariot and went up to meet his father Israel in Goshen. When he met him, ²²  he hugged his neck and wept on his neck for quite some time.

46:30 Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die since I have seen your face and know that you are still alive.” ²³  46:31 Then Joseph said to his brothers and his father’s household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh, ²⁴  ‘My brothers and my father’s household who were in the land of Canaan have come to me. 46:32 The men are shepherds; ²⁵  they take care of livestock. ²⁶  They have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have.’ 46:33 Pharaoh will summon you and say, ‘What is your occupation?’ 46:34 Tell him, ‘Your servants have taken care of cattle ²⁷  from our youth until now, both we and our fathers,’ so that you may live in the land of Goshen, ²⁸  for everyone who takes care of sheep is disgusting ²⁹  to the Egyptians.”

Genesis 1:13-15

1:13 There was evening, and there was morning, a third day.

1:14 God said, “Let there be lights ³⁰  in the expanse ³¹  of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be signs ³²  to indicate seasons and days and years, 1:15 and let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” It was so.

Genesis 4:24

4:24 If Cain is to be avenged seven times as much,

then Lamech seventy-seven times!” ³³ 

Genesis 4:1

The Story of Cain and Abel

4:1 Now ³⁴  the man had marital relations with ³⁵  his wife Eve, and she became pregnant ³⁶  and gave birth to Cain. Then she said, “I have created ³⁷  a man just as the Lord did!” ³⁸ 

Genesis 5:12

5:12 When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel.

Genesis 5:2

5:2 He created them male and female; when they were created, he blessed them and named them “humankind.” ³⁹ 

Genesis 5:13

5:13 Kenan lived 840 years after he became the father of Mahalalel, and he had other sons and daughters.

Genesis 30:12

30:12 Then Leah’s servant Zilpah gave Jacob another son. ⁴⁰ 

Psalms 133:1

Psalm 133 ⁴¹ 

A song of ascents, ⁴²  by David.

133:1 Look! How good and how pleasant it is

when brothers live together! ⁴³ 

Jeremiah 32:39

32:39 I will give them a single-minded purpose to live in a way that always shows respect for me. They will want to do that for ⁴⁴  their own good and the good of the children who descend from them.

Zephaniah 3:9

3:9 Know for sure that I will then enable

the nations to give me acceptable praise. ⁴⁵ 

All of them will invoke the Lord’s name when they pray, ⁴⁶ 

and will worship him in unison. ⁴⁷ 

Romans 15:6

15:6 so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Philippians 1:27

1:27 Only conduct yourselves ⁴⁸  in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ so that – whether I come and see you or whether I remain absent – I should hear that ⁴⁹  you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, by contending side by side for the faith of the gospel, ⁵⁰ 

Philippians 2:2

2:2 complete my joy and be of the same mind, ⁵¹  by having the same love, being united in spirit, ⁵²  and having one purpose.

[46:1]  ¹ tn Heb “and Israel journeyed, and all that was his.”

[46:1]  ² sn Beer Sheba. See Gen 21:31; 28:10.

[46:2]  ³ tn Heb “in visions of the night.” The plural form has the singular meaning, probably as a plural of intensity.

[46:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “the God.”

[46:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “and I, I will bring you up, also bringing up.” The independent personal pronoun before the first person imperfect verbal form draws attention to the speaker/subject, while the infinitive absolute after the imperfect strongly emphasizes the statement: “I myself will certainly bring you up.”

[46:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “and Joseph will put his hand upon your eyes.” This is a promise of peaceful death in Egypt with Joseph present to close his eyes.

[46:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “arose.”

[46:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “and they took their livestock and their possessions which they had acquired in the land of Canaan and they went to Egypt, Jacob and all his offspring with him.” The order of the clauses has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[46:7]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text adds “with him” here. This is omitted in the translation because it is redundant in English style (note the same phrase earlier in the verse).

[46:13]  ¹⁰ tc The MT reads “Puvah” (cf. Num 26:23); the Samaritan Pentateuch and Syriac read “Puah” (cf. 1 Chr 7:1).

[46:13]  ¹¹ tc The MT reads “Iob,” but the Samaritan Pentateuch and some LXX mss read “Jashub” (see Num 26:24; 1 Chr 7:1).

[46:15]  ¹² tn Heb “all the lives of his sons and his daughters, thirty-three.”

[46:16]  ¹³ tc The MT reads “Ziphion,” but see Num 26:15, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX, all of which read “Zephon.”

[46:20]  ¹⁴ sn On is another name for the city of Heliopolis.

[46:21]  ¹⁵ sn The sons of Benjamin. It is questionable whether youthful Benjamin had ten sons by the time he went into Egypt, but it is not impossible. If Benjamin was born when Joseph was six or seven, he was ten when Joseph was sold into Egypt, and would have been thirty-two at this point. Some suggest that the list originally served another purpose and included the names of all who were in the immediate family of the sons, whether born in Canaan or later in Egypt.

[46:23]  ¹⁶ tn This name appears as “Shuham” in Num 26:42. The LXX reads “Hashum” here.

[46:26]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “All the people who went with Jacob to Egypt, the ones who came out of his body, apart from the wives of the sons of Jacob, all the people were sixty-six.”

[46:27]  ¹⁸ tn The LXX reads “nine sons,” probably counting the grandsons of Joseph born to Ephraim and Manasseh (cf. 1 Chr 7:14-20).

[46:27]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “And the sons of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt were two people; all the people belonging to the house of Jacob who came to Egypt were seventy.”

[46:28]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[46:28]  ²¹ tn Heb “to direct before him to Goshen.”

[46:29]  ²² tn Heb “and he appeared to him.”

[46:30]  ²³ tn Heb “after my seeing your face that you are still alive.”

[46:31]  ²⁴ tn Heb “tell Pharaoh and say to him.”

[46:32]  ²⁵ tn Heb “feeders of sheep.”

[46:32]  ²⁶ tn Heb “for men of livestock they are.”

[46:34]  ²⁷ tn Heb “your servants are men of cattle.”

[46:34]  ²⁸ sn So that you may live in the land of Goshen. Joseph is apparently trying to stress to Pharaoh that his family is self-sufficient, that they will not be a drain on the economy of Egypt. But they will need land for their animals and so Goshen, located on the edge of Egypt, would be a suitable place for them to live. The settled Egyptians were uneasy with nomadic people, but if Jacob and his family settled in Goshen they would represent no threat.

[46:34]  ²⁹ tn Heb “is an abomination.” The Hebrew word תּוֹעֵבָה (to’evah, “abomination”) describes something that is loathsome or off-limits. For other practices the Egyptians considered disgusting, see Gen 43:32 and Exod 8:22.

[1:14]  ³⁰ sn Let there be lights. Light itself was created before the light-bearers. The order would not seem strange to the ancient Hebrew mind that did not automatically link daylight with the sun (note that dawn and dusk appear to have light without the sun).

[1:14]  ³¹ tn The language describing the cosmos, which reflects a prescientific view of the world, must be interpreted as phenomenal, describing what appears to be the case. The sun and the moon are not in the sky (below the clouds), but from the viewpoint of a person standing on the earth, they appear that way. Even today we use similar phenomenological expressions, such as “the sun is rising” or “the stars in the sky.”

[1:14]  ³² tn The text has “for signs and for seasons and for days and years.” It seems likely from the meanings of the words involved that “signs” is the main idea, followed by two categories, “seasons” and “days and years.” This is the simplest explanation, and one that matches vv. 11-13. It could even be rendered “signs for the fixed seasons, that is [explicative vav (ו)] days and years.”

[4:24]  ³³ sn Seventy-seven times. Lamech seems to reason this way: If Cain, a murderer, is to be avenged seven times (see v. 15), then how much more one who has been unjustly wronged! Lamech misses the point of God’s merciful treatment of Cain. God was not establishing a principle of justice when he warned he would avenge Cain’s murder. In fact he was trying to limit the shedding of blood, something Lamech wants to multiply instead. The use of “seventy-seven,” a multiple of seven, is hyperbolic, emphasizing the extreme severity of the vengeance envisioned by Lamech.

[4:1]  ³⁴ tn The disjunctive clause (conjunction + subject + verb) introduces a new episode in the ongoing narrative.

[4:1]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the man knew,” a frequent euphemism for sexual relations.

[4:1]  ³⁶ tn Or “she conceived.”

[4:1]  ³⁷ tn Here is another sound play (paronomasia) on a name. The sound of the verb קָנִיתִי (qaniti, “I have created”) reflects the sound of the name Cain in Hebrew (קַיִן, qayin) and gives meaning to it. The saying uses the Qal perfect of קָנָה (qanah). There are two homonymic verbs with this spelling, one meaning “obtain, acquire” and the other meaning “create” (see Gen 14:19, 22; Deut 32:6; Ps 139:13; Prov 8:22). The latter fits this context very well. Eve has created a man.

[4:1]  ³⁸ tn Heb “with the Lord.” The particle אֶת־ (’et) is not the accusative/object sign, but the preposition “with” as the ancient versions attest. Some take the preposition in the sense of “with the help of” (see BDB 85 s.v. אֵת; cf. NEB, NIV, NRSV), while others prefer “along with” in the sense of “like, equally with, in common with” (see Lev 26:39; Isa 45:9; Jer 23:28). Either works well in this context; the latter is reflected in the present translation. Some understand אֶת־ as the accusative/object sign and translate, “I have acquired a man – the Lord.” They suggest that the woman thought (mistakenly) that she had given birth to the incarnate Lord, the Messiah who would bruise the Serpent’s head. This fanciful suggestion is based on a questionable allegorical interpretation of Gen 3:15 (see the note there on the word “heel”).

[5:2]  ³⁹ tn The Hebrew word used here is אָדָם (’adam).

[30:12]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “and Zilpah, the servant of Leah, bore a second son for Jacob.”

[133:1]  ⁴¹ sn Psalm 133. The psalmist affirms the benefits of family unity.

[133:1]  ⁴² sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.

[133:1]  ⁴³ sn This statement refers to the extended family structure of ancient Israel, where brothers would often live in proximity to one another (Deut 25:5), giving the family greater social prominence and security. However, in its later application in the Israelite cult it probably envisions unity within the covenant community. See L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 212-15.

[32:39]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “I will give to them one heart and one way to [= in order that they may] fear me all the days for good to them.” The phrase “one heart” refers both to unanimity of will and accord (cf. 1 Chr 12:38 [12:39 HT]; 2 Chr 30:12) and to singleness of purpose or intent (cf. Ezek 11:19 and see BDB 525 s.v. ֵלב 4 where reference is made to “inclinations, resolutions, and determinations of the will”). The phrase “one way” refers to one way of life or conduct (cf. BDB 203 s.v. דֶּרֶךְ 6.a where reference is made to moral action and character), a way of life that is further qualified by the goal of showing “fear, reverence, respect” for the Lord. The Hebrew sentence has been broken up to avoid a long complex sentence in English which is contrary to contemporary English style. However, an attempt has been made to preserve all the connections of the original.

[3:9]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “Certainly [or perhaps, “For”] then I will restore to the nations a pure lip.”

[3:9]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “so that all of them will call on the name of the Lord.”

[3:9]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “so that [they] will serve him [with] one shoulder.”

[1:27]  ⁴⁸ tn Grk “live as citizens.” The verb πολιτεύεσθε (politeuesqe) connotes the life of a freeman in a free Roman colony.

[1:27]  ⁴⁹ tn Grk “the things concerning you, [namely,] that.” The ὅτι (Joti) clause is appositional to τὰ περὶ ὑμῶν (ta peri Jumwn) and therefore “the things concerning you” was not translated.

[1:27]  ⁵⁰ tn The phrase “the faith of the gospel” could mean one of three things: “the faith that is the gospel” (genitive of apposition), “the faith that originates from the gospel” (genitive of source), or “faith in the gospel” (objective genitive).

[2:2]  ⁵¹ tn Or “and feel the same way,” “and think the same thoughts.” The ἵνα (Jina) clause has been translated “and be of the same mind” to reflect its epexegetical force to the imperative “complete my joy.”

[2:2]  ⁵² tn The Greek word here is σύμψυχοι (sumyucoi, literally “fellow souled”).