Deuteronomy 7:14

7:14 You will be blessed beyond all peoples; there will be no barrenness ¹  among you or your livestock.

Deuteronomy 28:4

28:4 Your children ²  will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.

Job 21:10

21:10 Their bulls ³  breed ⁴  without fail; ⁵ 

their cows calve and do not miscarry.

Psalms 107:38

107:38 He blessed ⁶  them so that they became very numerous.

He would not allow their cattle to decrease in number. ⁷ 

Psalms 144:13

144:13 Our storehouses ⁸  will be full,

providing all kinds of food. ⁹ 

Our sheep will multiply by the thousands

and fill ¹⁰  our pastures. ¹¹ 

Malachi 3:10-11

3:10 “Bring the entire tithe into the storehouse ¹²  so that there may be food in my temple. Test me in this matter,” says the Lord who rules over all, “to see if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until there is no room for it all. 3:11 Then I will stop the plague ¹³  from ruining your crops, ¹⁴  and the vine will not lose its fruit before harvest,” says the Lord who rules over all.

[7:14]  ¹ sn One of the ironies about the promises to the patriarchs concerning offspring was the characteristic barrenness of the wives of the men to whom these pledges were made (cf. Gen 11:30; 25:21; 29:31). Their affliction is in each case described by the very Hebrew word used here (עֲקָרָה, ’aqarah), an affliction that will no longer prevail in Canaan.

[28:4]  ² tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[21:10]  ³ tn Heb “his bull,” but it is meant to signify the bulls of the wicked.

[21:10]  ⁴ tn The verb used here means “to impregnate,” and not to be confused with the verb עָבַר (’avar, “to pass over”).

[21:10]  ⁵ tn The use of the verb גָּעַר (ga’ar) in this place is interesting. It means “to rebuke; to abhor; to loathe.” In the causative stem it means “to occasion impurity” or “to reject as loathsome.” The rabbinic interpretation is that it does not emit semen in vain, and so the meaning is it does not fail to breed (see E. Dhorme, Job, 311; R. Gordis, Job, 229).

[107:38]  ⁶ tn “Bless” here carries the nuance “endue with sexual potency, make fertile.” See Gen 1:28, where the statement “he blessed them” directly precedes the command “be fruitful and populate the earth” (see also 1:22). The verb “bless” carries this same nuance in Gen 17:16 (where God’s blessing of Sarai imparts to her the capacity to bear a child); 48:16 (where God’s blessing of Joseph’s sons is closely associated with their having numerous descendants); and Deut 7:13 (where God’s blessing is associated with fertility in general, including numerous descendants). See also Gen 49:25 (where Jacob uses the noun derivative in referring to “blessings of the breast and womb,” an obvious reference to fertility) and Gen 27:27 (where the verb is used of a field to which God has given the capacity to produce vegetation).

[107:38]  ⁷ tn The verbal form in this line appears to be an imperfect, which may be taken as customary (drawing attention to typical action in a past time frame) or as generalizing (in which case one should use the English present tense, understanding a move from narrative to present reality).

[144:13]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew noun occurs only here.

[144:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “from kind to kind.” Some prefer to emend the text to מָזוֹן עַל מָזוֹן (mazon ’al mazon, “food upon food”).

[144:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they are innumerable.”

[144:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in outside places.” Here the term refers to pastures and fields (see Job 5:10; Prov 8:26).

[3:10]  ¹² tn The Hebrew phrase בֵּית הָאוֹצָר (bet ha’otsar, here translated “storehouse”) refers to a kind of temple warehouse described more fully in Nehemiah (where the term לִשְׁכָּה גְדוֹלָה [lishkah gÿdolah, “great chamber”] is used) as a place for storing grain, frankincense, temple vessels, wine, and oil (Neh 13:5). Cf. TEV “to the Temple.”

[3:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “the eater” (אֹכֵל, ’okhel), a general term for any kind of threat to crops and livelihood. This is understood as a reference to a locust plague by a number of English versions: NAB, NRSV “the locust”; NIV “pests”; NCV, TEV “insects.”

[3:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and I will rebuke for you the eater and it will not ruin for you the fruit of the ground.”