Genesis 12:2

12:2 Then I will make you ¹  into a great nation, and I will bless you, ² 

and I will make your name great, ³ 

so that you will exemplify divine blessing. ⁴ 

Genesis 13:2

13:2 (Now Abram was very wealthy ⁵  in livestock, silver, and gold.) ⁶ 

Genesis 14:23

14:23 that I will take nothing ⁷  belonging to you, not even a thread or the strap of a sandal. That way you can never say, ‘It is I ⁸  who made Abram rich.’

Genesis 24:35

24:35 “The Lord has richly blessed my master and he has become very wealthy. ⁹  The Lord ¹⁰  has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, male and female servants, and camels and donkeys.

Genesis 26:12

26:12 When Isaac planted in that land, he reaped in the same year a hundred times what he had sown, ¹¹  because the Lord blessed him. ¹² 

Deuteronomy 8:17-18

8:17 Be careful ¹³  not to say, “My own ability and skill ¹⁴  have gotten me this wealth.” 8:18 You must remember the Lord your God, for he is the one who gives ability to get wealth; if you do this he will confirm his covenant that he made by oath to your ancestors, ¹⁵  even as he has to this day.

Deuteronomy 8:1

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ¹⁶  I am giving ¹⁷  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ¹⁸  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ¹⁹ 

Deuteronomy 2:7-8

2:7 All along the way I, the Lord your God, ²⁰  have blessed your every effort. ²¹  I have ²²  been attentive to ²³  your travels through this great wasteland. These forty years I have ²⁴  been with you; you have lacked for nothing.’”

2:8 So we turned away from our relatives ²⁵  the descendants of Esau, the inhabitants of Seir, turning from the desert route, ²⁶  from Elat ²⁷  and Ezion Geber, ²⁸  and traveling the way of the Moab wastelands.

Psalms 37:22

37:22 Surely ²⁹  those favored by the Lord ³⁰  will possess the land,

but those rejected ³¹  by him will be wiped out. ³² 

Psalms 107:38

107:38 He blessed ³³  them so that they became very numerous.

He would not allow their cattle to decrease in number. ³⁴ 

Psalms 113:7-8

113:7 He raises the poor from the dirt,

and lifts up the needy from the garbage pile, ³⁵ 

113:8 that he might seat him with princes,

with the princes of his people.

[12:2]  ¹ tn The three first person verbs in v. 2a should be classified as cohortatives. The first two have pronominal suffixes, so the form itself does not indicate a cohortative. The third verb form is clearly cohortative.

[12:2]  ² sn I will bless you. The blessing of creation is now carried forward to the patriarch. In the garden God blessed Adam and Eve; in that blessing he gave them (1) a fruitful place, (2) endowed them with fertility to multiply, and (3) made them rulers over creation. That was all ruined at the fall. Now God begins to build his covenant people; in Gen 12-22 he promises to give Abram (1) a land flowing with milk and honey, (2) a great nation without number, and (3) kingship.

[12:2]  ³ tn Or “I will make you famous.”

[12:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “and be a blessing.” The verb form הְיֵה (hÿyeh) is the Qal imperative of the verb הָיָה (hayah). The vav (ו) with the imperative after the cohortatives indicates purpose or consequence. What does it mean for Abram to “be a blessing”? Will he be a channel or source of blessing for others, or a prime example of divine blessing? A similar statement occurs in Zech 8:13, where God assures his people, “You will be a blessing,” in contrast to the past when they “were a curse.” Certainly “curse” here does not refer to Israel being a source of a curse, but rather to the fact that they became a curse-word or byword among the nations, who regarded them as the epitome of an accursed people (see 2 Kgs 22:19; Jer 42:18; 44:8, 12, 22). Therefore the statement “be a blessing” seems to refer to Israel being transformed into a prime example of a blessed people, whose name will be used in blessing formulae, rather than in curses. If the statement “be a blessing” is understood in the same way in Gen 12:2, then it means that God would so bless Abram that other nations would hear of his fame and hold him up as a paradigm of divine blessing in their blessing formulae.

[13:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “heavy.”

[13:2]  ⁶ tn This parenthetical clause, introduced by the vav (ו) disjunctive (translated “now”), provides information necessary to the point of the story.

[14:23]  ⁷ tn The oath formula is elliptical, reading simply: “…if I take.” It is as if Abram says, “[May the Lord deal with me] if I take,” meaning, “I will surely not take.” The positive oath would add the negative adverb and be the reverse: “[God will deal with me] if I do not take,” meaning, “I certainly will.”

[14:23]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew text adds the independent pronoun (“I”) to the verb form for emphasis.

[24:35]  ⁹ tn Heb “great.” In this context the statement refers primarily to Abraham’s material wealth, although reputation and influence are not excluded.

[24:35]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and he.” The referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[26:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a hundredfold.”

[26:12]  ¹² tn This final clause explains why Isaac had such a bountiful harvest.

[8:17]  ¹³ tn For stylistic reasons a new sentence was started at the beginning of v. 17 in the translation and the words “be careful” supplied to indicate the connection.

[8:17]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “my strength and the might of my hand.”

[8:18]  ¹⁵ tc Smr and Lucian add “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” the standard way of rendering this almost stereotypical formula (cf. Deut 1:8; 6:10; 9:5, 27; 29:13; 30:20; 34:4). The MT’s harder reading presumptively argues for its originality, however.

[8:1]  ¹⁶ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[2:7]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew text does not have the first person pronoun; it has been supplied for purposes of English style (the Lord is speaking here).

[2:7]  ²¹ tn Heb “all the work of your hands.”

[2:7]  ²² tn Heb “he has.” This has been converted to first person in the translation in keeping with English style.

[2:7]  ²³ tn Heb “known” (so ASV, NASB); NAB “been concerned about.”

[2:7]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the Lord your God has.” This has been replaced in the translation by the first person pronoun (“I”) in keeping with English style.

[2:8]  ²⁵ tn Or “brothers”; NRSV “our kin.”

[2:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the way of the Arabah” (so ASV); NASB, NIV “the Arabah road.”

[2:8]  ²⁷ sn Elat was a port city at the head of the eastern arm of the Red Sea, that is, the Gulf of Aqaba (or Gulf of Eilat). Solomon (1 Kgs 9:28), Uzziah (2 Kgs 14:22), and Ahaz (2 Kgs 16:5-6) used it as a port but eventually it became permanently part of Edom. It may be what is known today as Tell el-Kheleifeh. Modern Eilat is located further west along the northern coast. See G. Pratico, “Nelson Glueck’s 1938-1940 Excavations at Tell el-Kheleifeh: A Reappraisal,” BASOR 259 (1985): 1-32.

[2:8]  ²⁸ sn Ezion Geber. A place near the Gulf of Aqaba, Ezion-geber must be distinguished from Elat (cf. 1 Kgs 9:26-28; 2 Chr 8:17-18). It was, however, also a port city (1 Kgs 22:48-49). It may be the same as the modern site Gezirat al-Fauran, 15 mi (24 km) south-southwest from Tell el-Kheleifah.

[37:22]  ²⁹ tn The particle כִּי is best understood as asseverative or emphatic here.

[37:22]  ³⁰ tn Heb “those blessed by him.” The pronoun “him” must refer to the Lord (see vv. 20, 23), so the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[37:22]  ³¹ tn Heb “cursed.”

[37:22]  ³² tn Or “cut off”; or “removed” (see v. 9).

[107:38]  ³³ 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]  ³⁴ 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).

[113:7]  ³⁵ sn The language of v. 7 is almost identical to that of 1 Sam 2:8.