Genesis 17:8

17:8 I will give the whole land of Canaan – the land where you are now residing ¹  – to you and your descendants after you as a permanent ²  possession. I will be their God.”

Genesis 23:4

23:4 “I am a temporary settler ³  among you. Grant ⁴  me ownership ⁵  of a burial site among you so that I may ⁶  bury my dead.” ⁷ 

Genesis 26:3

26:3 Stay ⁸  in this land. Then I will be with you and will bless you, ⁹  for I will give all these lands to you and to your descendants, ¹⁰  and I will fulfill ¹¹  the solemn promise I made ¹²  to your father Abraham.

Genesis 35:27

35:27 So Jacob came back to his father Isaac in Mamre, ¹³  to Kiriath Arba ¹⁴  (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed. ¹⁵ 

Acts 7:5-6

7:5 He ¹⁶  did not give any of it to him for an inheritance, ¹⁷  not even a foot of ground, ¹⁸  yet God ¹⁹  promised to give it to him as his possession, and to his descendants after him, ²⁰  even though Abraham ²¹  as yet had no child. 7:6 But God spoke as follows: ‘Your ²²  descendants will be foreigners ²³  in a foreign country, whose citizens will enslave them and mistreat them for four hundred years. ²⁴ 

[17:8]  ¹ tn The verbal root is גּוּר (gur, “to sojourn, to reside temporarily,” i.e., as a resident alien). It is the land in which Abram resides, but does not yet possess as his very own.

[17:8]  ² tn Or “as an eternal.”

[23:4]  ³ tn Heb “a resident alien and a settler.”

[23:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “give,” which is used here as an idiom for “sell” (see v. 9). The idiom reflects the polite bartering that was done in the culture at the time.

[23:4]  ⁵ tn Or “possession.”

[23:4]  ⁶ tn Following the imperative, the cohortative with the prefixed conjunction expresses purpose.

[23:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “bury my dead out of my sight.” The last phrase “out of my sight” has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[26:3]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew verb גּוּר (gur) means “to live temporarily without ownership of land.” Abraham’s family will not actually possess the land of Canaan until the Israelite conquest hundreds of years later.

[26:3]  ⁹ tn After the imperative “stay” the two prefixed verb forms with prefixed conjunction here indicate consequence.

[26:3]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew term זֶרַע (zera’) occurring here and in v. 18 may mean “seed” (for planting), “offspring” (occasionally of animals, but usually of people), or “descendants” depending on the context.

[26:3]  ¹¹ tn The Hiphil stem of the verb קוּם (qum) here means “to fulfill, to bring to realization.” For other examples of this use of this verb form, see Lev 26:9; Num 23:19; Deut 8:18; 9:5; 1 Sam 1:23; 1 Kgs 6:12; Jer 11:5.

[26:3]  ¹² tn Heb “the oath which I swore.”

[35:27]  ¹³ tn This is an adverbial accusative of location.

[35:27]  ¹⁴ tn The name “Kiriath Arba” is in apposition to the preceding name, “Mamre.”

[35:27]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew verb גּוּר (gur), traditionally rendered “to sojourn,” refers to temporary settlement without ownership rights.

[7:5]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “And he.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[7:5]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “He did not give him an inheritance in it.” This could be understood to mean that God did not give something else to Abraham as an inheritance while he was living there. The point of the text is that God did not give any of the land to him as an inheritance, and the translation makes this clear.

[7:5]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “a step of a foot” (cf. Deut 2:5).

[7:5]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:5]  ²⁰ sn An allusion to Gen 12:7; 13:15; 15:2, 18; 17:8; 24:7; 48:4. On the theological importance of the promise and to his descendants after him, see Rom 4 and Gal 3.

[7:5]  ²¹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:6]  ²² tn Grk “that his”; the discourse switches from indirect to direct with the following verbs. For consistency the entire quotation is treated as second person direct discourse in the translation.

[7:6]  ²³ tn Or “will be strangers,” that is, one who lives as a noncitizen of a foreign country.

[7:6]  ²⁴ sn A quotation from Gen 15:13. Exod 12:40 specifies the sojourn as 430 years.