Genesis 18:19

18:19 I have chosen him ¹  so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep ²  the way of the Lord by doing ³  what is right and just. Then the Lord will give ⁴  to Abraham what he promised ⁵  him.”

Exodus 12:26-27

12:26 When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ ⁶  – 12:27 then you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice ⁷  of the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck ⁸  Egypt and delivered our households.’” The people bowed down low ⁹  to the ground,

Exodus 13:14-15

13:14 ¹⁰ In the future, ¹¹  when your son asks you ¹²  ‘What is this?’ ¹³  you are to tell him, ‘With a mighty hand ¹⁴  the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the land of slavery. ¹⁵  13:15 When Pharaoh stubbornly refused ¹⁶  to release us, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of people to the firstborn of animals. ¹⁷  That is why I am sacrificing ¹⁸  to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb, but all my firstborn sons I redeem.’

Deuteronomy 4:9

Reminder of the Horeb Covenant

4:9 Again, however, pay very careful attention, ¹⁹  lest you forget the things you have seen and disregard them for the rest of your life; instead teach them to your children and grandchildren.

Deuteronomy 6:7

6:7 and you must teach ²⁰  them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, ²¹  as you lie down, and as you get up.

Joshua 4:21-22

4:21 He told the Israelites, “When your children someday ask their fathers, ‘What do these stones represent?’ ²²  4:22 explain ²³  to your children, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan River ²⁴  on dry ground.’

Psalms 78:3-6

78:3 What we have heard and learned ²⁵  –

that which our ancestors ²⁶  have told us –

78:4 we will not hide from their ²⁷  descendants.

We will tell the next generation

about the Lord’s praiseworthy acts, ²⁸ 

about his strength and the amazing things he has done.

78:5 He established a rule ²⁹  in Jacob;

he set up a law in Israel.

He commanded our ancestors

to make his deeds known to their descendants, ³⁰ 

78:6 so that the next generation, children yet to be born,

might know about them.

They will grow up and tell their descendants about them. ³¹ 

Psalms 145:4

145:4 One generation will praise your deeds to another,

and tell about your mighty acts! ³² 

Joel 1:3

1:3 Tell your children ³³  about it,

have your children tell their children,

and their children the following generation. ³⁴ 

[18:19]  ¹ tn Heb “For I have known him.” The verb יָדַע (yada’) here means “to recognize and treat in a special manner, to choose” (see Amos 3:2). It indicates that Abraham stood in a special covenantal relationship with the Lord.

[18:19]  ² tn Heb “and they will keep.” The perfect verbal form with vav consecutive carries on the subjective nuance of the preceding imperfect verbal form (translated “so that he may command”).

[18:19]  ³ tn The infinitive construct here indicates manner, explaining how Abraham’s children and his household will keep the way of the Lord.

[18:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “bring on.” The infinitive after לְמַעַן (lÿma’an) indicates result here.

[18:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “spoke to.”

[12:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “what is this service to you?”

[12:27]  ⁷ sn This expression “the sacrifice of Yahweh’s Passover” occurs only here. The word זֶבַח (zevakh) means “slaughtering” and so a blood sacrifice. The fact that this word is used in Lev 3 for the peace offering has linked the Passover as a kind of peace offering, and both the Passover and the peace offerings were eaten as communal meals.

[12:27]  ⁸ tn The verb means “to strike, smite, plague”; it is the same verb that has been used throughout this section (נָגַף, nagaf). Here the construction is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause.

[12:27]  ⁹ tn The two verbs form a verbal hendiadys: “and the people bowed down and they worshiped.” The words are synonymous, and so one is taken as the adverb for the other.

[13:14]  ¹⁰ sn As with v. 8, the Law now requires that the children be instructed on the meaning of this observance. It is a memorial of the deliverance from bondage and the killing of the firstborn in Egypt.

[13:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “tomorrow.”

[13:14]  ¹² tn Heb “and it will be when your son will ask you.”

[13:14]  ¹³ tn The question is cryptic; it simply says, “What is this?” but certainly refers to the custom just mentioned. It asks, “What does this mean?” or “Why do we do this?”

[13:14]  ¹⁴ tn The expression is “with strength of hand,” making “hand” the genitive of specification. In translation “strength” becomes the modifier, because “hand” specifies where the strength was. But of course the whole expression is anthropomorphic for the power of God.

[13:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “house of slaves.”

[13:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “dealt hardly in letting us go” or “made it hard to let us go” (see S. R. Driver, Exodus, 110). The verb is the simple Hiphil perfect הִקְשָׁה (hiqshah, “he made hard”); the infinitive construct לְשַׁלְּחֵנוּ (lÿshallÿkhenu, “to release us”) could be taken epexegetically, meaning “he made releasing us hard.” But the infinitive more likely gives the purpose or the result after the verb “hardened himself.” The verb is figurative for “be stubborn” or “stubbornly refuse.”

[13:15]  ¹⁷ tn The text uses “man” and “beast.”

[13:15]  ¹⁸ tn The form is the active participle.

[4:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “watch yourself and watch your soul carefully.”

[6:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “repeat” (so NLT). If from the root I שָׁנַן (shanan), the verb means essentially to “engrave,” that is, “to teach incisively” (Piel); note NAB “Drill them into your children.” Cf. BDB 1041-42 s.v.

[6:7]  ²¹ tn Or “as you are away on a journey” (cf. NRSV, TEV, NLT); NAB “at home and abroad.”

[4:21]  ²² tn Heb “What are these stones?”

[4:22]  ²³ tn Heb “make known.”

[4:22]  ²⁴ tn Heb “crossed this Jordan”; the word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied to clarify the meaning.

[78:3]  ²⁵ tn Or “known.”

[78:3]  ²⁶ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 5, 8, 12, 57).

[78:4]  ²⁷ tn The pronominal suffix refers back to the “fathers” (“our ancestors,” v. 3).

[78:4]  ²⁸ tn Heb “to a following generation telling the praises of the Lord.” “Praises” stand by metonymy for the mighty acts that prompt worship. Cf. Ps 9:14.

[78:5]  ²⁹ tn The Hebrew noun עֵדוּת (’edut) refers here to God’s command that the older generation teach their children about God’s mighty deeds in the nation’s history (see Exod 10:2; Deut 4:9; 6:20-25).

[78:5]  ³⁰ tn Heb “which he commanded our fathers to make them known to their sons.” The plural suffix “them” probably refers back to the Lord’s mighty deeds (see vv. 3-4).

[78:6]  ³¹ tn Heb “in order that they might know, a following generation, sons [who] will be born, they will arise and will tell to their sons.”

[145:4]  ³² tn The prefixed verbal forms in v. 4 are understood as imperfects, indicating how the psalmist expects his audience to respond to his praise. Another option is to take the forms as jussives, indicating the psalmist’s wish, “may one generation praise…and tell about.”

[1:3]  ³³ tn Heb “sons.” This word occurs several times in this verse.

[1:3]  ³⁴ sn The circumstances that precipitated the book of Joel surrounded a locust invasion in Palestine that was of unprecedented proportions. The locusts had devastated the country’s agrarian economy, with the unwelcome consequences extending to every important aspect of commercial, religious, and national life. To further complicate matters, a severe drought had exhausted water supplies, causing life-threatening shortages for animal and human life (cf. v. 20). Locust invasions occasionally present significant problems in Palestine in modern times. The year 1865 was commonly known among Arabic-speaking peoples of the Near East as sent el jarad, “year of the locust.” The years 1892, 1899, and 1904 witnessed significant locust invasions in Palestine. But in modern times there has been nothing equal in magnitude to the great locust invasion that began in Palestine in February of 1915. This modern parallel provides valuable insight into the locust plague the prophet Joel points to as a foreshadowing of the day of the Lord. For an eyewitness account of the 1915 locust invasion of Palestine see J. D. Whiting, “Jerusalem’s Locust Plague,” National Geographic 28 (December 1915): 511-50.