Genesis 31:54

31:54 Then Jacob offered a sacrifice ¹  on the mountain and invited his relatives to eat the meal. ²  They ate the meal and spent the night on the mountain.

Genesis 31:1

Jacob’s Flight from Laban

31:1 Jacob heard that Laban’s sons were complaining, ³  “Jacob has taken everything that belonged to our father! He has gotten rich ⁴  at our father’s expense!” ⁵ 

Genesis 9:13

9:13 I will place ⁶  my rainbow ⁷  in the clouds, and it will become ⁸  a guarantee of the covenant between me and the earth.

Genesis 16:3

16:3 So after Abram had lived ⁹  in Canaan for ten years, Sarai, Abram’s wife, gave Hagar, her Egyptian servant, ¹⁰  to her husband to be his wife. ¹¹ 

Isaiah 56:9

The Lord Denounces Israel’s Paganism

56:9 All you wild animals in the fields, come and devour,

all you wild animals in the forest!

Jeremiah 12:9

12:9 The people I call my own attack me like birds of prey or like hyenas. ¹² 

But other birds of prey are all around them. ¹³ 

Let all the nations gather together like wild beasts.

Let them come and destroy these people I call my own. ¹⁴ 

Zephaniah 1:7

1:7 Be silent before the Lord God, ¹⁵ 

for the Lord’s day of judgment ¹⁶  is almost here. ¹⁷ 

The Lord has prepared a sacrificial meal; ¹⁸ 

he has ritually purified ¹⁹  his guests.

Revelation 19:17-18

19:17 Then ²⁰  I saw one angel standing in ²¹  the sun, and he shouted in a loud voice to all the birds flying high in the sky: ²² 

“Come, gather around for the great banquet ²³  of God,

19:18 to eat ²⁴  your fill ²⁵  of the flesh of kings,

the flesh of generals, ²⁶ 

the flesh of powerful people,

the flesh of horses and those who ride them,

and the flesh of all people, both free and slave, ²⁷ 

and small and great!”

[31:54]  ¹ tn The construction is a cognate accusative with the verb, expressing a specific sacrifice.

[31:54]  ² tn Heb “bread, food.” Presumably this was a type of peace offering, where the person bringing the offering ate the animal being sacrificed.

[31:1]  ³ tn Heb “and he heard the words of the sons of Laban, saying.”

[31:1]  ⁴ sn The Hebrew word translated “gotten rich” (כָּבוֹד, cavod) has the basic idea of “weight.” If one is heavy with possessions, then that one is wealthy (13:2). Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph all became wealthy when they left the promised land. Jacob’s wealth foreshadows what will happen to Israel when they leave the land of Egypt (Exod 12:35-38).

[31:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “and from that which belonged to our father he has gained all this wealth.”

[9:13]  ⁶ tn The translation assumes that the perfect verbal form is used rhetorically, emphasizing the certainty of the action. Other translation options include “I have placed” (present perfect; cf. NIV, NRSV) and “I place” (instantaneous perfect; cf. NEB).

[9:13]  ⁷ sn The Hebrew word קֶשֶׁת (qeshet) normally refers to a warrior’s bow. Some understand this to mean that God the warrior hangs up his battle bow at the end of the flood, indicating he is now at peace with humankind, but others question the legitimacy of this proposal. See C. Westermann, Genesis, 1:473, and G. J. Wenham, Genesis (WBC), 1:196.

[9:13]  ⁸ tn The perfect verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here has the same aspectual function as the preceding perfect of certitude.

[16:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “at the end of ten years, to live, Abram.” The prepositional phrase introduces the temporal clause, the infinitive construct serves as the verb, and the name “Abram” is the subject.

[16:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the Egyptian, her female servant.”

[16:3]  ¹¹ sn To be his wife. Hagar became a slave wife, not on equal standing with Sarai. However, if Hagar produced the heir, she would be the primary wife in the eyes of society. When this eventually happened, Hagar become insolent, prompting Sarai’s anger.

[12:9]  ¹² tn Or “like speckled birds of prey.” The meanings of these words are uncertain. In the Hebrew text sentence is a question: “Is not my inheritance to me a bird of prey [or] a hyena/a speckled bird of prey?” The question expects a positive answer and so is rendered here as an affirmative statement. The meaning of the word “speckled” is debated. It occurs only here. BDB 840 s.v. צָבוּעַ relates it to another word that occurs only once in Judg 5:30 which is translated “dyed stuff.” HALOT 936 s.v. צָבוּעַ relates a word found in the cognates meaning “hyena.” This is more likely and is the interpretation followed by the Greek which reads the first two words as “cave of hyena.” This translation has led some scholars to posit a homonym for the word “bird of prey” meaning “cave” which is based on Arabic parallels. The metaphor would then be of Israel carried off by hyenas and surrounded by birds of prey. The evidence for the meaning “cave” is weak and would involve a wordplay of a rare homonym with another word that is better known. For a discussion of the issues see J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament, 128-29, 153.

[12:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “Are birds of prey around her?” The question is again rhetorical and expects a positive answer. The birds of prey are of course the hostile nations surrounding her. The metaphor involved in these two lines may be interpreted differently. I.e., God considers Israel a proud bird of prey (hence the word for speckled) but one who is surrounded and under attack by other birds of prey. The fact that the sentences are divided into two rhetorical questions speaks somewhat against this.

[12:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Go, gather all the beasts of the field [= wild beasts]. Bring them to devour.” The verbs are masculine plural imperatives addressed rhetorically to some unidentified group (the heavenly counsel?) Cf. the notes on 5:1 for further discussion. Since translating literally would raise question about who the commands are addressed to, they have been turned into passive third person commands to avoid confusion. The metaphor has likewise been turned into a simile to help the modern reader. By the way, the imperatives here implying future action argue that the passage is future and that it is correct to take the verb forms as prophetic perfects.

[1:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Lord Lord.” The phrase אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה (adonai yÿhvih) is customarily rendered by Jewish tradition as “Lord God.”

[1:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the day of the Lord.”

[1:7]  ¹⁷ tn Or “near.”

[1:7]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “a sacrifice.” This same word also occurs in the following verse.

[1:7]  ¹⁹ tn Or “consecrated” (ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[19:17]  ²⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.

[19:17]  ²¹ tn The precise significance of ἐν (en) here is difficult to determine.

[19:17]  ²² tn On μεσουρανήματι (mesouranhmati) here see L&N 1.10: “high in the sky, midpoint in the sky, directly overhead, straight above in the sky.” The birds mentioned here are carrion birds like vultures, circling high overhead, and now being summoned to feast on the corpses.

[19:17]  ²³ tn This is the same Greek word (δεῖπνον, deipnon) used in 19:9.

[19:18]  ²⁴ tn The ἵνα (Jina) clause, insofar as it is related to the first imperative, has the force of an imperative.

[19:18]  ²⁵ tn The idea of eating “your fill” is evident in the context with the use of χορτάζω (cortazw) in v. 21.

[19:18]  ²⁶ tn Grk “chiliarchs”; normally a chiliarch was a military officer commanding a thousand soldiers, but here probably used of higher-ranking commanders like generals (see L&N 55.15; cf. Rev 6:15).

[19:18]  ²⁷ tn See the note on the word “servants” in 1:1.