Genesis 1:12

1:12 The land produced vegetation – plants yielding seeds according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:25

1:25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the cattle according to their kinds, and all the creatures that creep along the ground according to their kinds. God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:31

1:31 God saw all that he had made – and it was very good! ¹  There was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.

Genesis 6:5

6:5 But the Lord saw ²  that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination ³  of the thoughts ⁴  of their minds ⁵  was only evil ⁶  all the time. ⁷ 

Genesis 6:12

6:12 God saw the earth, and indeed ⁸  it was ruined, ⁹  for all living creatures ¹⁰  on the earth were sinful. ¹¹ 

Genesis 12:7

12:7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants ¹²  I will give this land.” So Abram ¹³  built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

Genesis 19:1

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

19:1 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening while ¹⁴  Lot was sitting in the city’s gateway. ¹⁵  When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face toward the ground.

Genesis 19:28

19:28 He looked out toward ¹⁶  Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of that region. ¹⁷  As he did so, he saw the smoke rising up from the land like smoke from a furnace. ¹⁸ 

Genesis 32:25

32:25 When the man ¹⁹  saw that he could not defeat Jacob, ²⁰  he struck ²¹  the socket of his hip so the socket of Jacob’s hip was dislocated while he wrestled with him.

Genesis 34:2

34:2 When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, who ruled that area, saw her, he grabbed her, forced himself on her, ²²  and sexually assaulted her. ²³ 

Genesis 40:16

40:16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation of the first dream was favorable, ²⁴  he said to Joseph, “I also appeared in my dream and there were three baskets of white bread ²⁵  on my head.

Genesis 42:27

42:27 When one of them ²⁶  opened his sack to get feed for his donkey at their resting place, ²⁷  he saw his money in the mouth of his sack. ²⁸ 

Genesis 46:29

46:29 Joseph harnessed his chariot and went up to meet his father Israel in Goshen. When he met him, ²⁹  he hugged his neck and wept on his neck for quite some time.

Genesis 49:15

49:15 When he sees ³⁰  a good resting place,

and the pleasant land,

he will bend his shoulder to the burden

and become a slave laborer. ³¹ 

Genesis 50:23

50:23 Joseph saw the descendants of Ephraim to the third generation. ³²  He also saw the children of Makir the son of Manasseh; they were given special inheritance rights by Joseph. ³³ 

[1:31]  ¹ tn The Hebrew text again uses הִנֵּה (hinneh) for the sake of vividness. It is a particle that goes with the gesture of pointing, calling attention to something.

[6:5]  ¹ sn The Hebrew verb translated “saw” (רָאָה, ra’ah), used here of God’s evaluation of humankind’s evil deeds, contrasts with God’s evaluation of creative work in Gen 1, when he observed that everything was good.

[6:5]  ² tn The noun יֵצֶר (yetser) is related to the verb יָצָר (yatsar, “to form, to fashion [with a design]”). Here it refers to human plans or intentions (see Gen 8:21; 1 Chr 28:9; 29:18). People had taken their God-given capacities and used them to devise evil. The word יֵצֶר (yetser) became a significant theological term in Rabbinic literature for what might be called the sin nature – the evil inclination (see also R. E. Murphy, “Yeser in the Qumran Literature,” Bib 39 [1958]: 334-44).

[6:5]  ³ tn The related verb הָשָׁב (hashav) means “to think, to devise, to reckon.” The noun (here) refers to thoughts or considerations.

[6:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “his heart” (referring to collective “humankind”). The Hebrew term לֵב (lev, “heart”) frequently refers to the seat of one’s thoughts (see BDB 524 s.v. לֵב). In contemporary English this is typically referred to as the “mind.”

[6:5]  ⁵ sn Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil. There is hardly a stronger statement of the wickedness of the human race than this. Here is the result of falling into the “knowledge of good and evil”: Evil becomes dominant, and the good is ruined by the evil.

[6:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “all the day.”

[6:12]  ¹ tn Or “God saw how corrupt the earth was.”

[6:12]  ² tn The repetition in the text (see v. 11) emphasizes the point.

[6:12]  ³ tn Heb “flesh.” Since moral corruption is in view here, most modern western interpreters understand the referent to be humankind. However, the phrase “all flesh” is used consistently of humankind and the animals in Gen 6-9 (6:17, 19; 7:15-16, 21; 8:17; 9:11, 15-17), suggesting that the author intends to picture all living creatures, humankind and animals, as guilty of moral failure. This would explain why the animals, not just humankind, are victims of the ensuing divine judgment. The OT sometimes views animals as morally culpable (Gen 9:5; Exod 21:28-29; Jonah 3:7-8). The OT also teaches that a person’s sin can contaminate others (people and animals) in the sinful person’s sphere (see the story of Achan, especially Josh 7:10). So the animals could be viewed here as morally contaminated because of their association with sinful humankind.

[6:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “had corrupted its way.” The third masculine singular pronominal suffix on “way” refers to the collective “all flesh.” The construction “corrupt one’s way” occurs only here (though Ezek 16:47 uses the Hiphil in an intransitive sense with the preposition בְּ [bet, “in”] followed by “ways”). The Hiphil of שָׁחָת (shakhat) means “to ruin, to destroy, to corrupt,” often as here in a moral/ethical sense. The Hebrew term דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, “way”) here refers to behavior or moral character, a sense that it frequently carries (see BDB 203 s.v. דֶּרֶךְ 6.a).

[12:7]  ¹ tn The same Hebrew term זֶרַע (zera’) may mean “seed” (for planting), “offspring” (occasionally of animals, but usually of people), or “descendants” depending on the context.

[12:7]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abram) has been supplied in the translation for clarification.

[19:1]  ¹ tn The disjunctive clause is temporal here, indicating what Lot was doing at the time of their arrival.

[19:1]  ² tn Heb “sitting in the gate of Sodom.” The phrase “the gate of Sodom” has been translated “the city’s gateway” for stylistic reasons.

[19:28]  ¹ tn Heb “upon the face of.”

[19:28]  ² tn Or “all the land of the plain”; Heb “and all the face of the land of the circle,” referring to the “circle” or oval area of the Jordan Valley.

[19:28]  ³ tn Heb “And he saw, and look, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.”

[32:25]  ¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the man) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[32:25]  ² tn Heb “him”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[32:25]  ³ tn Or “injured”; traditionally “touched.” The Hebrew verb translated “struck” has the primary meanings “to touch; to reach; to strike.” It can, however, carry the connotation “to harm; to molest; to injure.” God’s “touch” cripples Jacob – it would be comparable to a devastating blow.

[34:2]  ¹ tn Heb “and he took her and lay with her.” The suffixed form following the verb appears to be the sign of the accusative instead of the preposition, but see BDB 1012 s.v. שָׁכַב.

[34:2]  ² tn The verb עָנָה (’anah) in the Piel stem can have various shades of meaning, depending on the context: “to defile; to mistreat; to violate; to rape; to shame; to afflict.” Here it means that Shechem violated or humiliated Dinah by raping her.

[40:16]  ¹ tn Heb “that [the] interpretation [was] good.” The words “the first dream” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[40:16]  ² tn Or “three wicker baskets.” The meaning of the Hebrew noun חֹרִי (khori, “white bread, cake”) is uncertain; some have suggested the meaning “wicker” instead. Comparison with texts from Ebla suggests the meaning “pastries made with white flour” (M. Dahood, “Eblaite h¬a-rí and Genesis 40,16 h£o„rî,” BN 13 [1980]: 14-16).

[42:27]  ¹ tn Heb “and the one.” The article indicates that the individual is vivid in the mind of the narrator, yet it is not important to identify him by name.

[42:27]  ² tn Heb “at the lodging place.”

[42:27]  ³ tn Heb “and look, it [was] in the mouth of his sack.” By the use of the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”), the narrator invites the reader to look through the eyes of the character and thereby draws attention to the money.

[46:29]  ¹ tn Heb “and he appeared to him.”

[49:15]  ¹ tn The verb forms in this verse (“sees,” “will bend,” and “[will] become”) are preterite; they is used in a rhetorical manner, describing the future as if it had already transpired.

[49:15]  ² sn The oracle shows that the tribe of Issachar will be willing to trade liberty for the material things of life. Issachar would work (become a slave laborer) for the Canaanites, a reversal of the oracle on Canaan. See C. M. Carmichael, “Some Sayings in Genesis 49,” JBL 88 (1969): 435-44; and S. Gevirtz, “The Issachar Oracle in the Testament of Jacob,” ErIsr 12 (1975): 104-12.

[50:23]  ¹ tn Heb “saw Ephraim, the children of the third.”

[50:23]  ² tn Heb “they were born on the knees of Joseph.” This expression implies their adoption by Joseph, which meant that they received an inheritance from him.