Genesis 1:28

1:28 God blessed ¹  them and said ²  to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! ³  Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.” ⁴ 

Genesis 2:19

2:19 The Lord God formed ⁵  out of the ground every living animal of the field and every bird of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would ⁶  name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

Genesis 3:17

3:17 But to Adam ⁷  he said,

“Because you obeyed ⁸  your wife

and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,

‘You must not eat from it,’

cursed is the ground ⁹  thanks to you; ¹⁰ 

in painful toil you will eat ¹¹  of it all the days of your life.

Genesis 17:23

17:23 Abraham took his son Ishmael and every male in his household (whether born in his house or bought with money) ¹²  and circumcised them ¹³  on that very same day, just as God had told him to do.

Genesis 24:30

24:30 When he saw the bracelets on his sister’s wrists and the nose ring ¹⁴  and heard his sister Rebekah say, ¹⁵  “This is what the man said to me,” he went out to meet the man. There he was, standing ¹⁶  by the camels near the spring.

Genesis 37:2

37:2 This is the account of Jacob.

Joseph, his seventeen-year-old son, ¹⁷  was taking care of ¹⁸  the flocks with his brothers. Now he was a youngster ¹⁹  working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. ²⁰  Joseph brought back a bad report about them ²¹  to their father.

Genesis 37:10

37:10 When he told his father and his brothers, his father rebuked him, saying, “What is this dream that you had? ²²  Will I, your mother, and your brothers really come and bow down to you?” ²³ 

Genesis 39:5

39:5 From the time ²⁴  Potiphar ²⁵  appointed him over his household and over all that he owned, the Lord blessed ²⁶  the Egyptian’s household for Joseph’s sake. The blessing of the Lord was on everything that he had, both ²⁷  in his house and in his fields. ²⁸ 

[1:28]  ¹ tn As in v. 22 the verb “bless” here means “to endow with the capacity to reproduce and be fruitful,” as the following context indicates. As in v. 22, the statement directly precedes the command “be fruitful and multiply.” The verb carries this same nuance in Gen 17:16 (where God’s blessing of Sarai imparts to her the capacity to bear a child); Gen 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).

[1:28]  ² tn Heb “and God said.” For stylistic reasons “God” has not been repeated here in the translation.

[1:28]  ³ tn Elsewhere the Hebrew verb translated “subdue” means “to enslave” (2 Chr 28:10; Neh 5:5; Jer 34:11, 16), “to conquer,” (Num 32:22, 29; Josh 18:1; 2 Sam 8:11; 1 Chr 22:18; Zech 9:13; and probably Mic 7:19), and “to assault sexually” (Esth 7:8). None of these nuances adequately meets the demands of this context, for humankind is not viewed as having an adversarial relationship with the world. The general meaning of the verb appears to be “to bring under one’s control for one’s advantage.” In Gen 1:28 one might paraphrase it as follows: “harness its potential and use its resources for your benefit.” In an ancient Israelite context this would suggest cultivating its fields, mining its mineral riches, using its trees for construction, and domesticating its animals.

[1:28]  ⁴ sn The several imperatives addressed to both males and females together (plural imperative forms) actually form two commands: reproduce and rule. God’s word is not merely a form of blessing, but is now addressed to them personally; this is a distinct emphasis with the creation of human beings. But with the blessing comes the ability to be fruitful and to rule. In procreation they will share in the divine work of creating human life and passing on the divine image (see 5:1-3); in ruling they will serve as God’s vice-regents on earth. They together, the human race collectively, have the responsibility of seeing to the welfare of that which is put under them and the privilege of using it for their benefit.

[2:19]  ⁵ tn Or “fashioned.” To harmonize the order of events with the chronology of chapter one, some translate the prefixed verb form with vav (ו) consecutive as a past perfect (“had formed,” cf. NIV) here. (In chapter one the creation of the animals preceded the creation of man; here the animals are created after the man.) However, it is unlikely that the Hebrew construction can be translated in this way in the middle of this pericope, for the criteria for unmarked temporal overlay are not present here. See S. R. Driver, A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew, 84-88, and especially R. Buth, “Methodological Collision between Source Criticism and Discourse Analysis,” Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics, 138-54. For a contrary viewpoint see IBHS 552-53 §33.2.3 and C. J. Collins, “The Wayyiqtol as ‘Pluperfect’: When and Why,” TynBul 46 (1995): 117-40.

[2:19]  ⁶ tn The imperfect verb form is future from the perspective of the past time narrative.

[3:17]  ⁹ tn Since there is no article on the word, the personal name is used, rather than the generic “the man” (cf. NRSV).

[3:17]  ¹⁰ tn The idiom “listen to the voice of” often means “obey.” The man “obeyed” his wife and in the process disobeyed God.

[3:17]  ¹¹ sn For the ground to be cursed means that it will no longer yield its bounty as the blessing from God had promised. The whole creation, Paul writes in Rom 8:22, is still groaning under this curse, waiting for the day of redemption.

[3:17]  ¹² tn The Hebrew phrase בַּעֲבוּרֶךָ (ba’avurekha) is more literally translated “on your account” or “because of you.” The idiomatic “thanks to you” in the translation tries to capture the point of this expression.

[3:17]  ¹³ sn In painful toil you will eat. The theme of eating is prominent throughout Gen 3. The prohibition was against eating from the tree of knowledge. The sin was in eating. The interrogation concerned the eating from the tree of knowledge. The serpent is condemned to eat the dust of the ground. The curse focuses on eating in a “measure for measure” justice. Because the man and the woman sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, God will forbid the ground to cooperate, and so it will be through painful toil that they will eat.

[17:23]  ¹³ tn Heb “Ishmael his son and all born in his house and all bought with money, every male among the men of the house of Abraham.”

[17:23]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “circumcised the flesh of their foreskin.” The Hebrew expression is somewhat pleonastic and has been simplified in the translation.

[24:30]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “And it was when he saw the nose ring and the bracelets on the arms of his sister.” The word order is altered in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[24:30]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying.”

[24:30]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and look, he was standing.” The disjunctive clause with the participle following the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) invites the audience to view the scene through Laban’s eyes.

[37:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “a son of seventeen years.” The word “son” is in apposition to the name “Joseph.”

[37:2]  ²² tn Or “tending”; Heb “shepherding” or “feeding.”

[37:2]  ²³ tn Or perhaps “a helper.” The significance of this statement is unclear. It may mean “now the lad was with,” or it may suggest Joseph was like a servant to them.

[37:2]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and he [was] a young man with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, the wives of his father.”

[37:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “their bad report.” The pronoun is an objective genitive, specifying that the bad or damaging report was about the brothers.

[37:10]  ²⁵ sn The question What is this dream that you had? expresses Jacob’s dismay at what he perceives to be Joseph’s audacity.

[37:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Coming, will we come, I and your mother and your brothers, to bow down to you to the ground?” The verb “come” is preceded by the infinitive absolute, which lends emphasis. It is as if Jacob said, “You don’t really think we will come…to bow down…do you?”

[39:5]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and it was from then.”

[39:5]  ³⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Potiphar) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[39:5]  ³¹ sn The Hebrew word translated blessed carries the idea of enrichment, prosperity, success. It is the way believers describe success at the hand of God. The text illustrates the promise made to Abraham that whoever blesses his descendants will be blessed (Gen 12:1-3).

[39:5]  ³² tn Heb “in the house and in the field.” The word “both” has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[39:5]  ³³ sn The passage gives us a good picture of Joseph as a young man who was responsible and faithful, both to his master and to his God. This happened within a very short time of his being sold into Egypt. It undermines the view that Joseph was a liar, a tattletale, and an arrogant adolescent.