Genesis 12:5

12:5 And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew ¹  Lot, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired ²  in Haran, and they left for ³  the land of Canaan. They entered the land of Canaan.

Genesis 26:3

26:3 Stay ⁴  in this land. Then I will be with you and will bless you, ⁵  for I will give all these lands to you and to your descendants, ⁶  and I will fulfill ⁷  the solemn promise I made ⁸  to your father Abraham.

Genesis 37:1

Joseph’s Dreams

37:1 But Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, ⁹  in the land of Canaan. ¹⁰ 

[12:5]  ¹ tn Heb “the son of his brother.”

[12:5]  ² tn For the semantic nuance “acquire [property]” for the verb עָשָׂה (’asah), see BDB 795 s.v. עָשָׂה.

[12:5]  ³ tn Heb “went out to go.”

[26:3]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn After the imperative “stay” the two prefixed verb forms with prefixed conjunction here indicate consequence.

[26:3]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ tn Heb “the oath which I swore.”

[37:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “the land of the sojournings of his father.”

[37:1]  ¹⁰ sn The next section begins with the heading This is the account of Jacob in Gen 37:2, so this verse actually forms part of the preceding section as a concluding contrast with Esau and his people. In contrast to all the settled and expanded population of Esau, Jacob was still moving about in the land without a permanent residence and without kings. Even if the Edomite king list was added later (as the reference to kings in Israel suggests), its placement here in contrast to Jacob and his descendants is important. Certainly the text deals with Esau before dealing with Jacob – that is the pattern. But the detail is so great in chap. 36 that the contrast cannot be missed.