Genesis 16:2

16:2 So Sarai said to Abram, “Since ¹  the Lord has prevented me from having children, have sexual relations with ²  my servant. Perhaps I can have a family by her.” ³  Abram did what ⁴  Sarai told him.

Genesis 25:21

25:21 Isaac prayed to ⁵  the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.

Genesis 50:19

50:19 But Joseph answered them, “Don’t be afraid. Am ⁶  I in the place of God?

Genesis 50:1

The Burials of Jacob and Joseph

50:1 Then Joseph hugged his father’s face. ⁷  He wept over him and kissed him.

Genesis 1:5

1:5 God called ⁸  the light “day” and the darkness ⁹  “night.” There was evening, and there was morning, marking the first day. ¹⁰ 

Genesis 2:5-6

2:5 Now ¹¹  no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field ¹²  had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. ¹³  2:6 Springs ¹⁴  would well up ¹⁵  from the earth and water ¹⁶  the whole surface of the ground. ¹⁷ 

Genesis 2:2

2:2 By ¹⁸  the seventh day God finished the work that he had been doing, ¹⁹  and he ceased ²⁰  on the seventh day all the work that he had been doing.

Genesis 5:7

5:7 Seth lived 807 years after he became the father of Enosh, and he had ²¹  other ²²  sons and daughters.

[16:2]  ¹ tn Heb “look.” The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) introduces the foundational clause for the imperative to follow.

[16:2]  ² tn Heb “enter to.” The expression is a euphemism for sexual relations (also in v. 4).

[16:2]  ³ tn Heb “perhaps I will be built from her.” Sarai hopes to have a family established through this surrogate mother.

[16:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “listened to the voice of,” which is an idiom meaning “obeyed.”

[25:21]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew verb עָתַר (’atar), translated “prayed [to]” here, appears in the story of God’s judgment on Egypt in which Moses asked the Lord to remove the plagues. The cognate word in Arabic means “to slaughter for sacrifice,” and the word is used in Zeph 3:10 to describe worshipers who bring offerings. Perhaps some ritual accompanied Isaac’s prayer here.

[50:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “For am I.”

[50:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “fell on.” The expression describes Joseph’s unrestrained sorrow over Jacob’s death; he probably threw himself across the body and embraced his father.

[1:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “he called to,” meaning “he named.”

[1:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “and the darkness he called night.” The words “he called” have not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[1:5]  ¹⁰ tn Another option is to translate, “Evening came, and then morning came.” This formula closes the six days of creation. It seems to follow the Jewish order of reckoning time: from evening to morning. Day one started with the dark, continued through the creation of light, and ended with nightfall. Another alternative would be to translate, “There was night and then there was day, one day.”

[2:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Now every sprig of the field before it was.” The verb forms, although appearing to be imperfects, are technically preterites coming after the adverb טֶּרֶם (terem). The word order (conjunction + subject + predicate) indicates a disjunctive clause, which provides background information for the following narrative (as in 1:2). Two negative clauses are given (“before any sprig…”, and “before any cultivated grain” existed), followed by two causal clauses explaining them, and then a positive circumstantial clause is given – again dealing with water as in 1:2 (water would well up).

[2:5]  ¹² tn The first term, שִׂיחַ (siakh), probably refers to the wild, uncultivated plants (see Gen 21:15; Job 30:4,7); whereas the second, עֵשֶׂב (’esev), refers to cultivated grains. It is a way of saying: “back before anything was growing.”

[2:5]  ¹³ tn The two causal clauses explain the first two disjunctive clauses: There was no uncultivated, general growth because there was no rain, and there were no grains because there was no man to cultivate the soil.

[2:6]  ¹⁴ tn The conjunction vav (ו) introduces a third disjunctive clause. The Hebrew word אֵד (’ed) was traditionally translated “mist” because of its use in Job 36:27. However, an Akkadian cognate edu in Babylonian texts refers to subterranean springs or waterways. Such a spring would fit the description in this context, since this water “goes up” and waters the ground.

[2:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “was going up.” The verb is an imperfect form, which in this narrative context carries a customary nuance, indicating continual action in past time.

[2:6]  ¹⁶ tn The perfect with vav (ו) consecutive carries the same nuance as the preceding verb. Whenever it would well up, it would water the ground.

[2:6]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew word אֲדָמָה (’adamah) actually means “ground; fertile soil.”

[2:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “on/in the seventh day.”

[2:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “his work which he did [or “made”].”

[2:2]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew term שָׁבַּת (shabbat) can be translated “to rest” (“and he rested”) but it basically means “to cease.” This is not a rest from exhaustion; it is the cessation of the work of creation.

[5:7]  ²¹ tn Heb “he fathered.”

[5:7]  ²² tn Here and in vv. 10, 13, 16, 19 the word “other” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.