Genesis 17:6

17:6 I will make you ¹  extremely ²  fruitful. I will make nations of you, and kings will descend from you. ³ 

Genesis 28:3

28:3 May the sovereign God ⁴  bless you! May he make you fruitful and give you a multitude of descendants! ⁵  Then you will become ⁶  a large nation. ⁷ 

Genesis 41:52

41:52 He named the second child Ephraim, ⁸  saying, ⁹  “Certainly ¹⁰  God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.”

Exodus 1:7

1:7 The Israelites, ¹¹  however, ¹²  were fruitful, increased greatly, multiplied, and became extremely strong, ¹³  so that the land was filled with them.

[17:6]  ¹ tn This verb starts a series of perfect verbal forms with vav (ו) consecutive to express God’s intentions.

[17:6]  ² tn Heb “exceedingly, exceedingly.” The repetition is emphatic.

[17:6]  ³ tn Heb “and I will make you into nations, and kings will come out from you.”

[28:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “El Shaddai.” See the extended note on the phrase “sovereign God” in Gen 17:1.

[28:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “and make you fruitful and multiply you.” See Gen 17:6, 20 for similar terminology.

[28:3]  ⁶ tn The perfect verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here indicates consequence. The collocation הָיָה + preposition לְ (hayah + lÿ) means “become.”

[28:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “an assembly of peoples.”

[41:52]  ⁸ sn The name Ephraim (אֶפְרַיִם, ’efrayim), a form of the Hebrew verb פָּרָה (parah), means “to bear fruit.” The theme of fruitfulness is connected with this line of the family from Rachel (30:2) on down (see Gen 49:22, Deut 33:13-17, and Hos 13:15). But there is some difficulty with the name “Ephraim” itself. It appears to be a dual, for which F. Delitzsch simply said it meant “double fruitfulness” (New Commentary on Genesis, 2:305). G. J. Spurrell suggested it was a diphthongal pronunciation of a name ending in -an or -am, often thought to be dual suffixes (Notes on the text of the book of Genesis, 334). Many, however, simply connect the name to the territory of Ephraim and interpret it to be “fertile land” (C. Fontinoy, “Les noms de lieux en -ayim dans la Bible,” UF 3 [1971]: 33-40). The dual would then be an old locative ending. There is no doubt that the name became attached to the land in which the tribe settled, and it is possible that is where the dual ending came from, but in this story it refers to Joseph’s God-given fruitfulness.

[41:52]  ⁹ tn The word “saying” has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[41:52]  ¹⁰ tn Or “for.”

[1:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the sons of Israel.”

[1:7]  ¹² tn The disjunctive vav marks a contrast with the note about the deaths of the first generation.

[1:7]  ¹³ tn Using מְאֹד (mÿ’od) twice intensifies the idea of their becoming strong (see GKC 431-32 §133.k).