Genesis 18:14

18:14 Is anything impossible ¹  for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.” ² 

Genesis 24:37

24:37 My master made me swear an oath. He said, ‘You must not acquire a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living,

Genesis 27:5

27:5 Now Rebekah had been listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. ³  When Esau went out to the open fields to hunt down some wild game and bring it back, ⁴ 

Genesis 42:32

42:32 We are from a family of twelve brothers; we are the sons of one father. ⁵  One is no longer alive, ⁶  and the youngest is with our father at this time ⁷  in the land of Canaan.’

Genesis 46:27

46:27 Counting the two sons ⁸  of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt, all the people of the household of Jacob who were in Egypt numbered seventy. ⁹ 

[18:14]  ¹ tn The Hebrew verb פָּלָא (pala’) means “to be wonderful, to be extraordinary, to be surpassing, to be amazing.”

[18:14]  ² sn Sarah will have a son. The passage brings God’s promise into clear focus. As long as it was a promise for the future, it really could be believed without much involvement. But now, when it seemed so impossible from the human standpoint, when the Lord fixed an exact date for the birth of the child, the promise became rather overwhelming to Abraham and Sarah. But then this was the Lord of creation, the one they had come to trust. The point of these narratives is that the creation of Abraham’s offspring, which eventually became Israel, is no less a miraculous work of creation than the creation of the world itself.

[27:5]  ³ tn The disjunctive clause (introduced by a conjunction with the subject, followed by the predicate) here introduces a new scene in the story.

[27:5]  ⁴ tc The LXX adds here “to his father,” which may have been accidentally omitted in the MT.

[42:32]  ⁵ tn Heb “twelve [were] we, brothers, sons of our father [are] we.”

[42:32]  ⁶ tn Heb “the one is not.”

[42:32]  ⁷ tn Heb “today.”

[46:27]  ⁷ tn The LXX reads “nine sons,” probably counting the grandsons of Joseph born to Ephraim and Manasseh (cf. 1 Chr 7:14-20).

[46:27]  ⁸ tn Heb “And the sons of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt were two people; all the people belonging to the house of Jacob who came to Egypt were seventy.”