Genesis 2:19

2:19 The Lord God formed ¹  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 ²  name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

Genesis 26:18

26:18 Isaac reopened ³  the wells that had been dug ⁴  back in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up ⁵  after Abraham died. Isaac ⁶  gave these wells ⁷  the same names his father had given them. ⁸ 

Genesis 35:10

35:10 God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but your name will no longer be called Jacob; Israel will be your name.” So God named him Israel. ⁹ 

Genesis 39:14

39:14 she called for her household servants and said to them, “See, my husband brought ¹⁰  in a Hebrew man ¹¹  to us to humiliate us. ¹²  He tried to have sex with me, ¹³  but I screamed loudly. ¹⁴ 

[2:19]  ¹ 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]  ² tn The imperfect verb form is future from the perspective of the past time narrative.

[26:18]  ³ tn Heb “he returned and dug,” meaning “he dug again” or “he reopened.”

[26:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “that they dug.” Since the subject is indefinite, the verb is translated as passive.

[26:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “and the Philistines had stopped them up.” This clause explains why Isaac had to reopen them.

[26:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Isaac) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[26:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “them”; the referent (the wells) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[26:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “called names to them according to the names that his father called them.”

[35:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “and he called his name Israel.” The referent of the pronoun “he” (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[39:14]  ⁷ tn The verb has no expressed subject, and so it could be treated as a passive (“a Hebrew man was brought in”; cf. NIV). But it is clear from the context that her husband brought Joseph into the household, so Potiphar is the apparent referent here. Thus the translation supplies “my husband” as the referent of the unspecified pronominal subject of the verb (cf. NEB, NRSV).

[39:14]  ⁸ sn A Hebrew man. Potiphar’s wife raises the ethnic issue when talking to her servants about what their boss had done.

[39:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “to make fun of us.” The verb translated “to humiliate us” here means to hold something up for ridicule, or to toy with something harmfully. Attempted rape would be such an activity, for it would hold the victim in contempt.

[39:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he came to me to lie with me.” Here the expression “lie with” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.

[39:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and I cried out with a loud voice.”