Genesis 22:5

22:5 So he ¹  said to his servants, “You two stay ²  here with the donkey while ³  the boy and I go up there. We will worship ⁴  and then return to you.” ⁵ 

Genesis 24:16

24:16 Now the young woman was very beautiful. She was a virgin; no man had ever had sexual relations with her. ⁶  She went down to the spring, filled her jug, and came back up.

Genesis 44:34

44:34 For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I couldn’t bear to see ⁷  my father’s pain.” ⁸ 

[22:5]  ¹ tn Heb “And Abraham.” The proper name has been replaced in the translation by the pronoun (“he”) for stylistic reasons.

[22:5]  ² tn The Hebrew verb is masculine plural, referring to the two young servants who accompanied Abraham and Isaac on the journey.

[22:5]  ³ tn The disjunctive clause (with the compound subject preceding the verb) may be circumstantial and temporal.

[22:5]  ⁴ tn This Hebrew word literally means “to bow oneself close to the ground.” It often means “to worship.”

[22:5]  ⁵ sn It is impossible to know what Abraham was thinking when he said, “we will…return to you.” When he went he knew (1) that he was to sacrifice Isaac, and (2) that God intended to fulfill his earlier promises through Isaac. How he reconciled those facts is not clear in the text. Heb 11:17-19 suggests that Abraham believed God could restore Isaac to him through resurrection.

[24:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “And the young woman was very good of appearance, a virgin, and a man she had not known.” Some argue that the Hebrew noun translated “virgin” (בְּתוּלָה, bÿtulah) is better understood in a general sense, “young woman” (see Joel 1:8, where the word appears to refer to one who is married). In this case the circumstantial clause (“and a man she had not known”) would be restrictive, rather than descriptive. If the term actually means “virgin,” one wonders why the circumstantial clause is necessary (see Judg 21:12 as well). Perhaps the repetition emphasizes her sexual purity as a prerequisite for her role as the mother of the covenant community.

[44:34]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew text has “lest I see,” which expresses a negative purpose – “I cannot go up lest I see.”

[44:34]  ¹² tn Heb “the calamity which would find my father.”