Genesis 24:1-5

The Wife for Isaac

24:1 Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years, ¹  and the Lord had blessed him ²  in everything. 24:2 Abraham said to his servant, the senior one ³  in his household who was in charge of everything he had, “Put your hand under my thigh ⁴  24:3 so that I may make you solemnly promise ⁵  by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth: You must not acquire ⁶  a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living. 24:4 You must go instead to my country and to my relatives ⁷  to find ⁸  a wife for my son Isaac.”

24:5 The servant asked him, “What if the woman is not willing to come back with me ⁹  to this land? Must I then ¹⁰  take your son back to the land from which you came?”

[24:1]  ¹ tn Heb “days.”

[24:1]  ² tn Heb “Abraham.” The proper name has been replaced in the translation by the pronoun (“he”) for stylistic reasons.

[24:2]  ³ tn The Hebrew term זָקֵן (zaqen) may refer to the servant who is oldest in age or senior in authority (or both).

[24:2]  ⁴ sn Put your hand under my thigh. The taking of this oath had to do with the sanctity of the family and the continuation of the family line. See D. R. Freedman, “Put Your Hand Under My Thigh – the Patriarchal Oath,” BAR 2 (1976): 2-4, 42.

[24:3]  ⁵ tn Following the imperative, the cohortative with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose.

[24:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “because you must not take.”

[24:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “for to my country and my relatives you must go.”

[24:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “and take.”

[24:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “to go after me.”

[24:5]  ¹⁰ tn In the Hebrew text the construction is emphatic; the infinitive absolute precedes the imperfect. However, it is difficult to reflect this emphasis in an English translation.