Genesis 24:57

24:57 Then they said, “We’ll call the girl and find out what she wants to do.” ¹ 

Genesis 17:15

17:15 Then God said to Abraham, “As for your wife, you must no longer call her Sarai; ²  Sarah ³  will be her name.

Genesis 30:13

30:13 Leah said, “How happy I am, ⁴  for women ⁵  will call me happy!” So she named him Asher. ⁶ 

Genesis 4:26

4:26 And a son was also born to Seth, whom he named Enosh. At that time people ⁷  began to worship ⁸  the Lord.

Genesis 16:11

16:11 Then the Lord’s angel said to her,

“You are now ⁹  pregnant

and are about to give birth ¹⁰  to a son.

You are to name him Ishmael, ¹¹ 

for the Lord has heard your painful groans. ¹² 

Genesis 17:19

17:19 God said, “No, Sarah your wife is going to bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. ¹³  I will confirm my covenant with him as a perpetual ¹⁴  covenant for his descendants after him.

Genesis 2:19

2:19 The Lord God formed ¹⁵  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 ¹⁶  name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

Genesis 46:33

46:33 Pharaoh will summon you and say, ‘What is your occupation?’

Genesis 31:53

31:53 May the God of Abraham and the god of Nahor, ¹⁷  the gods of their father, judge between us.” Jacob took an oath by the God whom his father Isaac feared. ¹⁸ 

[24:57]  ¹ tn Heb “and we will ask her mouth.”

[17:15]  ² tn Heb “[As for] Sarai your wife, you must not call her name Sarai, for Sarah [will be] her name.”

[17:15]  ³ sn Sarah. The name change seems to be a dialectical variation, both spellings meaning “princess” or “queen.” Like the name Abram, the name Sarai symbolized the past. The new name Sarah, like the name Abraham, would be a reminder of what God intended to do for Sarah in the future.

[30:13]  ³ tn The Hebrew statement apparently means “with my happiness.”

[30:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “daughters.”

[30:13]  ⁵ sn The name Asher (אָשֶׁר, ’asher) apparently means “happy one.” The name plays on the words used in the statement which appears earlier in the verse. Both the Hebrew noun and verb translated “happy” and “call me happy,” respectively, are derived from the same root as the name Asher.

[4:26]  ⁴ tn The word “people” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation. The construction uses a passive verb without an expressed subject. “To call was begun” can be interpreted to mean that people began to call.

[4:26]  ⁵ tn Heb “call in the name.” The expression refers to worshiping the Lord through prayer and sacrifice (see Gen 12:8; 13:4; 21:33; 26:25). See G. J. Wenham, Genesis (WBC), 1:116.

[16:11]  ⁵ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) focuses on her immediate situation: “Here you are pregnant.”

[16:11]  ⁶ tn The active participle refers here to something that is about to happen.

[16:11]  ⁷ sn The name Ishmael consists of the imperfect or jussive form of the Hebrew verb with the theophoric element added as the subject. It means “God hears” or “may God hear.”

[16:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “affliction,” which must refer here to Hagar’s painful groans of anguish.

[17:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “will call his name Isaac.” The name means “he laughs,” or perhaps “may he laugh” (see the note on the word “laughed” in v. 17).

[17:19]  ⁷ tn Or “as an eternal.”

[2:19]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ tn The imperfect verb form is future from the perspective of the past time narrative.

[31:53]  ⁸ tn The God of Abraham and the god of Nahor. The Hebrew verb translated “judge” is plural, suggesting that Laban has more than one “god” in mind. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX, apparently in an effort to make the statement monotheistic, have a singular verb. In this case one could translate, “May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.” However, Laban had a polytheistic world view, as evidenced by his possession of household idols (cf. 31:19). The translation uses “God” when referring to Abraham’s God, for Genesis makes it clear that Abraham worshiped the one true God. It employs “god” when referring to Nahor’s god, for in the Hebrew text Laban refers to a different god here, probably one of the local deities.

[31:53]  ⁹ tn Heb “by the fear of his father Isaac.” See the note on the word “fears” in v. 42.