Genesis 27:10

27:10 Then you will take ¹  it to your father. Thus he will eat it ²  and ³  bless you before he dies.”

Genesis 12:13

12:13 So tell them ⁴  you are my sister ⁵  so that it may go well ⁶  for me because of you and my life will be spared ⁷  on account of you.”

Genesis 12:16

12:16 and he did treat Abram well ⁸  on account of her. Abram received ⁹  sheep and cattle, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

Genesis 18:26

18:26 So the Lord replied, “If I find in the city of Sodom fifty godly people, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Genesis 18:29

18:29 Abraham ¹⁰  spoke to him again, ¹¹  “What if forty are found there?” He replied, “I will not do it for the sake of the forty.”

Genesis 18:31-32

18:31 Abraham ¹²  said, “Since I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty are found there?” He replied, “I will not destroy it for the sake of the twenty.”

18:32 Finally Abraham ¹³  said, “May the Lord not be angry so that I may speak just once more. What if ten are found there?” He replied, “I will not destroy it for the sake of the ten.”

Genesis 21:30

21:30 He replied, “You must take these seven ewe lambs from my hand as legal proof ¹⁴  that I dug this well.” ¹⁵ 

Genesis 27:4

27:4 Then prepare for me some tasty food, the kind I love, and bring it to me. Then ¹⁶  I will eat it so that I may bless you ¹⁷  before I die.”

Genesis 27:31

27:31 He also prepared some tasty food and brought it to his father. Esau ¹⁸  said to him, “My father, get up ¹⁹  and eat some of your son’s wild game. Then you can bless me.” ²⁰ 

Genesis 3:17

3:17 But to Adam ²¹  he said,

“Because you obeyed ²²  your wife

and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,

‘You must not eat from it,’

cursed is the ground ²³  thanks to you; ²⁴ 

in painful toil you will eat ²⁵  of it all the days of your life.

Genesis 26:24

26:24 The Lord appeared to him that night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.”

Genesis 27:19

27:19 Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau, your firstborn. I’ve done as you told me. Now sit up ²⁶  and eat some of my wild game so that you can bless me.” ²⁷ 

Genesis 46:34

46:34 Tell him, ‘Your servants have taken care of cattle ²⁸  from our youth until now, both we and our fathers,’ so that you may live in the land of Goshen, ²⁹  for everyone who takes care of sheep is disgusting ³⁰  to the Egyptians.”

Genesis 8:21

8:21 And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma ³¹  and said ³²  to himself, ³³  “I will never again curse ³⁴  the ground because of humankind, even though ³⁵  the inclination of their minds ³⁶  is evil from childhood on. ³⁷  I will never again destroy everything that lives, as I have just done.

[27:10]  ¹ tn The form is the perfect tense with the vav (ו) consecutive. It carries forward the tone of instruction initiated by the command to “go…and get” in the preceding verse.

[27:10]  ² tn The form is the perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive; it carries the future nuance of the preceding verbs of instruction, but by switching the subject to Jacob, indicates the expected result of the subterfuge.

[27:10]  ³ tn Heb “so that.” The conjunction indicates purpose or result.

[12:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “say.”

[12:13]  ⁵ sn Tell them you are my sister. Abram’s motives may not be as selfish as they appear. He is aware of the danger to the family. His method of dealing with it is deception with a half truth, for Sarai really was his sister – but the Egyptians would not know that. Abram presumably thought that there would be negotiations for a marriage by anyone interested (as Laban does later for his sister Rebekah), giving him time to react. But the plan backfires because Pharaoh does not take the time to negotiate. There is a good deal of literature on the wife-sister issue. See (among others) E. A. Speiser, “The Wife-Sister Motif in the Patriarchal Narratives,” Oriental and Biblical Studies, 62-81; C. J. Mullo-Weir, “The Alleged Hurrian Wife-Sister Motif in Genesis,” GOT 22 (1967-1970): 14-25.

[12:13]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew verb translated “go well” can encompass a whole range of favorable treatment, but the following clause indicates it means here that Abram’s life will be spared.

[12:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “and my life will live.”

[12:16]  ⁷ sn He did treat Abram well. The construction of the parenthetical disjunctive clause, beginning with the conjunction on the prepositional phrase, draws attention to the irony of the story. Abram wanted Sarai to lie “so that it would go well” with him. Though he lost Sarai to Pharaoh, it did go well for him – he received a lavish bride price. See also G. W. Coats, “Despoiling the Egyptians,” VT 18 (1968): 450-57.

[12:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “and there was to him.”

[18:29]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:29]  ¹¹ tn The construction is a verbal hendiadys – the preterite (“he added”) is combined with an adverb “yet” and an infinitive “to speak.”

[18:31]  ¹³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:32]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[21:30]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “that it be for me for a witness.”

[21:30]  ²⁰ sn This well. Since the king wanted a treaty to share in Abraham’s good fortune, Abraham used the treaty to secure ownership of and protection for the well he dug. It would be useless to make a treaty to live in this territory if he had no rights to the water. Abraham consented to the treaty, but added his rider to it.

[27:4]  ²² tn Following the imperative, the cohortative (with the prefixed conjunction) indicates purpose or result.

[27:4]  ²³ tn Heb “so that my soul may bless you.” The use of נַפְשִׁי (nafshi, “my soul”) as the subject emphasizes that the blessing will be made with all Isaac’s desire and vitality. The conjunction “so that” closely relates the meal to the blessing, suggesting that this will be a ritual meal in conjunction with the giving of a formal blessing.

[27:31]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and he said to his father”; the referent of “he” (Esau) has been specified in the translation for clarity, while the words “his father” have been replaced by the pronoun “him” for stylistic reasons.

[27:31]  ²⁶ tn Or “arise” (i.e., sit up).

[27:31]  ²⁷ tn Heb “so that your soul may bless me.”

[3:17]  ²⁸ tn Since there is no article on the word, the personal name is used, rather than the generic “the man” (cf. NRSV).

[3:17]  ²⁹ tn The idiom “listen to the voice of” often means “obey.” The man “obeyed” his wife and in the process disobeyed God.

[3:17]  ³⁰ sn For the ground to be cursed means that it will no longer yield its bounty as the blessing from God had promised. The whole creation, Paul writes in Rom 8:22, is still groaning under this curse, waiting for the day of redemption.

[3:17]  ³¹ tn The Hebrew phrase בַּעֲבוּרֶךָ (ba’avurekha) is more literally translated “on your account” or “because of you.” The idiomatic “thanks to you” in the translation tries to capture the point of this expression.

[3:17]  ³² sn In painful toil you will eat. The theme of eating is prominent throughout Gen 3. The prohibition was against eating from the tree of knowledge. The sin was in eating. The interrogation concerned the eating from the tree of knowledge. The serpent is condemned to eat the dust of the ground. The curse focuses on eating in a “measure for measure” justice. Because the man and the woman sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, God will forbid the ground to cooperate, and so it will be through painful toil that they will eat.

[27:19]  ³¹ tn Heb “get up and sit.” This may mean simply “sit up,” or it may indicate that he was to get up from his couch and sit at a table.

[27:19]  ³² tn Heb “so that your soul may bless me.” These words, though not reported by Rebekah to Jacob (see v. 7) accurately reflect what Isaac actually said to Esau (see v. 4). Perhaps Jacob knew more than Rebekah realized, but it is more likely that this was an idiom for sincere blessing with which Jacob was familiar. At any rate, his use of the precise wording was a nice, convincing touch.

[46:34]  ³⁴ tn Heb “your servants are men of cattle.”

[46:34]  ³⁵ sn So that you may live in the land of Goshen. Joseph is apparently trying to stress to Pharaoh that his family is self-sufficient, that they will not be a drain on the economy of Egypt. But they will need land for their animals and so Goshen, located on the edge of Egypt, would be a suitable place for them to live. The settled Egyptians were uneasy with nomadic people, but if Jacob and his family settled in Goshen they would represent no threat.

[46:34]  ³⁶ tn Heb “is an abomination.” The Hebrew word תּוֹעֵבָה (to’evah, “abomination”) describes something that is loathsome or off-limits. For other practices the Egyptians considered disgusting, see Gen 43:32 and Exod 8:22.

[8:21]  ³⁷ tn The Lord “smelled” (וַיָּרַח, vayyarakh) a “soothing smell” (רֵיחַ הַנִּיהֹחַ, reakh hannihoakh). The object forms a cognate accusative with the verb. The language is anthropomorphic. The offering had a sweet aroma that pleased or soothed. The expression in Lev 1 signifies that God accepts the offering with pleasure, and in accepting the offering he accepts the worshiper.

[8:21]  ³⁸ tn Heb “and the Lord said.”

[8:21]  ³⁹ tn Heb “in his heart.”

[8:21]  ⁴⁰ tn Here the Hebrew word translated “curse” is קָלָל (qalal), used in the Piel verbal stem.

[8:21]  ⁴¹ tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) can be used in a concessive sense (see BDB 473 s.v. כִּי), which makes good sense in this context. Its normal causal sense (“for”) does not fit the context here very well.

[8:21]  ⁴² tn Heb “the inclination of the heart of humankind.”

[8:21]  ⁴³ tn Heb “from his youth.”