Genesis 3:6

3:6 When ¹  the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, ²  was attractive ³  to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, ⁴  she took some of its fruit and ate it. ⁵  She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. ⁶ 

Genesis 13:14

13:14 After Lot had departed, the Lord said to Abram, ⁷  “Look ⁸  from the place where you stand to the north, south, east, and west.

Genesis 18:25

18:25 Far be it from you to do such a thing – to kill the godly with the wicked, treating the godly and the wicked alike! Far be it from you! Will not the judge ⁹  of the whole earth do what is right?” ¹⁰ 

Genesis 19:34

19:34 So in the morning the older daughter ¹¹  said to the younger, “Since I had sexual relations with my father last night, let’s make him drunk again tonight. ¹²  Then you go and have sexual relations with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” ¹³ 

Genesis 24:14

24:14 I will say to a young woman, ‘Please lower your jar so I may drink.’ May the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac reply, ‘Drink, and I’ll give your camels water too.’ ¹⁴  In this way I will know that you have been faithful to my master.” ¹⁵ 

Genesis 24:27

24:27 saying “Praised be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned his faithful love ¹⁶  for my master! The Lord has led me ¹⁷  to the house ¹⁸  of my master’s relatives!” ¹⁹ 

Genesis 26:3

26:3 Stay ²⁰  in this land. Then I will be with you and will bless you, ²¹  for I will give all these lands to you and to your descendants, ²²  and I will fulfill ²³  the solemn promise I made ²⁴  to your father Abraham.

Genesis 28:15

28:15 I am with you! ²⁵  I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you!”

Genesis 30:15-16

30:15 But Leah replied, ²⁶  “Wasn’t it enough that you’ve taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes too?” “All right,” ²⁷  Rachel said, “he may sleep ²⁸  with you tonight in exchange for your son’s mandrakes.” 30:16 When Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, “You must sleep ²⁹  with me because I have paid for your services ³⁰  with my son’s mandrakes.” So he had marital relations ³¹  with her that night.

Genesis 31:32

31:32 Whoever has taken your gods will be put to death! ³²  In the presence of our relatives ³³  identify whatever is yours and take it.” ³⁴  (Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.) ³⁵ 

Genesis 33:1

Jacob Meets Esau

33:1 Jacob looked up ³⁶  and saw that Esau was coming ³⁷  along with four hundred men. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two female servants.

Genesis 35:4

35:4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods that were in their possession ³⁸  and the rings that were in their ears. ³⁹  Jacob buried them ⁴⁰  under the oak ⁴¹  near Shechem

Genesis 39:14

39:14 she called for her household servants and said to them, “See, my husband brought ⁴²  in a Hebrew man ⁴³  to us to humiliate us. ⁴⁴  He tried to have sex with me, ⁴⁵  but I screamed loudly. ⁴⁶ 

Genesis 42:38

42:38 But Jacob ⁴⁷  replied, “My son will not go down there with you, for his brother is dead and he alone is left. ⁴⁸  If an accident happens to him on the journey you have to make, then you will bring down my gray hair ⁴⁹  in sorrow to the grave.” ⁵⁰ 

[3:6]  ¹ tn Heb “And the woman saw.” The clause can be rendered as a temporal clause subordinate to the following verb in the sequence.

[3:6]  ² tn Heb “that the tree was good for food.” The words “produced fruit that was” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.

[3:6]  ³ tn The Hebrew word תַּאֲוָה (ta’avah, translated “attractive” here) actually means “desirable.” This term and the later term נֶחְמָד (nekhmad, “desirable”) are synonyms.

[3:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “that good was the tree for food, and that desirable it was to the eyes, and desirable was the tree to make one wise.” On the connection between moral wisdom and the “knowledge of good and evil,” see the note on the word “evil” in 2:9.

[3:6]  ⁵ tn The pronoun “it” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied (here and also after “ate” at the end of this verse) for stylistic reasons.

[3:6]  ⁶ sn This pericope (3:1-7) is a fine example of Hebrew narrative structure. After an introductory disjunctive clause that introduces a new character and sets the stage (3:1), the narrative tension develops through dialogue, culminating in the action of the story. Once the dialogue is over, the action is told in a rapid sequence of verbs – she took, she ate, she gave, and he ate.

[13:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “and the Lord said to Abram after Lot separated himself from with him.” The disjunctive clause at the beginning of the verse signals a new scene.

[13:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “lift up your eyes and see.”

[18:25]  ¹³ tn Or “ruler.”

[18:25]  ¹⁴ sn Will not the judge of the whole earth do what is right? For discussion of this text see J. L. Crenshaw, “Popular Questioning of the Justice of God in Ancient Israel,” ZAW 82 (1970): 380-95, and C. S. Rodd, “Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do What Is Just?” ExpTim 83 (1972): 137-39.

[19:34]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the firstborn.”

[19:34]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Look, I lied down with my father. Let’s make him drink wine again tonight.”

[19:34]  ²¹ tn Heb “And go, lie down with him and we will keep alive from our father descendants.”

[24:14]  ²⁵ sn I will also give your camels water. It would be an enormous test for a young woman to water ten camels. The idea is that such a woman would not only be industrious but hospitable and generous.

[24:14]  ²⁶ tn Heb “And let the young woman to whom I say, ‘Lower your jar that I may drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink and I will also give your camels water,’ – her you have appointed for your servant, for Isaac, and by it I will know that you have acted in faithfulness with my master.”

[24:27]  ³¹ tn Heb “his faithfulness and his commitment.”

[24:27]  ³² tn Heb “As for me – in the way the Lord led me.”

[24:27]  ³³ tn Here “house” is an adverbial accusative of termination.

[24:27]  ³⁴ tn Heb “brothers.”

[26:3]  ³⁷ tn The Hebrew verb גּוּר (gur) means “to live temporarily without ownership of land.” Abraham’s family will not actually possess the land of Canaan until the Israelite conquest hundreds of years later.

[26:3]  ³⁸ tn After the imperative “stay” the two prefixed verb forms with prefixed conjunction here indicate consequence.

[26:3]  ³⁹ tn The Hebrew term זֶרַע (zera’) occurring here and in v. 18 may mean “seed” (for planting), “offspring” (occasionally of animals, but usually of people), or “descendants” depending on the context.

[26:3]  ⁴⁰ tn The Hiphil stem of the verb קוּם (qum) here means “to fulfill, to bring to realization.” For other examples of this use of this verb form, see Lev 26:9; Num 23:19; Deut 8:18; 9:5; 1 Sam 1:23; 1 Kgs 6:12; Jer 11:5.

[26:3]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “the oath which I swore.”

[28:15]  ⁴³ tn Heb “Look, I [am] with you.” The clause is a nominal clause; the verb to be supplied could be present (as in the translation) or future, “Look, I [will be] with you” (cf. NEB).

[30:15]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “and she said to her”; the referent of the pronoun “she” (Leah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[30:15]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “therefore.”

[30:15]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “lie down.” The expression “lie down with” in this context (here and in the following verse) refers to sexual intercourse. The imperfect verbal form has a permissive nuance here.

[30:16]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “must come in to me.” The imperfect verbal form has an obligatory nuance here. She has acquired him for the night and feels he is obligated to have sexual relations with her.

[30:16]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “I have surely hired.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verbal form for emphasis. The name Issachar (see v. 18) seems to be related to this expression.

[30:16]  ⁵⁷ tn This is the same Hebrew verb (שָׁכַב, shakhav) translated “sleep with” in v. 15. In direct discourse the more euphemistic “sleep with” was used, but here in the narrative “marital relations” reflects more clearly the emphasis on sexual intercourse.

[31:32]  ⁶¹ tn Heb “With whomever you find your gods, he will not live.”

[31:32]  ⁶² tn Heb “brothers.”

[31:32]  ⁶³ tn Heb “recognize for yourself what is with me and take for yourself.”

[31:32]  ⁶⁴ tn The disjunctive clause (introduced here by a vav [ו] conjunction) provides supplemental material that is important to the story. Since this material is parenthetical in nature, it has been placed in parentheses in the translation.

[33:1]  ⁶⁷ tn Heb “and Jacob lifted up his eyes.”

[33:1]  ⁶⁸ tn Or “and look, Esau was coming.” By the use of the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”), the narrator invites the reader to view the scene through Jacob’s eyes.

[35:4]  ⁷³ tn Heb “in their hand.”

[35:4]  ⁷⁴ sn On the basis of a comparison with Gen 34 and Num 31, G. J. Wenham argues that the foreign gods and the rings could have been part of the plunder that came from the destruction of Shechem (Genesis [WBC], 2:324).

[35:4]  ⁷⁵ sn Jacob buried them. On the burial of the gods, see E. Nielson, “The Burial of the Foreign Gods,” ST 8 (1954/55): 102-22.

[35:4]  ⁷⁶ tn Or “terebinth.”

[39:14]  ⁷⁹ 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]  ⁸⁰ sn A Hebrew man. Potiphar’s wife raises the ethnic issue when talking to her servants about what their boss had done.

[39:14]  ⁸¹ 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]  ⁸² tn Heb “he came to me to lie with me.” Here the expression “lie with” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.

[39:14]  ⁸³ tn Heb “and I cried out with a loud voice.”

[42:38]  ⁸⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[42:38]  ⁸⁶ sn The expression he alone is left meant that (so far as Jacob knew) Benjamin was the only surviving child of his mother Rachel.

[42:38]  ⁸⁷ sn The expression bring down my gray hair is figurative, using a part for the whole – they would put Jacob in the grave. But the gray head signifies a long life of worry and trouble.

[42:38]  ⁸⁸ tn Heb “to Sheol,” the dwelling place of the dead.