Genesis 30:22-24

30:22 Then God took note of ¹  Rachel. He paid attention to her and enabled her to become pregnant. ²  30:23 She became pregnant ³  and gave birth to a son. Then she said, “God has taken away my shame.” ⁴  30:24 She named him Joseph, ⁵  saying, “May the Lord give me yet another son.”

Genesis 35:17-18

35:17 When her labor was at its hardest, ⁶  the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid, for you are having another son.” ⁷  35:18 With her dying breath, ⁸  she named him Ben-Oni. ⁹  But his father called him Benjamin instead. ¹⁰ 

[30:22]  ¹ tn Heb “remembered.”

[30:22]  ² tn Heb “and God listened to her and opened up her womb.” Since “God” is the subject of the previous clause, the noun has been replaced by the pronoun “he” in the translation for stylistic reasons

[30:23]  ³ tn Or “conceived.”

[30:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “my reproach.” A “reproach” is a cutting taunt or painful ridicule, but here it probably refers by metonymy to Rachel’s barren condition, which was considered shameful in this culture and was the reason why she was the object of taunting and ridicule.

[30:24]  ⁵ sn The name Joseph (יוֹסֵף, yoseph) means “may he add.” The name expresses Rachel’s desire to have an additional son. In Hebrew the name sounds like the verb (אָסַף,’asasf) translated “taken away” in the earlier statement made in v. 23. So the name, while reflecting Rachel’s hope, was also a reminder that God had removed her shame.

[35:17]  ⁶ tn The construction uses a Hiphil infinitive, which E. A. Speiser classifies as an elative Hiphil. The contrast is with the previous Piel: there “she had hard labor,” and here, “her labor was at its hardest.” Failure to see this, Speiser notes, has led to redundant translations and misunderstandings (Genesis [AB], 273).

[35:17]  ⁷ sn Another son. The episode recalls and fulfills the prayer of Rachel at the birth of Joseph (Gen 30:24): “may he add” another son.

[35:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “in the going out of her life, for she was dying.” Rachel named the child with her dying breath.

[35:18]  ⁹ sn The name Ben-Oni means “son of my suffering.” It is ironic that Rachel’s words to Jacob in Gen 30:1, “Give me children or I’ll die,” take a different turn here, for it was having the child that brought about her death.

[35:18]  ¹⁰ tn The disjunctive clause is contrastive.