Genesis 37:4

37:4 When Joseph’s ¹  brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, ²  they hated Joseph ³  and were not able to speak to him kindly. ⁴ 

Genesis 37:18

37:18 Now Joseph’s brothers ⁵  saw him from a distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

Genesis 37:24

37:24 Then they took him and threw him into the cistern. (Now the cistern was empty; ⁶  there was no water in it.)

Genesis 37:28

37:28 So when the Midianite ⁷  merchants passed by, Joseph’s brothers pulled ⁸  him ⁹  out of the cistern and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. The Ishmaelites ¹⁰  then took Joseph to Egypt.

Genesis 39:7-20

39:7 Soon after these things, his master’s wife took notice of ¹¹  Joseph and said, “Have sex with me.” ¹²  39:8 But he refused, saying ¹³  to his master’s wife, “Look, my master does not give any thought ¹⁴  to his household with me here, ¹⁵  and everything that he owns he has put into my care. ¹⁶  39:9 There is no one greater in this household than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife. So how could I do ¹⁷  such a great evil and sin against God?” 39:10 Even though she continued to speak ¹⁸  to Joseph day after day, he did not respond ¹⁹  to her invitation to have sex with her. ²⁰ 

39:11 One day ²¹  he went into the house to do his work when none of the household servants ²²  were there in the house. 39:12 She grabbed him by his outer garment, saying, “Have sex with me!” But he left his outer garment in her hand and ran ²³  outside. ²⁴  39:13 When she saw that he had left his outer garment in her hand and had run outside, 39:14 she called for her household servants and said to them, “See, my husband brought ²⁵  in a Hebrew man ²⁶  to us to humiliate us. ²⁷  He tried to have sex with me, ²⁸  but I screamed loudly. ²⁹  39:15 When he heard me raise ³⁰  my voice and scream, he left his outer garment beside me and ran outside.”

39:16 So she laid his outer garment beside her until his master came home. 39:17 This is what she said to him: ³¹  “That Hebrew slave ³²  you brought to us tried to humiliate me, ³³  39:18 but when I raised my voice and screamed, he left his outer garment and ran outside.”

39:19 When his master heard his wife say, ³⁴  “This is the way ³⁵  your slave treated me,” ³⁶  he became furious. ³⁷  39:20 Joseph’s master took him and threw him into the prison, ³⁸  the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. So he was there in the prison. ³⁹ 

Genesis 42:21

42:21 They said to one other, ⁴⁰  “Surely we’re being punished ⁴¹  because of our brother, because we saw how distressed he was ⁴²  when he cried to us for mercy, but we refused to listen. That is why this distress ⁴³  has come on us!”

Psalms 64:3

64:3 They ⁴⁴  sharpen their tongues like a sword;

they aim their arrow, a slanderous charge, ⁴⁵ 

Psalms 118:13

118:13 “You aggressively attacked me ⁴⁶  and tried to knock me down, ⁴⁷ 

but the Lord helped me.

John 16:33

16:33 I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble and suffering, ⁴⁸  but take courage ⁴⁹  – I have conquered the world.” ⁵⁰ 

Acts 14:22

14:22 They strengthened ⁵¹  the souls of the disciples and encouraged them to continue ⁵²  in the faith, saying, “We must enter the kingdom ⁵³  of God through many persecutions.” ⁵⁴ 

[37:4]  ¹ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[37:4]  ² tn Heb “of his brothers.” This is redundant in contemporary English and has been replaced in the translation by the pronoun “them.”

[37:4]  ³ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[37:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “speak to him for peace.”

[37:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “and they”; the referent (Joseph’s brothers) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[37:24]  ⁶ tn The disjunctive clause gives supplemental information that helps the reader or hearer to picture what happened.

[37:28]  ⁷ sn On the close relationship between Ishmaelites (v. 25) and Midianites, see Judg 8:24.

[37:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “they drew and they lifted up.” The referent (Joseph’s brothers) has been specified in the translation for clarity; otherwise the reader might assume the Midianites had pulled Joseph from the cistern (but cf. NAB).

[37:28]  ⁹ tn Heb “Joseph” (both here and in the following clause); the proper name has been replaced both times by the pronoun “him” in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[37:28]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Ishmaelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[39:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “she lifted up her eyes toward,” an expression that emphasizes her deliberate and careful scrutiny of him.

[39:7]  ¹² tn Heb “lie with me.” Here the expression “lie with” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.

[39:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “and he said.”

[39:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “know.”

[39:8]  ¹⁵ tn The word “here” has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[39:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “hand.” This is a metonymy for being under the control or care of Joseph.

[39:9]  ¹⁷ tn The nuance of potential imperfect fits this context.

[39:10]  ¹⁸ tn The verse begins with the temporal indicator, followed by the infinitive construct with the preposition כְּ (kÿ). This clause could therefore be taken as temporal.

[39:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “listen to.”

[39:10]  ²⁰ tn Heb “to lie beside her to be with her.” Here the expression “to lie beside” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.

[39:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “and it was about this day.”

[39:11]  ²² tn Heb “the men of the house.”

[39:12]  ²³ tn Heb “he fled and he went out.” The construction emphasizes the point that Joseph got out of there quickly.

[39:12]  ²⁴ sn For discussion of this episode, see A. M. Honeyman, “The Occasion of Joseph’s Temptation,” VT 2 (1952): 85-87.

[39:14]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ sn A Hebrew man. Potiphar’s wife raises the ethnic issue when talking to her servants about what their boss had done.

[39:14]  ²⁷ 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]  ²⁸ tn Heb “he came to me to lie with me.” Here the expression “lie with” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.

[39:14]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and I cried out with a loud voice.”

[39:15]  ³⁰ tn Heb “that I raised.”

[39:17]  ³¹ tn Heb “and she spoke to him according to these words, saying.”

[39:17]  ³² sn That Hebrew slave. Now, when speaking to her husband, Potiphar’s wife refers to Joseph as a Hebrew slave, a very demeaning description.

[39:17]  ³³ tn Heb “came to me to make fun of me.” The statement needs no explanation because of the connotations of “came to me” and “to make fun of me.” See the note on the expression “humiliate us” in v. 14.

[39:19]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and when his master heard the words of his wife which she spoke to him, saying.”

[39:19]  ³⁵ tn Heb “according to these words.”

[39:19]  ³⁶ tn Heb “did to me.”

[39:19]  ³⁷ tn Heb “his anger burned.”

[39:20]  ³⁸ tn Heb “the house of roundness,” suggesting that the prison might have been a fortress or citadel.

[39:20]  ³⁹ sn The story of Joseph is filled with cycles and repetition: He has two dreams (chap. 37), he interprets two dreams in prison (chap. 40) and the two dreams of Pharaoh (chap. 41), his brothers make two trips to see him (chaps. 42-43), and here, for the second time (see 37:24), he is imprisoned for no good reason, with only his coat being used as evidence. For further discussion see H. Jacobsen, “A Legal Note on Potiphar’s Wife,” HTR 69 (1976): 177.

[42:21]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “a man to his neighbor.”

[42:21]  ⁴¹ tn Or “we are guilty”; the Hebrew word can also refer to the effect of being guilty, i.e., “we are being punished for guilt.”

[42:21]  ⁴² tn Heb “the distress of his soul.”

[42:21]  ⁴³ sn The repetition of the Hebrew noun translated distress draws attention to the fact that they regard their present distress as appropriate punishment for their refusal to ignore their brother when he was in distress.

[64:3]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “who.” A new sentence was started here in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[64:3]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “a bitter word.”

[118:13]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “pushing, you pushed me.” The infinitive absolute emphasizes the following verbal idea. The psalmist appears to address the nations as if they were an individual enemy. Some find this problematic and emend the verb form (which is a Qal perfect second masculine singular with a first person singular suffix) to נִדְחֵיתִי (nidkheti), a Niphal perfect first common singular, “I was pushed.”

[118:13]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “to fall,” i.e., “that [I] might fall.”

[16:33]  ⁴⁸ tn The one Greek term θλῖψις (qliyis) has been translated by an English hendiadys (two terms that combine for one meaning) “trouble and suffering.” For modern English readers “tribulation” is no longer clearly understandable.

[16:33]  ⁴⁹ tn Or “but be courageous.”

[16:33]  ⁵⁰ tn Or “I am victorious over the world,” or “I have overcome the world.”

[14:22]  ⁵¹ tn Grk “to Antioch, strengthening.” Due to the length of the Greek sentence and the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences, a new sentence was started here. This participle (ἐπιστηρίζοντες, episthrizonte") and the following one (παρακαλοῦντες, parakalounte") have been translated as finite verbs connected by the coordinating conjunction “and.”

[14:22]  ⁵² sn And encouraged them to continue. The exhortations are like those noted in Acts 11:23; 13:43. An example of such a speech is found in Acts 20:18-35. Christianity is now characterized as “the faith.”

[14:22]  ⁵³ sn This reference to the kingdom of God clearly refers to its future arrival.

[14:22]  ⁵⁴ tn Or “sufferings.”