Genesis 4:13

4:13 Then Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment ¹  is too great to endure! ² 

Genesis 12:2

12:2 Then I will make you ³  into a great nation, and I will bless you, ⁴ 

and I will make your name great, ⁵ 

so that you will exemplify divine blessing. ⁶ 

Genesis 15:14

15:14 But I will execute judgment on the nation that they will serve. ⁷  Afterward they will come out with many possessions.

Genesis 18:18

18:18 After all, Abraham ⁸  will surely become ⁹  a great and powerful nation, and all the nations on the earth will pronounce blessings on one another ¹⁰  using his name.

Genesis 21:8

21:8 The child grew and was weaned. Abraham prepared ¹¹  a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. ¹² 

Genesis 21:18

21:18 Get up! Help the boy up and hold him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

Genesis 41:29

41:29 Seven years of great abundance are coming throughout the whole land of Egypt.

Genesis 17:20

17:20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you. ¹³  I will indeed bless him, make him fruitful, and give him a multitude of descendants. ¹⁴  He will become the father of twelve princes; ¹⁵  I will make him into a great nation.

Genesis 19:11

19:11 Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, from the youngest to the oldest, ¹⁶  with blindness. The men outside ¹⁷  wore themselves out trying to find the door.

Genesis 29:7

29:7 Then Jacob ¹⁸  said, “Since it is still the middle of the day, ¹⁹  it is not time for the flocks to be gathered. You should water the sheep and then go and let them graze some more.” ²⁰ 

Genesis 46:3

46:3 He said, “I am God, ²¹  the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there.

Genesis 50:10

50:10 When they came to the threshing floor of Atad ²²  on the other side of the Jordan, they mourned there with very great and bitter sorrow. ²³  There Joseph observed a seven day period of mourning for his father.

Genesis 39:9

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 ²⁴  such a great evil and sin against God?”

Genesis 39:14

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 

[4:13]  ¹ tn The primary meaning of the Hebrew word עָוֹן (’avon) is “sin, iniquity.” But by metonymy it can refer to the “guilt” of sin, or to “punishment” for sin. The third meaning applies here. Just before this the Lord announces the punishment for Cain’s actions, and right after this statement Cain complains of the severity of the punishment. Cain is not portrayed as repenting of his sin.

[4:13]  ² tn Heb “great is my punishment from bearing.” The preposition מִן (min, “from”) is used here in a comparative sense.

[12:2]  ³ tn The three first person verbs in v. 2a should be classified as cohortatives. The first two have pronominal suffixes, so the form itself does not indicate a cohortative. The third verb form is clearly cohortative.

[12:2]  ⁴ sn I will bless you. The blessing of creation is now carried forward to the patriarch. In the garden God blessed Adam and Eve; in that blessing he gave them (1) a fruitful place, (2) endowed them with fertility to multiply, and (3) made them rulers over creation. That was all ruined at the fall. Now God begins to build his covenant people; in Gen 12-22 he promises to give Abram (1) a land flowing with milk and honey, (2) a great nation without number, and (3) kingship.

[12:2]  ⁵ tn Or “I will make you famous.”

[12:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “and be a blessing.” The verb form הְיֵה (hÿyeh) is the Qal imperative of the verb הָיָה (hayah). The vav (ו) with the imperative after the cohortatives indicates purpose or consequence. What does it mean for Abram to “be a blessing”? Will he be a channel or source of blessing for others, or a prime example of divine blessing? A similar statement occurs in Zech 8:13, where God assures his people, “You will be a blessing,” in contrast to the past when they “were a curse.” Certainly “curse” here does not refer to Israel being a source of a curse, but rather to the fact that they became a curse-word or byword among the nations, who regarded them as the epitome of an accursed people (see 2 Kgs 22:19; Jer 42:18; 44:8, 12, 22). Therefore the statement “be a blessing” seems to refer to Israel being transformed into a prime example of a blessed people, whose name will be used in blessing formulae, rather than in curses. If the statement “be a blessing” is understood in the same way in Gen 12:2, then it means that God would so bless Abram that other nations would hear of his fame and hold him up as a paradigm of divine blessing in their blessing formulae.

[15:14]  ⁵ tn The participle דָּן (dan, from דִּין, din) is used here for the future: “I am judging” = “I will surely judge.” The judgment in this case will be condemnation and punishment. The translation “execute judgment on” implies that the judgment will certainly be carried out.

[18:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “And Abraham.” The disjunctive clause is probably causal, giving a reason why God should not hide his intentions from Abraham. One could translate, “Should I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation?”

[18:18]  ⁸ tn The infinitive absolute lends emphasis to the finite verb that follows.

[18:18]  ⁹ tn Theoretically the Niphal can be translated either as passive or reflexive/reciprocal. (The Niphal of “bless” is only used in formulations of the Abrahamic covenant. See Gen 12:2; 18:18; 28:14.) Traditionally the verb is taken as passive here, as if Abram were going to be a channel or source of blessing. But in later formulations of the Abrahamic covenant (see Gen 22:18; 26:4) the Hitpael replaces this Niphal form, suggesting a translation “will bless [i.e., “pronounce blessings upon”] themselves [or “one another”].” The Hitpael of “bless” is used with a reflexive/reciprocal sense in Deut 29:18; Ps 72:17; Isa 65:16; Jer 4:2. Gen 18:18 (like 12:2) predicts that Abraham will be held up as a paradigm of divine blessing and that people will use his name in their blessing formulae. For examples of blessing formulae utilizing an individual as an example of blessing see Gen 48:20 and Ruth 4:11.

[21:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “made.”

[21:8]  ¹⁰ sn Children were weaned closer to the age of two or three in the ancient world, because infant mortality was high. If an infant grew to this stage, it was fairly certain he or she would live. Such an event called for a celebration, especially for parents who had waited so long for a child.

[17:20]  ¹¹ sn The Hebrew verb translated “I have heard you” forms a wordplay with the name Ishmael, which means “God hears.” See the note on the name “Ishmael” in 16:11.

[17:20]  ¹² tn Heb “And I will multiply him exceedingly, exceedingly.” The repetition is emphatic.

[17:20]  ¹³ tn For a discussion of the Hebrew word translated “princes,” see E. A. Speiser, “Background and Function of the Biblical Nasi’,” CBQ 25 (1963): 111-17.

[19:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “from the least to the greatest.”

[19:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the men of Sodom outside the door) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[29:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[29:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the day is great.”

[29:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “water the sheep and go and pasture [them].” The verbal forms are imperatives, but Jacob would hardly be giving direct orders to someone else’s shepherds. The nuance here is probably one of advice.

[46:3]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the God.”

[50:10]  ¹⁹ sn The location of the threshing floor of Atad is not certain. The expression the other side of the Jordan could refer to the eastern or western bank, depending on one’s perspective. However, it is commonly used in the OT for Transjordan. This would suggest that the entourage came up the Jordan Valley and crossed into the land at Jericho, just as the Israelites would in the time of Joshua.

[50:10]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and they mourned there [with] very great and heavy mourning.” The cognate accusative, as well as the two adjectives and the adverb, emphasize the degree of their sorrow.

[39:9]  ²¹ tn The nuance of potential imperfect fits this context.

[39:14]  ²³ 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]  ²⁴ sn A Hebrew man. Potiphar’s wife raises the ethnic issue when talking to her servants about what their boss had done.

[39:14]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ tn Heb “he came to me to lie with me.” Here the expression “lie with” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.

[39:14]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and I cried out with a loud voice.”