Genesis 43:30-31

43:30 Joseph hurried out, for he was overcome by affection for his brother ¹  and was at the point of tears. ²  So he went to his room and wept there.

43:31 Then he washed his face and came out. With composure he said, ³  “Set out the food.”

Isaiah 42:14

42:14 “I have been inactive ⁴  for a long time;

I kept quiet and held back.

Like a woman in labor I groan;

I pant and gasp. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 20:9

20:9 Sometimes I think, “I will make no mention of his message.

I will not speak as his messenger ⁶  any more.”

But then ⁷  his message becomes like a fire

locked up inside of me, burning in my heart and soul. ⁸ 

I grow weary of trying to hold it in;

I cannot contain it.

[43:30]  ¹ tn Heb “for his affection boiled up concerning his brother.” The same expression is used in 1 Kgs 3:26 for the mother’s feelings for her endangered child.

[43:30]  ² tn Heb “and he sought to weep.”

[43:31]  ³ tn Heb “and he controlled himself and said.”

[42:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “silent” (so NASB, NIV, TEV, NLT); CEV “have held my temper.”

[42:14]  ⁵ sn The imagery depicts the Lord as a warrior who is eager to fight and can no longer hold himself back from the attack.

[20:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “speak in his name.” This idiom occurs in passages where someone functions as the messenger under the authority of another. See Exod 5:23; Deut 18:19, 29:20; Jer 14:14. The antecedent in the first line is quite commonly misidentified as being “him,” i.e., the Lord. Comparison, however, with the rest of the context, especially the consequential clause “then it becomes” (וְהָיָה, vÿhayah), and Jer 23:36 shows that it is “the word of the Lord.”

[20:9]  ⁷ tn The English sentence has again been restructured for the sake of English style. The Hebrew construction involves two vav consecutive perfects in a condition and consequence relation, “If I say to myself…then it [his word] becomes.” See GKC 337 §112.kk for the construction.

[20:9]  ⁸ sn Heb “It is in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones.” In addition to standing as part for the whole, the “bones” for the person (e.g., Ps 35:10), the bones were associated with fear (e.g., Job 4:14) and with pain (e.g., Job 33:19, Ps 102:3 [102:4 HT]) and joy or sorrow (e.g., Ps 51:8 [51:10 HT]). As has been mentioned several times, the heart was connected with intellectual and volitional concerns.