Genesis 6:15

6:15 This is how you should make it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. ¹ 

Genesis 12:1

The Obedience of Abram

12:1 Now the Lord said ²  to Abram, ³ 

“Go out ⁴  from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household

to the land that I will show you. ⁵ 

Genesis 15:2

15:2 But Abram said, “O sovereign Lord, ⁶  what will you give me since ⁷  I continue to be ⁸  childless, and my heir ⁹  is ¹⁰  Eliezer of Damascus?” ¹¹ 

Genesis 19:5

19:5 They shouted to Lot, ¹²  “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so we can have sex ¹³  with them!”

Genesis 23:15

23:15 “Hear me, my lord. The land is worth ¹⁴  400 pieces of silver, ¹⁵  but what is that between me and you? So bury your dead.”

Genesis 24:42

24:42 When I came to the spring today, I prayed, ‘O Lord, God of my master Abraham, if you have decided to make my journey successful, ¹⁶  may events unfold as follows: ¹⁷ 

Genesis 27:7

27:7 ‘Bring me some wild game and prepare for me some tasty food. Then I will eat ¹⁸  it and bless you ¹⁹  in the presence of the Lord ²⁰  before I die.’

Genesis 27:38

27:38 Esau said to his father, “Do you have only that one blessing, my father? Bless me too!” ²¹  Then Esau wept loudly. ²² 

Genesis 32:6

32:6 The messengers returned to Jacob and said, “We went to your brother Esau. He is coming to meet you and has four hundred men with him.”

Genesis 32:18

32:18 then you must say, ²³  ‘They belong ²⁴  to your servant Jacob. ²⁵  They have been sent as a gift to my lord Esau. ²⁶  In fact Jacob himself is behind us.’” ²⁷ 

Genesis 33:11

33:11 Please take my present ²⁸  that was brought to you, for God has been generous ²⁹  to me and I have all I need.” ³⁰  When Jacob urged him, he took it. ³¹ 

[6:15]  ¹ tn Heb “300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high.” The standard cubit in the OT is assumed by most authorities to be about 18 inches (45 cm) long.

[12:1]  ² sn The Lord called Abram while he was in Ur (see Gen 15:7; Acts 7:2); but the sequence here makes it look like it was after the family left to migrate to Canaan (11:31-32). Genesis records the call of Abram at this place in the narrative because it is the formal beginning of the account of Abram. The record of Terah was brought to its end before this beginning.

[12:1]  ³ tn The call of Abram begins with an imperative לֶךְ־לְךָ (lekh-lÿkha, “go out”) followed by three cohortatives (v. 2a) indicating purpose or consequence (“that I may” or “then I will”). If Abram leaves, then God will do these three things. The second imperative (v. 2b, literally “and be a blessing”) is subordinated to the preceding cohortatives and indicates God’s ultimate purpose in calling and blessing Abram. On the syntactical structure of vv. 1-2 see R. B. Chisholm, “Evidence from Genesis,” A Case for Premillennialism, 37. For a similar sequence of volitive forms see Gen 45:18.

[12:1]  ⁴ tn The initial command is the direct imperative (לֶךְ, lekh) from the verb הָלַךְ (halakh). It is followed by the lamed preposition with a pronominal suffix (לְךָ, lÿkha) emphasizing the subject of the imperative: “you leave.”

[12:1]  ⁵ sn To the land that I will show you. The call of Abram illustrates the leading of the Lord. The command is to leave. The Lord’s word is very specific about what Abram is to leave (the three prepositional phrases narrow to his father’s household), but is not specific at all about where he is to go. God required faith, a point that Heb 11:8 notes.

[15:2]  ³ tn The Hebrew text has אֲדֹנָי יֱהוִה (’adonay yehvih, “Master, Lord”). Since the tetragrammaton (YHWH) usually is pointed with the vowels for the Hebrew word אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “master”) to avoid pronouncing the divine name, that would lead in this place to a repetition of אֲדֹנָי. So the tetragrammaton is here pointed with the vowels for the word אֱלֹהִים (’elohim, “God”) instead. That would produce the reading of the Hebrew as “Master, God” in the Jewish textual tradition. But the presence of “Master” before the holy name is rather compelling evidence that the original would have been “Master, Lord,” which is rendered here “sovereign Lord.”

[15:2]  ⁴ tn The vav (ו) disjunctive at the beginning of the clause is circumstantial, expressing the cause or reason.

[15:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “I am going.”

[15:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “the son of the acquisition of my house.”

[15:2]  ⁷ tn The pronoun is anaphoric here, equivalent to the verb “to be” (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 23, §115).

[15:2]  ⁸ sn The sentence in the Hebrew text employs a very effective wordplay on the name Damascus: “The son of the acquisition (בֶּן־מֶשֶׁק, ben-mesheq) of my house is Eliezer of Damascus (דַּמֶּשֶׁק, dammesheq).” The words are not the same; they have different sibilants. But the sound play gives the impression that “in the nomen is the omen.” Eliezer the Damascene will be Abram’s heir if Abram dies childless because “Damascus” seems to mean that. See M. F. Unger, “Some Comments on the Text of Genesis 15:2-3,” JBL 72 (1953): 49-50; H. L. Ginsberg, “Abram’s ‘Damascene’ Steward,” BASOR 200 (1970): 31-32.

[19:5]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text adds “and said to him.” This is redundant in English and has not been translated for stylistic reasons.

[19:5]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew verb יָדַע (yada’, “to know”) is used here in the sense of “to lie with” or “to have sex with” (as in Gen 4:1). That this is indeed the meaning is clear from Lot’s warning that they not do so wickedly, and his willingness to give them his daughters instead.

[23:15]  ⁵ tn The word “worth” has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[23:15]  ⁶ sn Four hundred pieces of silver. The standards for weighing money varied considerably in the ancient Near East, but the generally accepted weight for the shekel is 11.5 grams (0.4 ounce). This makes the weight of silver here 4.6 kilograms, or 160 ounces (about 10 pounds).

[24:42]  ⁶ tn Heb “if you are making successful my way on which I am going.”

[24:42]  ⁷ tn The words “may events unfold as follows” are supplied in the translation for clarification and for stylistic reasons.

[27:7]  ⁷ tn Following the imperative, the cohortative (with the prefixed conjunction) indicates purpose or result.

[27:7]  ⁸ tn The cohortative, with the prefixed conjunction, also expresses logical sequence. See vv. 4, 19, 27.

[27:7]  ⁹ tn In her report to Jacob, Rebekah plays down Isaac’s strong desire to bless Esau by leaving out נַפְשִׁי (nafshi, “my soul”), but by adding the phrase “in the presence of the Lord,” she stresses how serious this matter is.

[27:38]  ⁸ tn Heb “Bless me, me also, my father.” The words “my father” have not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[27:38]  ⁹ tn Heb “and Esau lifted his voice and wept.”

[32:18]  ⁹ tn The form is the perfect tense with the vav (ו) consecutive; it has the nuance of an imperfect of instruction.

[32:18]  ¹⁰ tn The words “they belong” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[32:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to your servant, to Jacob.”

[32:18]  ¹² tn Heb “to my lord, to Esau.”

[32:18]  ¹³ tn Heb “and look, also he [is] behind us.” The referent of the pronoun “he” (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[33:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “blessing.” It is as if Jacob is trying to repay what he stole from his brother twenty years earlier.

[33:11]  ¹¹ tn Or “gracious,” but in the specific sense of prosperity.

[33:11]  ¹² tn Heb “all.”

[33:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “and he urged him and he took.” The referent of the first pronoun in the sequence (“he”) has been specified as “Jacob” in the translation for clarity.