Joshua 6:22-23

6:22 Joshua told the two men who had spied on the land, “Enter the prostitute’s house ¹  and bring out the woman and all who belong to her as you promised her.” ²  6:23 So the young spies went and brought out Rahab, her father, mother, brothers, and all who belonged to her. They brought out her whole family and took them to a place outside ³  the Israelite camp.

Joshua 2:4-6

2:4 But the woman hid the two men ⁴  and replied, “Yes, these men were clients of mine, ⁵  but I didn’t know where they came from. 2:5 When it was time to shut the city gate for the night, the men left. ⁶  I don’t know where they were heading. Chase after them quickly, for you have time to catch them!” 2:6 (Now she had taken them up to the roof and had hidden them in the stalks of flax she had spread out ⁷  on the roof.)

Joshua 2:22

2:22 They went ⁸  to the hill country and stayed there for three days, long enough for those chasing them ⁹  to return. Their pursuers ¹⁰  looked all along the way but did not find them. ¹¹ 

Genesis 12:3

12:3 I will bless those who bless you, ¹² 

but the one who treats you lightly ¹³  I must curse,

and all the families of the earth will bless one another ¹⁴  by your name.”

Genesis 12:1

The Obedience of Abram

12:1 Now the Lord said ¹⁵  to Abram, ¹⁶ 

“Go out ¹⁷  from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household

to the land that I will show you. ¹⁸ 

Genesis 15:6

15:6 Abram believed ¹⁹  the Lord, and the Lord ²⁰  considered his response of faith ²¹  as proof of genuine loyalty. ²² 

Matthew 10:41-42

10:41 Whoever receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. Whoever ²³  receives a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 10:42 And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, I tell you the truth, ²⁴  he will never lose his reward.”

Matthew 25:40

25:40 And the king will answer them, ²⁵  ‘I tell you the truth, ²⁶  just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters ²⁷  of mine, you did it for me.’

Hebrews 6:10

6:10 For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love you have demonstrated for his name, in having served and continuing to serve the saints.

Hebrews 11:31

11:31 By faith Rahab the prostitute escaped the destruction of ²⁸  the disobedient, because she welcomed the spies in peace.

James 2:25

2:25 And similarly, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another way?

[6:22]  ¹ tn Heb “the house of the woman, the prostitute.”

[6:22]  ² tn Heb “and bring out from there the woman and all who belong to her as you swore on oath to her.”

[6:23]  ³ tn Or “placed them outside.”

[2:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “The woman took the two men and hid him.” The third masculine singular pronominal suffix on “hid” has to be a scribal error (see GKC §135.p).

[2:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “the men came to me.” See the note on this phrase in v. 3.

[2:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “And the gate was to be shut in the darkness and the men went out.”

[2:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “arranged in rows by her.”

[2:22]  ¹¹ tn Heb “they went and came.”

[2:22]  ¹² tn Heb “the pursuers.” The object (“them”) is added for clarification.

[2:22]  ¹³ tn Heb “the ones chasing them.” This has been rendered as “their pursuers” in the translation to avoid redundancy with the preceding clause.

[2:22]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “The pursuers looked in all the way and did not find [them].”

[12:3]  ¹³ tn The Piel cohortative has as its object a Piel participle, masculine plural. Since the Lord binds himself to Abram by covenant, those who enrich Abram in any way share in the blessings.

[12:3]  ¹⁴ tn In this part of God’s statement there are two significant changes that often go unnoticed. First, the parallel and contrasting participle מְקַלֶּלְךָ (mÿqallelkha) is now singular and not plural. All the versions and a few Masoretic mss read the plural. But if it had been plural, there would be no reason to change it to the singular and alter the parallelism. On the other hand, if it was indeed singular, it is easy to see why the versions would change it to match the first participle. The MT preserves the original reading: “the one who treats you lightly.” The point would be a contrast with the lavish way that God desires to bless many. The second change is in the vocabulary. The English usually says, “I will curse those who curse you.” But there are two different words for curse here. The first is קָלַל (qalal), which means “to be light” in the Qal, and in the Piel “to treat lightly, to treat with contempt, to curse.” The second verb is אָרַר (’arar), which means “to banish, to remove from the blessing.” The point is simple: Whoever treats Abram and the covenant with contempt as worthless God will banish from the blessing. It is important also to note that the verb is not a cohortative, but a simple imperfect. Since God is binding himself to Abram, this would then be an obligatory imperfect: “but the one who treats you with contempt I must curse.”

[12:3]  ¹⁵ 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 on”] 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 12:2 predicts that Abram 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.

[12:1]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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.

[15:6]  ¹⁷ tn The nonconsecutive vav (ו) is on a perfect verbal form. If the composer of the narrative had wanted to show simple sequence, he would have used the vav consecutive with the preterite. The perfect with vav conjunctive (where one expects the preterite with vav consecutive) in narrative contexts can have a variety of discourse functions, but here it probably serves to highlight Abram’s response to God’s promise. For a detailed discussion of the vav + perfect construction in Hebrew narrative, see R. Longacre, “Weqatal Forms in Biblical Hebrew Prose: A Discourse-modular Approach,” Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics, 50-98. The Hebrew verb אָמַן (’aman) means “to confirm, to support” in the Qal verbal stem. Its derivative nouns refer to something or someone that/who provides support, such as a “pillar,” “nurse,” or “guardian, trustee.” In the Niphal stem it comes to mean “to be faithful, to be reliable, to be dependable,” or “to be firm, to be sure.” In the Hiphil, the form used here, it takes on a declarative sense: “to consider something reliable [or “dependable”].” Abram regarded the God who made this promise as reliable and fully capable of making it a reality.

[15:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[15:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and he reckoned it to him.” The third feminine singular pronominal suffix refers back to Abram’s act of faith, mentioned in the preceding clause. On third feminine singular pronouns referring back to verbal ideas see GKC 440-41 §135.p. Some propose taking the suffix as proleptic, anticipating the following feminine noun (“righteousness”). In this case one might translate: “and he reckoned it to him – [namely] righteousness.” See O. P. Robertson, “Genesis 15:6: A New Covenant Exposition of an Old Covenant Text,” WTJ 42 (1980): 259-89.

[15:6]  ²⁰ tn Or “righteousness”; or “evidence of steadfast commitment.” The noun is an adverbial accusative. The verb translated “considered” (Heb “reckoned”) also appears with צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah, “righteousness”) in Ps 106:31. Alluding to the events recorded in Numbers 25, the psalmist notes that Phinehas’ actions were “credited to him as righteousness for endless generations to come.” Reference is made to the unconditional, eternal covenant with which God rewarded Phinehas’ loyalty (Num 25:12-13). So צְדָקָה seems to carry by metonymy the meaning “loyal, rewardable behavior” here, a nuance that fits nicely in Genesis 15, where God responds to Abram’s faith by formally ratifying his promise to give Abram and his descendants the land. (See R. B. Chisholm, “Evidence from Genesis,” A Case for Premillennialism, 40.) In Phoenician and Old Aramaic inscriptions cognate nouns glossed as “correct, justifiable conduct” sometimes carry this same semantic nuance (DNWSI 2:962).

[10:41]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “And whoever.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[10:42]  ²¹ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

[25:40]  ²³ tn Grk “answering, the king will say to them.” This is somewhat redundant and has been simplified in the translation.

[25:40]  ²⁴ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

[25:40]  ²⁵ tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited). In this context Jesus is ultimately speaking of his “followers” (whether men or women, adults or children), but the familial connotation of “brothers and sisters” is also important to retain here.

[11:31]  ²⁵ tn Grk “did not perish together with.”