Psalms 145:15-16

145:15 Everything looks to you in anticipation, ¹ 

and you provide them with food on a regular basis. ² 

145:16 You open your hand,

and fill every living thing with the food they desire. ³ 

Psalms 147:8-9

147:8 He covers ⁴  the sky with clouds,

provides the earth with rain,

and causes grass to grow on the hillsides. ⁵ 

147:9 He gives food to the animals,

and to the young ravens when they chirp. ⁶ 

Genesis 1:11-12

1:11 God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: ⁷  plants yielding seeds according to their kinds, ⁸  and ⁹  trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” It was so. 1:12 The land produced vegetation – plants yielding seeds according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:29

1:29 Then God said, “I now ¹⁰  give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the entire earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ¹¹ 

Genesis 2:5

2:5 Now ¹²  no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field ¹³  had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. ¹⁴ 

Genesis 2:1

2:1 The heavens and the earth ¹⁵  were completed with everything that was in them. ¹⁶ 

Genesis 18:5

18:5 And let me get ¹⁷  a bit of food ¹⁸  so that you may refresh yourselves ¹⁹  since you have passed by your servant’s home. After that you may be on your way.” ²⁰  “All right,” they replied, “you may do as you say.”

Jeremiah 14:5-6

14:5 Even the doe abandons her newborn fawn ²¹  in the field

because there is no grass.

14:6 Wild donkeys stand on the hilltops

and pant for breath like jackals.

Their eyes are strained looking for food,

because there is none to be found.” ²² 

Joel 2:22

2:22 Do not fear, wild animals! ²³ 

For the pastures of the wilderness are again green with grass.

Indeed, the trees bear their fruit;

the fig tree and the vine yield to their fullest. ²⁴ 

[145:15]  ¹ tn Heb “the eyes of all wait for you.”

[145:15]  ² tn Heb “and you give to them their food in its season” (see Ps 104:27).

[145:16]  ³ tn Heb “[with what they] desire.”

[147:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “the one who covers.”

[147:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “hills.”

[147:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “which cry out.”

[1:11]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew construction employs a cognate accusative, where the nominal object (“vegetation”) derives from the verbal root employed. It stresses the abundant productivity that God created.

[1:11]  ⁸ sn After their kinds. The Hebrew word translated “kind” (מִין, min) indicates again that God was concerned with defining and dividing time, space, and species. The point is that creation was with order, as opposed to chaos. And what God created and distinguished with boundaries was not to be confused (see Lev 19:19 and Deut 22:9-11).

[1:11]  ⁹ tn The conjunction “and” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation to clarify the relationship of the clauses.

[1:29]  ¹⁰ tn The text uses הִנֵּה (hinneh), often archaically translated “behold.” It is often used to express the dramatic present, the immediacy of an event – “Look, this is what I am doing!”

[1:29]  ¹¹ sn G. J. Wenham (Genesis [WBC], 1:34) points out that there is nothing in the passage that prohibits the man and the woman from eating meat. He suggests that eating meat came after the fall. Gen 9:3 may then ratify the postfall practice of eating meat rather than inaugurate the practice, as is often understood.

[2:5]  ¹² tn Heb “Now every sprig of the field before it was.” The verb forms, although appearing to be imperfects, are technically preterites coming after the adverb טֶּרֶם (terem). The word order (conjunction + subject + predicate) indicates a disjunctive clause, which provides background information for the following narrative (as in 1:2). Two negative clauses are given (“before any sprig…”, and “before any cultivated grain” existed), followed by two causal clauses explaining them, and then a positive circumstantial clause is given – again dealing with water as in 1:2 (water would well up).

[2:5]  ¹³ tn The first term, שִׂיחַ (siakh), probably refers to the wild, uncultivated plants (see Gen 21:15; Job 30:4,7); whereas the second, עֵשֶׂב (’esev), refers to cultivated grains. It is a way of saying: “back before anything was growing.”

[2:5]  ¹⁴ tn The two causal clauses explain the first two disjunctive clauses: There was no uncultivated, general growth because there was no rain, and there were no grains because there was no man to cultivate the soil.

[2:1]  ¹⁵ tn See the note on the phrase “the heavens and the earth” in 1:1.

[2:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and all the host of them.” Here the “host” refers to all the entities and creatures that God created to populate the world.

[18:5]  ¹⁷ tn The Qal cohortative here probably has the nuance of polite request.

[18:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “a piece of bread.” The Hebrew word לֶחֶם (lekhem) can refer either to bread specifically or to food in general. Based on Abraham’s directions to Sarah in v. 6, bread was certainly involved, but v. 7 indicates that Abraham had a more elaborate meal in mind.

[18:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “strengthen your heart.” The imperative after the cohortative indicates purpose here.

[18:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “so that you may refresh yourselves, after [which] you may be on your way – for therefore you passed by near your servant.”

[14:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “she gives birth and abandons.”

[14:6]  ²² tn Heb “their eyes are strained because there is no verdure.”

[2:22]  ²³ tn Heb “beasts of the field.”

[2:22]  ²⁴ tn Heb “their strength.” The trees and vines will produce a maximum harvest, in contrast to the failed agricultural conditions previously described.