1 tn Heb “he called to,” meaning “he named.”
sn God called. Seven times in this chapter naming or blessing follows some act of creation. There is clearly a point being made beyond the obvious idea of naming. In the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish, naming is equal to creating. In the Bible the act of naming, like creating, can be an indication of sovereignty (see 2 Kgs 23:34). In this verse God is sovereign even over the darkness.
2 tn Heb “and the darkness he called night.” The words “he called” have not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.
3 tn Another option is to translate, “Evening came, and then morning came.” This formula closes the six days of creation. It seems to follow the Jewish order of reckoning time: from evening to morning. Day one started with the dark, continued through the creation of light, and ended with nightfall. Another alternative would be to translate, “There was night and then there was day, one day.”
sn The first day. The exegetical evidence suggests the word “day” in this chapter refers to a literal twenty-four hour day. It is true that the word can refer to a longer period of time (see Isa 61:2, or the idiom in 2:4, “in the day,” that is, “when”). But this chapter uses “day,” “night,” “morning,” “evening,” “years,” and “seasons.” Consistency would require sorting out how all these terms could be used to express ages. Also, when the Hebrew word יוֹם (yom) is used with a numerical adjective, it refers to a literal day. Furthermore, the commandment to keep the sabbath clearly favors this interpretation. One is to work for six days and then rest on the seventh, just as God did when he worked at creation.
4 tn Heb “and she said, ‘We have plenty of both straw and feed.’” The order of the introductory clause has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.
5 tn Heb The words “for you” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.
6 tn Or “by drought.”
7 tn Heb “frost, ice,” though when contrasted with the חֹרֶב (khorev, “drought, parching heat”) of the day, “piercing cold” is more appropriate as a contrast.
8 tn Heb “and my sleep fled from my eyes.”
9 tn Heb “and the gift passed over upon his face.”
10 tn The disjunctive clause is circumstantial/temporal.
11 tn Heb “and we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he, each according to the interpretation of his dream we dreamed.”
12 tn Heb “in visions of the night.” The plural form has the singular meaning, probably as a plural of intensity.