Genesis 10:19

10:19 and the borders of Canaan extended ¹  from Sidon ²  all the way to ³  Gerar as far as Gaza, and all the way to ⁴  Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.

Genesis 15:2

15:2 But Abram said, “O sovereign Lord, ⁵  what will you give me since ⁶  I continue to be ⁷  childless, and my heir ⁸  is ⁹  Eliezer of Damascus?” ¹⁰ 

Genesis 17:13

17:13 They must indeed be circumcised, ¹¹  whether born in your house or bought with money. The sign of my covenant ¹²  will be visible in your flesh as a permanent ¹³  reminder.

Genesis 20:11

20:11 Abraham replied, “Because I thought, ¹⁴  ‘Surely no one fears God in this place. They will kill me because of ¹⁵  my wife.’

Genesis 31:15

31:15 Hasn’t he treated us like foreigners? He not only sold us, but completely wasted ¹⁶  the money paid for us! ¹⁷ 

Genesis 32:11

32:11 Rescue me, ¹⁸  I pray, from the hand ¹⁹  of my brother Esau, ²⁰  for I am afraid he will come ²¹  and attack me, as well as the mothers with their children. ²² 

Genesis 34:15

34:15 We will give you our consent on this one condition: You must become ²³  like us by circumcising ²⁴  all your males.

Genesis 43:2

43:2 When they finished eating the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Return, buy us a little more food.”

Genesis 46:18

46:18 These were the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter. She bore these to Jacob, sixteen in all.

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¹ tn Heb “were.”

² map For location see Map1-A1; JP3-F3; JP4-F3.

³ tn Heb “as you go.”

⁴ tn Heb “as you go.”

⁵ 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.”

⁶ tn The vav (ו) disjunctive at the beginning of the clause is circumstantial, expressing the cause or reason.

⁷ tn Heb “I am going.”

⁸ tn Heb “the son of the acquisition of my house.”

sn For the custom of designating a member of the household as heir, see C. H. Gordon, “Biblical Customs and the Nuzu Tablets,” Biblical Archaeologist Reader, 2:21-33.

⁹ tn The pronoun is anaphoric here, equivalent to the verb “to be” (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 23, §115).

¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ tn The emphatic construction employs the Niphal imperfect tense (collective singular) and the Niphal infinitive.

¹² tn Heb “my covenant.” Here in v. 13 the Hebrew word בְּרִית (bÿrit) refers to the outward, visible sign, or reminder, of the covenant. For the range of meaning of the term, see the note on the word “requirement” in v. 9.

¹³ tn Or “an eternal.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “Because I said.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “over the matter of.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “and he devoured, even devouring.” The infinitive absolute (following the finite verb here) is used for emphasis.

sn He sold us and…wasted our money. The precise nature of Rachel’s and Leah’s complaint is not entirely clear. Since Jacob had to work to pay for them, they probably mean that their father has cheated Jacob and therefore cheated them as well. See M. Burrows, “The Complaint of Laban’s Daughters,” JAOS 57 (1937): 250-76.

¹⁷ tn Heb “our money.” The word “money” is used figuratively here; it means the price paid for Leah and Rachel. A literal translation (“our money”) makes it sound as if Laban wasted money that belonged to Rachel and Leah, rather than the money paid for them.

¹⁸ tn The imperative has the force of a prayer here, not a command.

¹⁹ tn The “hand” here is a metonymy for “power.”

²⁰ tn Heb “from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau.”

²¹ tn Heb “for I am afraid of him, lest he come.”

²² sn Heb “me, [the] mother upon [the] sons.” The first person pronoun “me” probably means here “me and mine,” as the following clause suggests.

²³ tn Heb “if you are like us.”

²⁴ tn The infinitive here explains how they would become like them.