27:5 Now Rebekah had been listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. 13 When Esau went out to the open fields to hunt down some wild game and bring it back, 14
38:12 After some time 27 Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. After Judah was consoled, he left for Timnah to visit his sheepshearers, along with 28 his friend Hirah the Adullamite.
1 tn Heb “Now the Valley of Siddim [was] pits, pits of tar.” This parenthetical disjunctive clause emphasizes the abundance of tar pits in the area through repetition of the noun “pits.”
sn The word for “tar” (or “bitumen”) occurs earlier in the story of the building of the tower in Babylon (see Gen 11:3).
2 tn Or “they were defeated there.” After a verb of motion the Hebrew particle שָׁם (sham) with the directional heh (שָׁמָּה, shammah) can mean “into it, therein” (BDB 1027 s.v. שָׁם).
3 tn Heb “the rest.”
4 sn The reference to the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah must mean the kings along with their armies. Most of them were defeated in the valley, but some of them escaped to the hills.
5 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
6 tn The words “the food” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text the verb has no stated object.
7 tn The disjunctive clause is a temporal circumstantial clause subordinate to the main verb.
8 tn The rare term לָעַט (la’at), translated “feed,” is used in later Hebrew for feeding animals (see Jastrow, 714). If this nuance was attached to the word in the biblical period, then it may depict Esau in a negative light, comparing him to a hungry animal. Famished Esau comes in from the hunt, only to enter the trap. He can only point at the red stew and ask Jacob to feed him.
9 tn The verb has no expressed subject and so is given a passive translation.
10 sn Esau’s descendants would eventually be called Edom. Edom was the place where they lived, so-named probably because of the reddish nature of the hills. The writer can use the word “red” to describe the stew that Esau gasped for to convey the nature of Esau and his descendants. They were a lusty, passionate, and profane people who lived for the moment. Again, the wordplay is meant to capture the “omen in the nomen.”
11 tn Following the imperative, the cohortative (with the prefixed conjunction) indicates purpose or result.
12 tn Heb “so that my soul may bless you.” The use of נַפְשִׁי (nafshi, “my soul”) as the subject emphasizes that the blessing will be made with all Isaac’s desire and vitality. The conjunction “so that” closely relates the meal to the blessing, suggesting that this will be a ritual meal in conjunction with the giving of a formal blessing.
13 tn The disjunctive clause (introduced by a conjunction with the subject, followed by the predicate) here introduces a new scene in the story.
14 tc The LXX adds here “to his father,” which may have been accidentally omitted in the MT.
15 tn Heb “get up and sit.” This may mean simply “sit up,” or it may indicate that he was to get up from his couch and sit at a table.
16 tn Heb “so that your soul may bless me.” These words, though not reported by Rebekah to Jacob (see v. 7) accurately reflect what Isaac actually said to Esau (see v. 4). Perhaps Jacob knew more than Rebekah realized, but it is more likely that this was an idiom for sincere blessing with which Jacob was familiar. At any rate, his use of the precise wording was a nice, convincing touch.
17 tn Heb “and he said”; the referent (Isaac) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
18 tn Heb “Bring near to me and I will eat of the wild game, my son.” Following the imperative, the cohortative with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose or result.
19 tn Heb “so that my soul may bless you.” The presence of נַפְשִׁי (nafshi, “my soul”) as subject emphasizes Isaac’s heartfelt desire to do this. The conjunction indicates that the ritual meal must be first eaten before the formal blessing may be given.
20 tn Heb “and he brought”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
21 tn Heb “and he drank”; the referent (Isaac) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
22 tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
23 tn Heb “the day is great.”
24 tn Heb “water the sheep and go and pasture [them].” The verbal forms are imperatives, but Jacob would hardly be giving direct orders to someone else’s shepherds. The nuance here is probably one of advice.
25 tn Heb “and he put them in the hand of.”
26 tn Heb “a herd, a herd, by itself,” or “each herd by itself.” The distributive sense is expressed by repetition.
27 sn After some time. There is not enough information in the narrative to know how long this was. The text says “the days increased.” It was long enough for Shelah to mature and for Tamar to realize she would not have him.
28 tn Heb “and he went up to the shearers of his sheep, he and.”
29 tn Heb “and he appeared to him.”