Genesis 18:14

18:14 Is anything impossible ¹  for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.” ² 

Genesis 18:29

18:29 Abraham ³  spoke to him again, ⁴  “What if forty are found there?” He replied, “I will not do it for the sake of the forty.”

Genesis 41:5

41:5 Then he fell asleep again and had a second dream: There were seven heads of grain growing ⁵  on one stalk, healthy ⁶  and good.

Genesis 42:24

42:24 He turned away from them and wept. When he turned around and spoke to them again, ⁷  he had Simeon taken ⁸  from them and tied up ⁹  before their eyes.

Genesis 44:23

44:23 But you said to your servants, ‘If your youngest brother does not come down with you, you will not see my face again.’

Genesis 48:11

48:11 Israel said to Joseph, “I never expected ¹⁰  to see you ¹¹  again, but now God has allowed me to see your children ¹²  too.”

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¹ tn The Hebrew verb פָּלָא (pala’) means “to be wonderful, to be extraordinary, to be surpassing, to be amazing.”

² sn Sarah will have a son. The passage brings God’s promise into clear focus. As long as it was a promise for the future, it really could be believed without much involvement. But now, when it seemed so impossible from the human standpoint, when the Lord fixed an exact date for the birth of the child, the promise became rather overwhelming to Abraham and Sarah. But then this was the Lord of creation, the one they had come to trust. The point of these narratives is that the creation of Abraham’s offspring, which eventually became Israel, is no less a miraculous work of creation than the creation of the world itself.

³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn The construction is a verbal hendiadys – the preterite (“he added”) is combined with an adverb “yet” and an infinitive “to speak.”

⁵ tn Heb “coming up.”

⁶ tn Heb “fat.”

⁷ tn Heb “and he turned to them and spoke to them.”

⁸ tn Heb “took Simeon.” This was probably done at Joseph’s command, however; the grand vizier of Egypt would not have personally seized a prisoner.

⁹ tn Heb “and he bound him.” See the note on the preceding verb “taken.”

¹⁰ tn On the meaning of the Hebrew verb פָּלַל (palal) here, see E. A. Speiser, “The Stem pll in Hebrew,” JBL 82 (1963): 301-6. Speiser argues that this verb means “to estimate” as in Exod 21:22.

¹¹ tn Heb “your face.”

¹² tn Heb “offspring.”