19:2 He said, “Here, my lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house. Stay the night 5 and wash your feet. Then you can be on your way early in the morning.” 6 “No,” they replied, “we’ll spend the night in the town square.” 7
20:6 Then in the dream God replied to him, “Yes, I know that you have done this with a clear conscience. 8 That is why I have kept you 9 from sinning against me and why 10 I did not allow you to touch her.
26:7 When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he replied, “She is my sister.” 11 He was afraid to say, “She is my wife,” for he thought to himself, 12 “The men of this place will kill me to get 13 Rebekah because she is very beautiful.”
31:43 Laban replied 17 to Jacob, “These women 18 are my daughters, these children are my grandchildren, 19 and these flocks are my flocks. All that you see belongs to me. But how can I harm these daughters of mine today 20 or the children to whom they have given birth?
43:7 They replied, “The man questioned us 25 thoroughly 26 about ourselves and our family, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ 27 So we answered him in this way. 28 How could we possibly know 29 that he would say, 30 ‘Bring your brother down’?”
44:16 Judah replied, “What can we say 31 to my lord? What can we speak? How can we clear ourselves? 32 God has exposed the sin of your servants! 33 We are now my lord’s slaves, we and the one in whose possession the cup was found.”
1 tn The Qal cohortative here probably has the nuance of polite request.
2 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.
3 tn Heb “strengthen your heart.” The imperative after the cohortative indicates purpose here.
4 tn Heb “so that you may refresh yourselves, after [which] you may be on your way – for therefore you passed by near your servant.”
5 tn The imperatives have the force of invitation.
6 tn These two verbs form a verbal hendiadys: “you can rise up early and go” means “you can go early.”
7 sn The town square refers to the wide street area at the gate complex of the city.
8 tn Heb “with the integrity of your heart.”
9 tn Heb “and I, even I, kept you.”
10 tn Heb “therefore.”
11 sn Rebekah, unlike Sarah, was not actually her husband’s sister.
12 tn Heb “lest.” The words “for he thought to himself” are supplied because the next clause is written with a first person pronoun, showing that Isaac was saying or thinking this.
13 tn Heb “kill me on account of.”
14 tn Heb “and she said to her”; the referent of the pronoun “she” (Leah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
15 tn Heb “therefore.”
16 tn Heb “lie down.” The expression “lie down with” in this context (here and in the following verse) refers to sexual intercourse. The imperfect verbal form has a permissive nuance here.
17 tn Heb “answered and said.”
18 tn Heb “daughters.”
19 tn Heb “children.”
20 tn Heb “but to my daughters what can I do to these today?”
21 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
22 sn The expression he alone is left meant that (so far as Jacob knew) Benjamin was the only surviving child of his mother Rachel.
23 sn The expression bring down my gray hair is figurative, using a part for the whole – they would put Jacob in the grave. But the gray head signifies a long life of worry and trouble.
24 tn Heb “to Sheol,” the dwelling place of the dead.
25 tn The word “us” has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
26 tn The infinitive absolute with the perfect verbal form emphasizes that Joseph questioned them thoroughly.
27 sn The report given here concerning Joseph’s interrogation does not exactly match the previous account where they supplied the information to clear themselves (see 42:13). This section may reflect how they remembered the impact of his interrogation, whether he asked the specific questions or not. That may be twisting the truth to protect themselves, not wanting to admit that they volunteered the information. (They admitted as much in 42:31, but now they seem to be qualifying that comment.) On the other hand, when speaking to Joseph later (see 44:19), Judah claims that Joseph asked for the information about their family, making it possible that 42:13 leaves out some of the details of their first encounter.
28 tn Heb “and we told to him according to these words.”
29 tn The infinitive absolute emphasizes the imperfect verbal form, which here is a historic future (that is, future from the perspective of a past time).
30 tn Once again the imperfect verbal form is used as a historic future (that is, future from the perspective of past time).
31 tn The imperfect verbal form here indicates the subject’s potential.
32 tn The Hitpael form of the verb צָדֵק (tsadeq) here means “to prove ourselves just, to declare ourselves righteous, to prove our innocence.”
33 sn God has exposed the sin of your servants. The first three questions are rhetorical; Judah is stating that there is nothing they can say to clear themselves. He therefore must conclude that they have been found guilty.
34 tn The direct object is not specified in the Hebrew text, but is implied; “there” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
35 tn Heb “go down.”