Genesis 2:13

2:13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it runs through ¹  the entire land of Cush. ² 

Genesis 2:11

2:11 The name of the first is Pishon; it runs through ³  the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold.

Genesis 2:14

2:14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it runs along the east side of Assyria. ⁴  The fourth river is the Euphrates.

Genesis 25:18

25:18 His descendants ⁵  settled from Havilah to Shur, which runs next ⁶  to Egypt all the way ⁷  to Asshur. ⁸  They settled ⁹  away from all their relatives. ¹⁰ 

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¹ tn Heb “it is that which goes around.”

² sn Cush. In the Bible the Hebrew word כּוּשׁ (kush, “Kush”) often refers to Ethiopia (so KJV, CEV), but here it must refer to a region in Mesopotamia, the area of the later Cassite dynasty of Babylon. See Gen 10:8 as well as E. A. Speiser, Genesis (AB), 20.

³ tn Heb “it is that which goes around.”

⁴ tn Heb “Asshur” (so NEB, NIV).

⁵ tn Heb “they”; the referent (Ishmael’s descendants) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn Heb “which is by the face of,” or near the border. The territory ran along the border of Egypt.

⁷ tn Heb “as you go.”

⁸ sn The name Asshur refers here to a tribal area in the Sinai.

⁹ tn Heb “he fell.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “upon the face of all his brothers.” This last expression, obviously alluding to the earlier oracle about Ishmael (Gen 16:12), could mean that the descendants of Ishmael lived in hostility to others or that they lived in a territory that was opposite the lands of their relatives. While there is some ambiguity about the meaning, the line probably does give a hint of the Ishmaelite-Israelite conflicts to come.