26:30 So Isaac 1 held a feast for them and they celebrated. 2
24:15 Before he had finished praying, there came Rebekah 5 with her water jug on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah (Milcah was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor). 6
27:1 When 12 Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he was almost blind, 13 he called his older 14 son Esau and said to him, “My son!” “Here I am!” Esau 15 replied.
27:37 Isaac replied to Esau, “Look! I have made him lord over you. I have made all his relatives his servants and provided him with grain and new wine. What is left that I can do for you, my son?”
27:46 Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am deeply depressed 18 because of these daughters of Heth. 19 If Jacob were to marry one of these daughters of Heth who live in this land, I would want to die!” 20
28:6 Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him off to Paddan Aram to find a wife there. 21 As he blessed him, 22 Isaac commanded him, “You must not marry a Canaanite woman.” 23
26:23 From there Isaac 28 went up to Beer Sheba.
23:16 So Abraham agreed to Ephron’s price 29 and weighed 30 out for him 31 the price 32 that Ephron had quoted 33 in the hearing of the sons of Heth – 400 pieces of silver, according to the standard measurement at the time. 34
1 tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Isaac) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn Heb “and they ate and drank.”
3 tn Heb “and Isaac expired and died and he was gathered to his people.” In the ancient Israelite view he joined his deceased ancestors in Sheol, the land of the dead.
4 tn Heb “old and full of years.”
5 tn Heb “Look, Rebekah was coming out!” Using the participle introduced with הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”), the narrator dramatically transports the audience back into the event and invites them to see Rebekah through the servant’s eyes.
6 tn Heb “Look, Rebekah was coming out – [she] who was born to Bethuel, the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, the brother of Abraham – and her jug [was] on her shoulder.” The order of the clauses has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.
7 tn Following the imperative, the cohortative with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose.
8 tn Heb “because you must not take.”
9 tn The disjunctive clause describes an important circumstance accompanying the birth. Whereas Esau was passive at birth, Jacob was active.
10 tn Heb “And he called his name Jacob.” Some ancient witnesses read “they called his name Jacob” (see v. 25). In either case the subject is indefinite.
sn The name Jacob is a play on the Hebrew word for “heel” (עָקֵב, ’aqev). The name (since it is a verb) probably means something like “may he protect,” that is, as a rearguard, dogging the heels. It did not have a negative connotation until Esau redefined it. This name was probably chosen because of the immediate association with the incident of grabbing the heel. After receiving such an oracle, the parents would have preserved in memory almost every detail of the unusual births.
11 tn Heb “the son of sixty years.”
12 tn The clause begins with the temporal indicator (“and it happened”), making it subordinate to the main clause that follows later in the sentence.
13 tn Heb “and his eyes were weak from seeing.”
14 tn Heb “greater” (in terms of age).
15 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Esau) is specified in the translation for clarity.
16 tn Heb “and Isaac trembled with a great trembling to excess.” The verb “trembled” is joined with a cognate accusative, which is modified by an adjective “great,” and a prepositional phrase “to excess.” All of this is emphatic, showing the violence of Isaac’s reaction to the news.
17 tn Heb “Who then is he who hunted game and brought [it] to me so that I ate from all before you arrived and blessed him?”
18 tn Heb “loathe my life.” The Hebrew verb translated “loathe” refers to strong disgust (see Lev 20:23).
19 tn Some translate the Hebrew term “Heth” as “Hittites” here (see also Gen 23:3), but this gives the impression that these people were the classical Hittites of Anatolia. However, there is no known connection between these sons of Heth, apparently a Canaanite group (see Gen 10:15), and the Hittites of Asia Minor. See H. A. Hoffner, Jr., “Hittites,” Peoples of the Old Testament World, 152-53.
20 tn Heb “If Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like these, from the daughters of the land, why to me life?”
21 tn Heb “to take for himself from there a wife.”
22 tn The infinitive construct with the preposition and the suffix form a temporal clause.
23 tn Heb “you must not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.”
24 tn Heb “drove,” but this is subject to misunderstanding in contemporary English.
25 tn Heb “and he led away all his cattle and all his moveable property which he acquired, the cattle he obtained, which he acquired in Paddan Aram to go to Isaac his father to the land of Canaan.”
26 tn Heb “and he swore to him concerning this matter.”
27 tn Heb “What are these?”
28 tn Heb “and he went up from there”; the referent (Isaac) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
29 tn Heb “listened to Ephron.”
30 tn Heb “and Abraham weighed out.”
31 tn Heb “to Ephron.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.
32 tn Heb “silver.”
33 tn Heb “that he had spoken.” The referent (Ephron) has been specified here in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.
34 tn Heb “passing for the merchant.” The final clause affirms that the measurement of silver was according to the standards used by the merchants of the time.
35 tn Heb “will your name be called.”
36 sn Your name will be Abraham. The renaming of Abram was a sign of confirmation to the patriarch. Every time the name was used it would be a reminder of God’s promise. “Abram” means “exalted father,” probably referring to Abram’s father Terah. The name looks to the past; Abram came from noble lineage. The name “Abraham” is a dialectical variant of the name Abram. But its significance is in the wordplay with אַב־הֲמוֹן (’av-hamon, “the father of a multitude,” which sounds like אַבְרָהָם, ’avraham, “Abraham”). The new name would be a reminder of God’s intention to make Abraham the father of a multitude. For a general discussion of renaming, see O. Eissfeldt, “Renaming in the Old Testament,” Words and Meanings, 70-83.
37 tn The perfect verbal form is used here in a rhetorical manner to emphasize God’s intention.