27:29 May peoples serve you
and nations bow down to you.
You will be 1 lord 2 over your brothers,
and the sons of your mother will bow down to you. 3
May those who curse you be cursed,
and those who bless you be blessed.”
37:2 This is the account of Jacob.
Joseph, his seventeen-year-old son, 7 was taking care of 8 the flocks with his brothers. Now he was a youngster 9 working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. 10 Joseph brought back a bad report about them 11 to their father.
38:11 Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s house until Shelah my son grows up.” For he thought, 12 “I don’t want him to die like his brothers.” 13 So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.
49:26 The blessings of your father are greater
than 22 the blessings of the eternal mountains 23
or the desirable things of the age-old hills.
They will be on the head of Joseph
and on the brow of the prince of his brothers. 24
1 tn Heb “and be.” The verb is an imperative, which is used rhetorically in this oracle of blessing. It is an invitation to exercise authority his brothers and indicates that he is granted such authority by the patriarch of the family. Furthermore, the blessing enables the recipient to accomplish this.
2 tn The Hebrew word is גְבִיר (gevir, “lord, mighty one”). The one being blessed will be stronger and therefore more powerful than his brother. See Gen 25:23. The feminine form of this rare noun means “mistress” or “queen-mother.”
3 tn Following the imperative, the prefixed verbal form (which is either an imperfect or a jussive) with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose or result.
4 tn The words “stay there” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
5 tn Heb “and I will send and I will take you from there.” The verb “send” has no object in the Hebrew text; one must be supplied in the translation. Either “someone” or “a message” could be supplied, but since in those times a message would require a messenger, “someone” has been used.
6 tn If Jacob stayed, he would be killed and Esau would be forced to run away.
7 tn Heb “a son of seventeen years.” The word “son” is in apposition to the name “Joseph.”
8 tn Or “tending”; Heb “shepherding” or “feeding.”
9 tn Or perhaps “a helper.” The significance of this statement is unclear. It may mean “now the lad was with,” or it may suggest Joseph was like a servant to them.
10 tn Heb “and he [was] a young man with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, the wives of his father.”
11 tn Heb “their bad report.” The pronoun is an objective genitive, specifying that the bad or damaging report was about the brothers.
sn Some interpreters portray Joseph as a tattletale for bringing back a bad report about them [i.e., his brothers], but the entire Joseph story has some of the characteristics of wisdom literature. Joseph is presented in a good light – not because he was perfect, but because the narrative is showing how wisdom rules. In light of that, this section portrays Joseph as faithful to his father in little things, even though unpopular – and so he will eventually be given authority over greater things.
12 tn Heb “said.”
13 tn Heb “Otherwise he will die, also he, like his brothers.”
sn I don’t want him to die like his brothers. This clause explains that Judah had no intention of giving Shelah to Tamar for the purpose of the levirate marriage. Judah apparently knew the nature of his sons, and feared that God would be angry with the third son and kill him as well.
14 sn But pretended to be a stranger. Joseph intends to test his brothers to see if they have changed and have the integrity to be patriarchs of the tribes of Israel. He will do this by putting them in the same situations that they and he were in before. The first test will be to awaken their conscience.
15 tn Heb “said.”
16 tn The verb is denominative, meaning “to buy grain”; the word “food” could simply be the direct object, but may also be an adverbial accusative.
17 tn Heb “them”; the referent (Joseph’s brothers) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
18 tn Or “disgraceful.” The Hebrew word תּוֹעֵבָה (to’evah, “abomination”) describes something that is loathsome or off-limits. For other practices the Egyptians considered disgusting, see Gen 46:34 and Exod 8:22.
19 tn Heb “and they set for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians who were eating with him by themselves, for the Egyptians are not able to eat food with the Hebrews, for it is an abomination for the Egyptians.” The imperfect verbal form in the explanatory clause is taken as habitual in force, indicating a practice that was still in effect in the narrator’s time.
sn That the Egyptians found eating with foreigners disgusting is well-attested in extra-biblical literature by writers like Herodotus, Diodorus, and Strabo.
20 tn Heb “men of skill.”
21 tn Heb “make them rulers.”
sn Put them in charge of my livestock. Pharaoh is, in effect, offering Joseph’s brothers jobs as royal keepers of livestock, a position mentioned often in Egyptian inscriptions, because the Pharaohs owned huge herds of cattle.
22 tn Heb “have prevailed over.”
23 tn One could interpret the phrase הוֹרַי (horay) to mean “my progenitors” (literally, “the ones who conceived me”), but the masculine form argues against this. It is better to emend the text to הַרֲרֵי (harare, “mountains of”) because it forms a better parallel with the next clause. In this case the final yod (י) on the form is a construct plural marker, not a pronominal suffix.
24 tn For further discussion of this passage, see I. Sonne, “Genesis 49:24-26,” JBL 65 (1946): 303-6.
25 tn Heb “and Joseph wept when they spoke to him.”