24:5 The servant asked him, “What if the woman is not willing to come back with me 4 to this land? Must I then 5 take your son back to the land from which you came?”
49:6 O my soul, do not come into their council,
do not be united to their assembly, my heart, 29
for in their anger they have killed men,
and for pleasure they have hamstrung oxen.
50:24 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die. But God will surely come to you 30 and lead you up from this land to the land he swore on oath to give 31 to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
1 tn Heb “to keep alive.”
2 tn Heb “she will become nations.”
3 tn Heb “peoples.”
4 tn Heb “to go after me.”
5 tn In the Hebrew text the construction is emphatic; the infinitive absolute precedes the imperfect. However, it is difficult to reflect this emphasis in an English translation.
6 tn Heb “ to go after you.”
7 sn You will be free. If the prospective bride was not willing to accompany the servant back to Canaan, the servant would be released from his oath to Abraham.
8 tn Heb “and he said.” The referent (Laban) has been specified and the words “to him” supplied in the translation for clarity.
9 sn Laban’s obsession with wealth is apparent; to him it represents how one is blessed by the
10 tn The disjunctive clause is circumstantial.
11 tn The imperative has the force of a prayer here, not a command.
12 tn The “hand” here is a metonymy for “power.”
13 tn Heb “from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau.”
14 tn Heb “for I am afraid of him, lest he come.”
15 sn Heb “me, [the] mother upon [the] sons.” The first person pronoun “me” probably means here “me and mine,” as the following clause suggests.
16 tn Heb “and I, I will move along according to my leisure at the foot of the property which is before me and at the foot of the children.”
17 sn The question What is this dream that you had? expresses Jacob’s dismay at what he perceives to be Joseph’s audacity.
18 tn Heb “Coming, will we come, I and your mother and your brothers, to bow down to you to the ground?” The verb “come” is preceded by the infinitive absolute, which lends emphasis. It is as if Jacob said, “You don’t really think we will come…to bow down…do you?”
19 tn The Hebrew word can sometimes carry the nuance “evil,” but when used of an animal it refers to a dangerous wild animal.
20 tn Heb “what his dreams will be.”
21 tn Heb “let not our hand be upon him.”
22 tn Heb “listened.”
23 tn Heb “hurry and go up.”
24 tn After the imperatives in vv. 17-18a, the cohortative with vav indicates result.
25 tn After the cohortative the imperative with vav states the ultimate goal.
26 tn Heb “fat.”
27 tn The words “to say” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
28 tn Heb “tell Pharaoh and say to him.”
29 tn The Hebrew text reads “my glory,” but it is preferable to repoint the form and read “my liver.” The liver was sometimes viewed as the seat of the emotions and will (see HALOT 456 s.v. II כָּבֵד) for which the heart is the modern equivalent.
30 tn The verb פָּקַד (paqad) means “to visit,” i.e., to intervene for blessing or cursing; here Joseph announces that God would come to fulfill the promises by delivering them from Egypt. The statement is emphasized by the use of the infinitive absolute with the verb: “God will surely visit you.”
31 tn The words “to give” are supplied in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.