33:12 Then Esau 1 said, “Let’s be on our way! 2 I will go in front of you.” 33:13 But Jacob 3 said to him, “My lord knows that the children are young, 4 and that I have to look after the sheep and cattle that are nursing their young. 5 If they are driven too hard for even a single day, all the animals will die. 33:14 Let my lord go on ahead of his servant. I will travel more slowly, at the pace of the herds and the children, 6 until I come to my lord at Seir.”
33:15 So Esau said, “Let me leave some of my men with you.” 7 “Why do that?” Jacob replied. 8 “My lord has already been kind enough to me.” 9
33:16 So that same day Esau made his way back 10 to Seir. 33:17 But 11 Jacob traveled to Succoth 12 where he built himself a house and made shelters for his livestock. That is why the place was called 13 Succoth. 14
1 tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Esau) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn Heb “let us travel and let us go.” The two cohortatives are used in combination with the sense, “let’s travel along, get going, be on our way.”
3 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4 tn Heb “weak.”
5 tn Heb “and the sheep and the cattle nursing [are] upon me.”
6 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.”
7 tn The cohortative verbal form here indicates a polite offer of help.
8 tn Heb “and he said, ‘Why this?’” The referent of the pronoun “he” (Jacob) has been specified for clarity, and the order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.
9 tn Heb “I am finding favor in the eyes of my lord.”
10 tn Heb “returned on his way.”
11 tn The disjunctive clause contrasts Jacob’s action with Esau’s.
12 sn But Jacob traveled to Succoth. There are several reasons why Jacob chose not to go to Mt. Seir after Esau. First, as he said, his herds and children probably could not keep up with the warriors. Second, he probably did not fully trust his brother. The current friendliness could change, and he could lose everything. And third, God did tell him to return to his land, not Seir. But Jacob is still not able to deal truthfully, probably because of fear of Esau.
13 tn Heb “why he called.” One could understand “Jacob” as the subject of the verb, but it is more likely that the subject is indefinite, in which case the verb is better translated as passive.
14 sn The name Succoth means “shelters,” an appropriate name in light of the shelters Jacob built there for his livestock.