Discovery BoxGenesis 1:11-12 
Context1:11 God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: 1 plants yielding seeds according to their kinds, 2 and 3 trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” It was so. 1:12 The land produced vegetation – plants yielding seeds according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. God saw that it was good.
Genesis 6:20
Context6:20 Of the birds after their kinds, and of the cattle after their kinds, and of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you so you can keep them alive. 4
Genesis 35:4
Context35:4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods that were in their possession 5 and the rings that were in their ears. 6 Jacob buried them 7 under the oak 8 near Shechem
Genesis 37:25
Context37:25 When they sat down to eat their food, they looked up 9 and saw 10 a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were carrying spices, balm, and myrrh down to Egypt. 11
Genesis 42:35
Context42:35 When they were emptying their sacks, there was each man’s bag of money in his sack! When they and their father saw the bags of money, they were afraid.
Genesis 47:22
Context47:22 But he did not purchase the land of the priests because the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh and they ate from their allotment that Pharaoh gave them. That is why they did not sell their land.
Genesis 50:8
Context50:8 all Joseph’s household, his brothers, and his father’s household. But they left their little children and their flocks and herds in the land of Goshen.
1 tn The Hebrew construction employs a cognate accusative, where the nominal object (“vegetation”) derives from the verbal root employed. It stresses the abundant productivity that God created.
sn Vegetation. The Hebrew word translated “vegetation” (דֶּשֶׁא, deshe’) normally means “grass,” but here it probably refers more generally to vegetation that includes many of the plants and trees. In the verse the plants and the trees are qualified as self-perpetuating with seeds, but not the word “vegetation,” indicating it is the general term and the other two terms are sub-categories of it. Moreover, in vv. 29 and 30 the word vegetation/grass does not appear. The Samaritan Pentateuch adds an “and” before the fruit trees, indicating it saw the arrangement as bipartite (The Samaritan Pentateuch tends to eliminate asyndetic constructions).
2 sn After their kinds. The Hebrew word translated “kind” (מִין, min) indicates again that God was concerned with defining and dividing time, space, and species. The point is that creation was with order, as opposed to chaos. And what God created and distinguished with boundaries was not to be confused (see Lev 19:19 and Deut 22:9-11).
3 tn The conjunction “and” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation to clarify the relationship of the clauses.
4 tn Heb “to keep alive.”
5 tn Heb “in their hand.”
6 sn On the basis of a comparison with Gen 34 and Num 31, G. J. Wenham argues that the foreign gods and the rings could have been part of the plunder that came from the destruction of Shechem (Genesis [WBC], 2:324).
7 sn Jacob buried them. On the burial of the gods, see E. Nielson, “The Burial of the Foreign Gods,” ST 8 (1954/55): 102-22.
8 tn Or “terebinth.”
9 tn Heb “lifted up their eyes.”
10 tn Heb “and they saw and look.” By the use of וְהִנֵּה (vÿhinneh, “and look”), the narrator invites the reader to see the event through the eyes of the brothers.
11 tn Heb “and their camels were carrying spices, balm, and myrrh, going to go down to Egypt.”
