Discovery BoxGenesis 1:14 
Context1:14 God said, “Let there be lights 1 in the expanse 2 of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be signs 3 to indicate seasons and days and years,
Genesis 19:33
Context19:33 So that night they made their father drunk with wine, 4 and the older daughter 5 came and had sexual relations with her father. 6 But he was not aware that she had sexual relations with him and then got up. 7
Genesis 19:35
Context19:35 So they made their father drunk 8 that night as well, and the younger one came and had sexual relations with him. 9 But he was not aware that she had sexual relations with him and then got up. 10
Genesis 20:3
Context20:3 But God appeared 11 to Abimelech in a dream at night and said to him, “You are as good as dead 12 because of the woman you have taken, for she is someone else’s wife.” 13
Genesis 31:39
Context31:39 Animals torn by wild beasts I never brought to you; I always absorbed the loss myself. 14 You always made me pay for every missing animal, 15 whether it was taken by day or at night.
Genesis 40:5
Context40:5 Both of them, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison, had a dream 16 the same night. 17 Each man’s dream had its own meaning. 18
Genesis 43:21
Context43:21 But when we came to the place where we spent the night, we opened our sacks and each of us found his money – the full amount 19 – in the mouth of his sack. So we have returned it. 20
1 sn Let there be lights. Light itself was created before the light-bearers. The order would not seem strange to the ancient Hebrew mind that did not automatically link daylight with the sun (note that dawn and dusk appear to have light without the sun).
2 tn The language describing the cosmos, which reflects a prescientific view of the world, must be interpreted as phenomenal, describing what appears to be the case. The sun and the moon are not in the sky (below the clouds), but from the viewpoint of a person standing on the earth, they appear that way. Even today we use similar phenomenological expressions, such as “the sun is rising” or “the stars in the sky.”
3 tn The text has “for signs and for seasons and for days and years.” It seems likely from the meanings of the words involved that “signs” is the main idea, followed by two categories, “seasons” and “days and years.” This is the simplest explanation, and one that matches vv. 11-13. It could even be rendered “signs for the fixed seasons, that is [explicative vav (ו)] days and years.”
sn Let them be for signs. The point is that the sun and the moon were important to fix the days for the seasonal celebrations for the worshiping community.
4 tn Heb “drink wine.”
5 tn Heb “the firstborn.”
6 tn Heb “and the firstborn came and lied down with her father.” The expression “lied down with” here and in the following verses is a euphemism for sexual relations.
7 tn Heb “and he did not know when she lay down and when she arose.”
8 tn Heb “drink wine.”
9 tn Heb “lied down with him.”
10 tn Heb “And he did not know when she lied down and when she arose.”
11 tn Heb “came.”
12 tn Heb “Look, you [are] dead.” The Hebrew construction uses the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) with a second person pronominal particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) with by the participle. It is a highly rhetorical expression.
13 tn Heb “and she is owned by an owner.” The disjunctive clause is causal or explanatory in this case.
14 tn The imperfect verbal form indicates that this was a customary or typical action.
15 tn Heb “from my hand you exacted it.” The imperfect verbal form again indicates that this was a customary or typical action. The words “for every missing animal” are supplied in the translation for clarity; the following clause in Hebrew, “stolen by day or stolen by night,” probably means “stolen by wild beasts” and refers to the same animals “torn by wild beasts” in the previous clause, although it may refer to animals stolen by people. The translation used here, “missing,” is ambiguous enough to cover either eventuality.
16 tn Heb “dreamed a dream.”
17 tn Heb “a man his dream in one night.”
18 tn Heb “a man according to the interpretation of his dream.”
19 tn Heb “in its weight.”
20 tn Heb “brought it back in our hand.”
