Discovery BoxGenesis 18:5 
Context18:5 And let me get 1 a bit of food 2 so that you may refresh yourselves 3 since you have passed by your servant’s home. After that you may be on your way.” 4 “All right,” they replied, “you may do as you say.”
Genesis 24:14
Context24:14 I will say to a young woman, ‘Please lower your jar so I may drink.’ May the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac reply, ‘Drink, and I’ll give your camels water too.’ 5 In this way I will know that you have been faithful to my master.” 6
Genesis 24:30
Context24:30 When he saw the bracelets on his sister’s wrists and the nose ring 7 and heard his sister Rebekah say, 8 “This is what the man said to me,” he went out to meet the man. There he was, standing 9 by the camels near the spring.
Genesis 26:7
Context26:7 When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he replied, “She is my sister.” 10 He was afraid to say, “She is my wife,” for he thought to himself, 11 “The men of this place will kill me to get 12 Rebekah because she is very beautiful.”
Genesis 43:7
Context43:7 They replied, “The man questioned us 13 thoroughly 14 about ourselves and our family, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ 15 So we answered him in this way. 16 How could we possibly know 17 that he would say, 18 ‘Bring your brother down’?”
Genesis 44:16
Context44:16 Judah replied, “What can we say 19 to my lord? What can we speak? How can we clear ourselves? 20 God has exposed the sin of your servants! 21 We are now my lord’s slaves, we and the one in whose possession the cup was found.”
1 tn The Qal cohortative here probably has the nuance of polite request.
2 tn Heb “a piece of bread.” The Hebrew word לֶחֶם (lekhem) can refer either to bread specifically or to food in general. Based on Abraham’s directions to Sarah in v. 6, bread was certainly involved, but v. 7 indicates that Abraham had a more elaborate meal in mind.
3 tn Heb “strengthen your heart.” The imperative after the cohortative indicates purpose here.
4 tn Heb “so that you may refresh yourselves, after [which] you may be on your way – for therefore you passed by near your servant.”
5 sn I will also give your camels water. It would be an enormous test for a young woman to water ten camels. The idea is that such a woman would not only be industrious but hospitable and generous.
6 tn Heb “And let the young woman to whom I say, ‘Lower your jar that I may drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink and I will also give your camels water,’ – her you have appointed for your servant, for Isaac, and by it I will know that you have acted in faithfulness with my master.”
7 tn Heb “And it was when he saw the nose ring and the bracelets on the arms of his sister.” The word order is altered in the translation for the sake of clarity.
8 tn Heb “and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying.”
9 tn Heb “and look, he was standing.” The disjunctive clause with the participle following the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) invites the audience to view the scene through Laban’s eyes.
10 sn Rebekah, unlike Sarah, was not actually her husband’s sister.
11 tn Heb “lest.” The words “for he thought to himself” are supplied because the next clause is written with a first person pronoun, showing that Isaac was saying or thinking this.
12 tn Heb “kill me on account of.”
13 tn The word “us” has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
14 tn The infinitive absolute with the perfect verbal form emphasizes that Joseph questioned them thoroughly.
15 sn The report given here concerning Joseph’s interrogation does not exactly match the previous account where they supplied the information to clear themselves (see 42:13). This section may reflect how they remembered the impact of his interrogation, whether he asked the specific questions or not. That may be twisting the truth to protect themselves, not wanting to admit that they volunteered the information. (They admitted as much in 42:31, but now they seem to be qualifying that comment.) On the other hand, when speaking to Joseph later (see 44:19), Judah claims that Joseph asked for the information about their family, making it possible that 42:13 leaves out some of the details of their first encounter.
16 tn Heb “and we told to him according to these words.”
17 tn The infinitive absolute emphasizes the imperfect verbal form, which here is a historic future (that is, future from the perspective of a past time).
18 tn Once again the imperfect verbal form is used as a historic future (that is, future from the perspective of past time).
19 tn The imperfect verbal form here indicates the subject’s potential.
20 tn The Hitpael form of the verb צָדֵק (tsadeq) here means “to prove ourselves just, to declare ourselves righteous, to prove our innocence.”
21 sn God has exposed the sin of your servants. The first three questions are rhetorical; Judah is stating that there is nothing they can say to clear themselves. He therefore must conclude that they have been found guilty.
