Discovery BoxGenesis 19:28-29 
Context19:28 He looked out toward 1 Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of that region. 2 As he did so, he saw the smoke rising up from the land like smoke from a furnace. 3
19:29 So when God destroyed 4 the cities of the region, 5 God honored 6 Abraham’s request. He removed Lot 7 from the midst of the destruction when he destroyed 8 the cities Lot had lived in.
Genesis 24:10
Context24:10 Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and departed with all kinds of gifts from his master at his disposal. 9 He journeyed 10 to the region of Aram Naharaim 11 and the city of Nahor.
Genesis 47:11
Context47:11 So Joseph settled his father and his brothers. He gave them territory 12 in the land of Egypt, in the best region of the land, the land of Rameses, 13 just as Pharaoh had commanded.
1 tn Heb “upon the face of.”
2 tn Or “all the land of the plain”; Heb “and all the face of the land of the circle,” referring to the “circle” or oval area of the Jordan Valley.
3 tn Heb “And he saw, and look, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.”
sn It is hard to imagine what was going on in Abraham’s mind, but this brief section in the narrative enables the reader to think about the human response to the judgment. Abraham had family in that area. He had rescued those people from the invasion. That was why he interceded. Yet he surely knew how wicked they were. That was why he got the number down to ten when he negotiated with God to save the city. But now he must have wondered, “What was the point?”
4 tn The construction is a temporal clause comprised of the temporal indicator, an infinitive construct with a preposition, and the subjective genitive.
5 tn Or “of the plain”; Heb “of the circle,” referring to the “circle” or oval area of the Jordan Valley.
6 tn Heb “remembered,” but this means more than mental recollection here. Abraham’s request (Gen 18:23-32) was that the
sn God showed Abraham special consideration because of the covenantal relationship he had established with the patriarch. Yet the reader knows that God delivered the “righteous” (Lot’s designation in 2 Pet 2:7) before destroying their world – which is what he will do again at the end of the age.
7 sn God’s removal of Lot before the judgment is paradigmatic. He typically delivers the godly before destroying their world.
8 tn Heb “the overthrow when [he] overthrew.”
9 tn Heb “and every good thing of his master was in his hand.” The disjunctive clause is circumstantial, explaining that he took all kinds of gifts to be used at his discretion.
10 tn Heb “and he arose and went.”
11 tn The words “the region of” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarity.
sn Aram Naharaim means in Hebrew “Aram of the Two Rivers,” a region in northern Mesopotamia.
12 tn Heb “a possession,” or “a holding.” Joseph gave them a plot of land with rights of ownership in the land of Goshen.
13 sn The land of Rameses is another designation for the region of Goshen. It is named Rameses because of a city in that region (Exod 1:11; 12:37). The use of this name may represent a modernization of the text for the understanding of the intended readers, substituting a later name for an earlier one. Alternatively, there may have been an earlier Rameses for which the region was named.
