Discovery BoxGenesis 21:12 
Context21:12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be upset 1 about the boy or your slave wife. Do 2 all that Sarah is telling 3 you because through Isaac your descendants will be counted. 4
Genesis 22:5
Context22:5 So he 5 said to his servants, “You two stay 6 here with the donkey while 7 the boy and I go up there. We will worship 8 and then return to you.” 9
Genesis 22:12
Context22:12 “Do not harm the boy!” 10 the angel said. 11 “Do not do anything to him, for now I know 12 that you fear 13 God because you did not withhold your son, your only son, from me.”
Genesis 42:22
Context42:22 Reuben said to them, “Didn’t I say to you, ‘Don’t sin against the boy,’ but you wouldn’t listen? So now we must pay for shedding his blood!” 14
Genesis 43:8
Context43:8 Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me and we will go immediately. 15 Then we will live 16 and not die – we and you and our little ones.
Genesis 44:30-32
Context44:30 “So now, when I return to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us – his very life is bound up in his son’s life. 17 44:31 When he sees the boy is not with us, 18 he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hair of your servant our father in sorrow to the grave. 44:32 Indeed, 19 your servant pledged security for the boy with my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I will bear the blame before my father all my life.’
1 tn Heb “Let it not be evil in your eyes.”
2 tn Heb “listen to her voice.” The idiomatic expression means “obey; comply.” Here her advice, though harsh, is necessary and conforms to the will of God. Later (see Gen 25), when Abraham has other sons, he sends them all away as well.
3 tn The imperfect verbal form here draws attention to an action that is underway.
4 tn Or perhaps “will be named”; Heb “for in Isaac offspring will be called to you.” The exact meaning of the statement is not clear, but it does indicate that God’s covenantal promises to Abraham will be realized through Isaac, not Ishmael.
5 tn Heb “And Abraham.” The proper name has been replaced in the translation by the pronoun (“he”) for stylistic reasons.
6 tn The Hebrew verb is masculine plural, referring to the two young servants who accompanied Abraham and Isaac on the journey.
7 tn The disjunctive clause (with the compound subject preceding the verb) may be circumstantial and temporal.
8 tn This Hebrew word literally means “to bow oneself close to the ground.” It often means “to worship.”
9 sn It is impossible to know what Abraham was thinking when he said, “we will…return to you.” When he went he knew (1) that he was to sacrifice Isaac, and (2) that God intended to fulfill his earlier promises through Isaac. How he reconciled those facts is not clear in the text. Heb 11:17-19 suggests that Abraham believed God could restore Isaac to him through resurrection.
10 tn Heb “Do not extend your hand toward the boy.”
11 tn Heb “and he said, ‘Do not extend…’”; the referent (the angel) has been specified in the context for clarity. The order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.
12 sn For now I know. The test was designed to see if Abraham would be obedient (see v. 1).
13 sn In this context fear refers by metonymy to obedience that grows from faith.
14 tn Heb “and also his blood, look, it is required.” God requires compensation, as it were, from those who shed innocent blood (see Gen 9:6). In other words, God exacts punishment for the crime of murder.
15 tn Heb “and we will rise up and we will go.” The first verb is adverbial and gives the expression the sense of “we will go immediately.”
16 tn After the preceding cohortatives, the prefixed verbal form (either imperfect or cohortative) with the prefixed conjunction here indicates purpose or result.
17 tn Heb “his life is bound up in his life.”
18 tn Heb “when he sees that there is no boy.”
19 tn Or “for.”
