Discovery BoxGenesis 28:3-4 
Context28:3 May the sovereign God 1 bless you! May he make you fruitful and give you a multitude of descendants! 2 Then you will become 3 a large nation. 4 28:4 May he give you and your descendants the blessing he gave to Abraham 5 so that you may possess the land 6 God gave to Abraham, the land where you have been living as a temporary resident.” 7
1 tn Heb “El Shaddai.” See the extended note on the phrase “sovereign God” in Gen 17:1.
2 tn Heb “and make you fruitful and multiply you.” See Gen 17:6, 20 for similar terminology.
3 tn The perfect verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here indicates consequence. The collocation הָיָה + preposition לְ (hayah + lÿ) means “become.”
4 tn Heb “an assembly of peoples.”
5 tn Heb “and may he give to you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your offspring with you.” The name “Abraham” is an objective genitive here; this refers to the blessing that God gave to Abraham.
6 tn The words “the land” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “the land of your sojournings,” that is, the land where Jacob had been living as a resident alien, as his future descendants would after him.
