Discovery BoxGenesis 4:3 
Context4:3 At the designated time 1 Cain brought some of the fruit of the ground for an offering 2 to the Lord.
Genesis 21:27
Context21:27 Abraham took some sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech. The two of them made a treaty. 3
Genesis 22:1
Context22:1 Some time after these things God tested 4 Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am!” Abraham 5 replied.
Genesis 25:29
Context25:29 Now Jacob cooked some stew, 6 and when Esau came in from the open fields, he was famished.
1 tn Heb “And it happened at the end of days.” The clause indicates the passing of a set period of time leading up to offering sacrifices.
2 tn The Hebrew term מִנְחָה (minkhah, “offering”) is a general word for tribute, a gift, or an offering. It is the main word used in Lev 2 for the dedication offering. This type of offering could be comprised of vegetables. The content of the offering (vegetables, as opposed to animals) was not the critical issue, but rather the attitude of the offerer.
3 tn Heb “cut a covenant.”
4 sn The Hebrew verb used here means “to test; to try; to prove.” In this passage God tests Abraham to see if he would be obedient. See T. W. Mann, The Book of the Torah, 44-48. See also J. L. Crenshaw, A Whirlpool of Torment (OBT), 9-30; and J. I. Lawlor, “The Test of Abraham,” GTJ 1 (1980): 19-35.
5 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
6 sn Jacob cooked some stew. There are some significant words and wordplays in this story that help clarify the points of the story. The verb “cook” is זִיד (zid), which sounds like the word for “hunter” (צַיִד, tsayid). This is deliberate, for the hunter becomes the hunted in this story. The word זִיד means “to cook, to boil,” but by the sound play with צַיִד it comes to mean “set a trap by cooking.” The usage of the word shows that it can also have the connotation of acting presumptuously (as in boiling over). This too may be a comment on the scene. For further discussion of the rhetorical devices in the Jacob narratives, see J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis (SSN).
