Discovery BoxGenesis 28:1-4 
Context28:1 So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him, “You must not marry a Canaanite woman! 1 28:2 Leave immediately 2 for Paddan Aram! Go to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and find yourself a wife there, among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. 28:3 May the sovereign God 3 bless you! May he make you fruitful and give you a multitude of descendants! 4 Then you will become 5 a large nation. 6 28:4 May he give you and your descendants the blessing he gave to Abraham 7 so that you may possess the land 8 God gave to Abraham, the land where you have been living as a temporary resident.” 9
1 tn Heb “you must not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.”
2 tn Heb “Arise! Go!” The first of the two imperatives is adverbial and stresses the immediacy of the departure.
3 tn Heb “El Shaddai.” See the extended note on the phrase “sovereign God” in Gen 17:1.
4 tn Heb “and make you fruitful and multiply you.” See Gen 17:6, 20 for similar terminology.
5 tn The perfect verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here indicates consequence. The collocation הָיָה + preposition לְ (hayah + lÿ) means “become.”
6 tn Heb “an assembly of peoples.”
7 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.
8 tn The words “the land” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.
9 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.
