Kisah Para Rasul 7:6

7:6 But God spoke as follows: ‘Your ¹  descendants will be foreigners ²  in a foreign country, whose citizens will enslave them and mistreat them for four hundred years. ³ 

Kejadian 15:13-16

15:13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain ⁴  that your descendants will be strangers ⁵  in a foreign country. ⁶  They will be enslaved and oppressed ⁷  for four hundred years. 15:14 But I will execute judgment on the nation that they will serve. ⁸  Afterward they will come out with many possessions. 15:15 But as for you, ⁹  you will go to your ancestors ¹⁰  in peace and be buried at a good old age. ¹¹  15:16 In the fourth generation ¹²  your descendants ¹³  will return here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its limit.” ¹⁴ 

Kejadian 15:2

15:2 But Abram said, “O sovereign Lord, ¹⁵  what will you give me since ¹⁶  I continue to be ¹⁷  childless, and my heir ¹⁸  is ¹⁹  Eliezer of Damascus?” ²⁰ 

Pengkhotbah 3:8-9

3:8 A time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

Man is Ignorant of God’s Timing

3:9 What benefit can a worker ²¹  gain from his toil? ²² 

[7:6]  ¹ tn Grk “that his”; the discourse switches from indirect to direct with the following verbs. For consistency the entire quotation is treated as second person direct discourse in the translation.

[7:6]  ² tn Or “will be strangers,” that is, one who lives as a noncitizen of a foreign country.

[7:6]  ³ sn A quotation from Gen 15:13. Exod 12:40 specifies the sojourn as 430 years.

[15:13]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew construction is emphatic, with the Qal infinitive absolute followed by the imperfect from יָדַע (yada’, “know”). The imperfect here has an obligatory or imperatival force.

[15:13]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew word גֵּר (ger, “sojourner, stranger”) is related to the verb גּוּר (gur, “to sojourn, to stay for awhile”). Abram’s descendants will stay in a land as resident aliens without rights of citizenship.

[15:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “in a land not theirs.”

[15:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “and they will serve them and they will oppress them.” The verb עִנּוּ, (’innu, a Piel form from עָנָה, ’anah, “to afflict, to oppress, to treat harshly”), is used in Exod 1:11 to describe the oppression of the Israelites in Egypt.

[15:14]  ⁸ tn The participle דָּן (dan, from דִּין, din) is used here for the future: “I am judging” = “I will surely judge.” The judgment in this case will be condemnation and punishment. The translation “execute judgment on” implies that the judgment will certainly be carried out.

[15:15]  ⁹ tn The vav with the pronoun before the verb calls special attention to the subject in contrast to the preceding subject.

[15:15]  ¹⁰ sn You will go to your ancestors. This is a euphemistic expression for death.

[15:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in a good old age.”

[15:16]  ¹² sn The term generation is being used here in its widest sense to refer to a full life span. When the chronological factors are considered and the genealogies tabulated, there are four hundred years of bondage. This suggests that in this context a generation is equivalent to one hundred years.

[15:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “they”; the referent (“your descendants”) has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[15:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “is not yet complete.”

[15:16]  sn The sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its limit. The justice of God is apparent. He will wait until the Amorites are fully deserving of judgment before he annihilates them and gives the land to Israel.

[15:2]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew text has אֲדֹנָי יֱהוִה (’adonay yehvih, “Master, Lord”). Since the tetragrammaton (YHWH) usually is pointed with the vowels for the Hebrew word אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “master”) to avoid pronouncing the divine name, that would lead in this place to a repetition of אֲדֹנָי. So the tetragrammaton is here pointed with the vowels for the word אֱלֹהִים (’elohim, “God”) instead. That would produce the reading of the Hebrew as “Master, God” in the Jewish textual tradition. But the presence of “Master” before the holy name is rather compelling evidence that the original would have been “Master, Lord,” which is rendered here “sovereign Lord.”

[15:2]  ¹⁶ tn The vav (ו) disjunctive at the beginning of the clause is circumstantial, expressing the cause or reason.

[15:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “I am going.”

[15:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the son of the acquisition of my house.”

[15:2]  sn For the custom of designating a member of the household as heir, see C. H. Gordon, “Biblical Customs and the Nuzu Tablets,” Biblical Archaeologist Reader, 2:21-33.

[15:2]  ¹⁹ tn The pronoun is anaphoric here, equivalent to the verb “to be” (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 23, §115).

[15:2]  ²⁰ sn The sentence in the Hebrew text employs a very effective wordplay on the name Damascus: “The son of the acquisition (בֶּן־מֶשֶׁק, ben-mesheq) of my house is Eliezer of Damascus (דַּמֶּשֶׁק, dammesheq).” The words are not the same; they have different sibilants. But the sound play gives the impression that “in the nomen is the omen.” Eliezer the Damascene will be Abram’s heir if Abram dies childless because “Damascus” seems to mean that. See M. F. Unger, “Some Comments on the Text of Genesis 15:2-3,” JBL 72 (1953): 49-50; H. L. Ginsberg, “Abram’s ‘Damascene’ Steward,” BASOR 200 (1970): 31-32.

[3:9]  ²¹ tn The term הָעוֹשֶׂה (ha’oseh, article + Qal active participle ms from עָשַׂה, ’asah, “to do”) functions substantively (“the worker”); see BDB 794 s.v. עָשַׂה II.1. This is a figurative description of man (metonymy of association), and plays on the repetition of עָשַׂה (verb: “to do,” noun: “work”) throughout the passage. In the light of God’s orchestration of human affairs, man’s efforts cannot change anything. It refers to man in general with the article functioning in a generic sense (see IBHS 244-45 §13.5.1f; Joüon 2:511 §137.m).

[3:9]  ²² sn This rhetorical question is an example of negative affirmation, expecting a negative answer: “Man gains nothing from his toil!” (see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 949-51). Any advantage that man might gain from his toil is nullified by his ignorance of divine providence.