Kejadian 12:2

12:2 Then I will make you ¹  into a great nation, and I will bless you, ² 

and I will make your name great, ³ 

so that you will exemplify divine blessing. ⁴ 

Kejadian 13:2

13:2 (Now Abram was very wealthy ⁵  in livestock, silver, and gold.) ⁶ 

Kejadian 14:23

14:23 that I will take nothing ⁷  belonging to you, not even a thread or the strap of a sandal. That way you can never say, ‘It is I ⁸  who made Abram rich.’

Kejadian 24:35

24:35 “The Lord has richly blessed my master and he has become very wealthy. ⁹  The Lord ¹⁰  has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, male and female servants, and camels and donkeys.

Kejadian 26:12

26:12 When Isaac planted in that land, he reaped in the same year a hundred times what he had sown, ¹¹  because the Lord blessed him. ¹² 

Ulangan 8:17-18

8:17 Be careful ¹³  not to say, “My own ability and skill ¹⁴  have gotten me this wealth.” 8:18 You must remember the Lord your God, for he is the one who gives ability to get wealth; if you do this he will confirm his covenant that he made by oath to your ancestors, ¹⁵  even as he has to this day.

Ulangan 8:1

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ¹⁶  I am giving ¹⁷  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ¹⁸  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ¹⁹ 

1 Samuel 2:7-8

2:7 The Lord impoverishes and makes wealthy;

he humbles and he exalts.

2:8 He lifts the weak ²⁰  from the dust;

he raises ²¹  the poor from the ash heap

to seat them with princes

and to bestow on them an honored position. ²² 

The foundations of the earth belong to the Lord,

and he has placed the world on them.

Mazmur 37:22

37:22 Surely ²³  those favored by the Lord ²⁴  will possess the land,

but those rejected ²⁵  by him will be wiped out. ²⁶ 

Mazmur 107:38

107:38 He blessed ²⁷  them so that they became very numerous.

He would not allow their cattle to decrease in number. ²⁸ 

Mazmur 113:7-8

113:7 He raises the poor from the dirt,

and lifts up the needy from the garbage pile, ²⁹ 

113:8 that he might seat him with princes,

with the princes of his people.

[12:2]  ¹ tn The three first person verbs in v. 2a should be classified as cohortatives. The first two have pronominal suffixes, so the form itself does not indicate a cohortative. The third verb form is clearly cohortative.

[12:2]  ² sn I will bless you. The blessing of creation is now carried forward to the patriarch. In the garden God blessed Adam and Eve; in that blessing he gave them (1) a fruitful place, (2) endowed them with fertility to multiply, and (3) made them rulers over creation. That was all ruined at the fall. Now God begins to build his covenant people; in Gen 12-22 he promises to give Abram (1) a land flowing with milk and honey, (2) a great nation without number, and (3) kingship.

[12:2]  ³ tn Or “I will make you famous.”

[12:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “and be a blessing.” The verb form הְיֵה (hÿyeh) is the Qal imperative of the verb הָיָה (hayah). The vav (ו) with the imperative after the cohortatives indicates purpose or consequence. What does it mean for Abram to “be a blessing”? Will he be a channel or source of blessing for others, or a prime example of divine blessing? A similar statement occurs in Zech 8:13, where God assures his people, “You will be a blessing,” in contrast to the past when they “were a curse.” Certainly “curse” here does not refer to Israel being a source of a curse, but rather to the fact that they became a curse-word or byword among the nations, who regarded them as the epitome of an accursed people (see 2 Kgs 22:19; Jer 42:18; 44:8, 12, 22). Therefore the statement “be a blessing” seems to refer to Israel being transformed into a prime example of a blessed people, whose name will be used in blessing formulae, rather than in curses. If the statement “be a blessing” is understood in the same way in Gen 12:2, then it means that God would so bless Abram that other nations would hear of his fame and hold him up as a paradigm of divine blessing in their blessing formulae.

[13:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “heavy.”

[13:2]  ⁶ tn This parenthetical clause, introduced by the vav (ו) disjunctive (translated “now”), provides information necessary to the point of the story.

[14:23]  ⁷ tn The oath formula is elliptical, reading simply: “…if I take.” It is as if Abram says, “[May the Lord deal with me] if I take,” meaning, “I will surely not take.” The positive oath would add the negative adverb and be the reverse: “[God will deal with me] if I do not take,” meaning, “I certainly will.”

[14:23]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew text adds the independent pronoun (“I”) to the verb form for emphasis.

[24:35]  ⁹ tn Heb “great.” In this context the statement refers primarily to Abraham’s material wealth, although reputation and influence are not excluded.

[24:35]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and he.” The referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[26:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a hundredfold.”

[26:12]  ¹² tn This final clause explains why Isaac had such a bountiful harvest.

[8:17]  ¹³ tn For stylistic reasons a new sentence was started at the beginning of v. 17 in the translation and the words “be careful” supplied to indicate the connection.

[8:17]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “my strength and the might of my hand.”

[8:18]  ¹⁵ tc Smr and Lucian add “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” the standard way of rendering this almost stereotypical formula (cf. Deut 1:8; 6:10; 9:5, 27; 29:13; 30:20; 34:4). The MT’s harder reading presumptively argues for its originality, however.

[8:1]  ¹⁶ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[2:8]  ²⁰ tn Or “lowly”; Heb “insignificant.”

[2:8]  ²¹ tn The imperfect verbal form, which is parallel to the participle in the preceding line, is best understood here as indicating what typically happens.

[2:8]  ²² tn Heb “a seat of honor.”

[37:22]  ²³ tn The particle כִּי is best understood as asseverative or emphatic here.

[37:22]  ²⁴ tn Heb “those blessed by him.” The pronoun “him” must refer to the Lord (see vv. 20, 23), so the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[37:22]  ²⁵ tn Heb “cursed.”

[37:22]  ²⁶ tn Or “cut off”; or “removed” (see v. 9).

[107:38]  ²⁷ tn “Bless” here carries the nuance “endue with sexual potency, make fertile.” See Gen 1:28, where the statement “he blessed them” directly precedes the command “be fruitful and populate the earth” (see also 1:22). The verb “bless” carries this same nuance in Gen 17:16 (where God’s blessing of Sarai imparts to her the capacity to bear a child); 48:16 (where God’s blessing of Joseph’s sons is closely associated with their having numerous descendants); and Deut 7:13 (where God’s blessing is associated with fertility in general, including numerous descendants). See also Gen 49:25 (where Jacob uses the noun derivative in referring to “blessings of the breast and womb,” an obvious reference to fertility) and Gen 27:27 (where the verb is used of a field to which God has given the capacity to produce vegetation).

[107:38]  ²⁸ tn The verbal form in this line appears to be an imperfect, which may be taken as customary (drawing attention to typical action in a past time frame) or as generalizing (in which case one should use the English present tense, understanding a move from narrative to present reality).

[113:7]  ²⁹ sn The language of v. 7 is almost identical to that of 1 Sam 2:8.