Kejadian 40:8
Konteks40:8 They told him, “We both had dreams, 1 but there is no one to interpret them.” Joseph responded, “Don’t interpretations belong to God? Tell them 2 to me.”
Kejadian 12:1-7
Konteks12:1 Now the Lord said 3 to Abram, 4
“Go out 5 from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household
to the land that I will show you. 6
12:2 Then I will make you 7 into a great nation, and I will bless you, 8
and I will make your name great, 9
so that you will exemplify divine blessing. 10
12:3 I will bless those who bless you, 11
but the one who treats you lightly 12 I must curse,
and all the families of the earth will bless one another 13 by your name.”
12:4 So Abram left, 14 just as the Lord had told him to do, 15 and Lot went with him. (Now 16 Abram was 75 years old 17 when he departed from Haran.) 12:5 And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew 18 Lot, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired 19 in Haran, and they left for 20 the land of Canaan. They entered the land of Canaan.
12:6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the oak tree 21 of Moreh 22 at Shechem. 23 (At that time the Canaanites were in the land.) 24 12:7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants 25 I will give this land.” So Abram 26 built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
Kejadian 20:3
Konteks20:3 But God appeared 27 to Abimelech in a dream at night and said to him, “You are as good as dead 28 because of the woman you have taken, for she is someone else’s wife.” 29
Kejadian 37:5-10
Konteks37:5 Joseph 30 had a dream, 31 and when he told his brothers about it, 32 they hated him even more. 33 37:6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 34 37:7 There we were, 35 binding sheaves of grain in the middle of the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose up and stood upright and your sheaves surrounded my sheaf and bowed down 36 to it!” 37:8 Then his brothers asked him, “Do you really think you will rule over us or have dominion over us?” 37 They hated him even more 38 because of his dream and because of what he said. 39
37:9 Then he had another dream, 40 and told it to his brothers. “Look,” 41 he said. “I had another dream. The sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 37:10 When he told his father and his brothers, his father rebuked him, saying, “What is this dream that you had? 42 Will I, your mother, and your brothers really come and bow down to you?” 43
Kejadian 41:1-7
Konteks41:1 At the end of two full years 44 Pharaoh had a dream. 45 As he was standing by the Nile, 41:2 seven fine-looking, fat cows were coming up out of the Nile, 46 and they grazed in the reeds. 41:3 Then seven bad-looking, thin cows were coming up after them from the Nile, 47 and they stood beside the other cows at the edge of the river. 48 41:4 The bad-looking, thin cows ate the seven fine-looking, fat cows. Then Pharaoh woke up.
41:5 Then he fell asleep again and had a second dream: There were seven heads of grain growing 49 on one stalk, healthy 50 and good. 41:6 Then 51 seven heads of grain, thin and burned by the east wind, were sprouting up after them. 41:7 The thin heads swallowed up the seven healthy and full heads. Then Pharaoh woke up and realized it was a dream. 52
Kejadian 41:11
Konteks41:11 We each had a dream one night; each of us had a dream with its own meaning. 53
[40:8] 1 tn Heb “a dream we dreamed.”
[40:8] 2 tn The word “them” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
[12:1] 3 sn The
[12:1] 4 tn The call of Abram begins with an imperative לֶךְ־לְךָ (lekh-lÿkha, “go out”) followed by three cohortatives (v. 2a) indicating purpose or consequence (“that I may” or “then I will”). If Abram leaves, then God will do these three things. The second imperative (v. 2b, literally “and be a blessing”) is subordinated to the preceding cohortatives and indicates God’s ultimate purpose in calling and blessing Abram. On the syntactical structure of vv. 1-2 see R. B. Chisholm, “Evidence from Genesis,” A Case for Premillennialism, 37. For a similar sequence of volitive forms see Gen 45:18.
[12:1] sn It would be hard to overestimate the value of this call and this divine plan for the theology of the Bible. Here begins God’s plan to bring redemption to the world. The promises to Abram will be turned into a covenant in Gen 15 and 22 (here it is a call with conditional promises) and will then lead through the Bible to the work of the Messiah.
[12:1] 5 tn The initial command is the direct imperative (לֶךְ, lekh) from the verb הָלַךְ (halakh). It is followed by the lamed preposition with a pronominal suffix (לְךָ, lÿkha) emphasizing the subject of the imperative: “you leave.”
[12:1] 6 sn To the land that I will show you. The call of Abram illustrates the leading of the
[12:2] 7 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] 8 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] 9 tn Or “I will make you famous.”
[12:2] 10 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.
[12:3] 11 tn The Piel cohortative has as its object a Piel participle, masculine plural. Since the
[12:3] 12 tn In this part of God’s statement there are two significant changes that often go unnoticed. First, the parallel and contrasting participle מְקַלֶּלְךָ (mÿqallelkha) is now singular and not plural. All the versions and a few Masoretic
[12:3] 13 tn Theoretically the Niphal can be translated either as passive or reflexive/reciprocal. (The Niphal of “bless” is only used in formulations of the Abrahamic covenant. See Gen 12:2; 18:18; 28:14.) Traditionally the verb is taken as passive here, as if Abram were going to be a channel or source of blessing. But in later formulations of the Abrahamic covenant (see Gen 22:18; 26:4) the Hitpael replaces this Niphal form, suggesting a translation “will bless [i.e., “pronounce blessings on”] themselves [or “one another”].” The Hitpael of “bless” is used with a reflexive/reciprocal sense in Deut 29:18; Ps 72:17; Isa 65:16; Jer 4:2. Gen 12:2 predicts that Abram will be held up as a paradigm of divine blessing and that people will use his name in their blessing formulae. For examples of blessing formulae utilizing an individual as an example of blessing see Gen 48:20 and Ruth 4:11.
[12:4] 14 sn So Abram left. This is the report of Abram’s obedience to God’s command (see v. 1).
[12:4] 15 tn Heb “just as the
[12:4] 16 tn The disjunctive clause (note the pattern conjunction + subject + implied “to be” verb) is parenthetical, telling the age of Abram when he left Haran.
[12:4] 17 tn Heb “was the son of five years and seventy year[s].”
[12:4] sn Terah was 70 years old when he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran (Gen 11:26). Terah was 205 when he died in Haran (11:32). Abram left Haran at the age of 75 after his father died. Abram was born when Terah was 130. Abram was not the firstborn – he is placed first in the list of three because of his importance. The same is true of the list in Gen 10:1 (Shem, Ham and Japheth). Ham was the youngest son (9:24). Japheth was the older brother of Shem (10:21), so the birth order of Noah’s sons was Japheth, Shem, and Ham.
[12:5] 18 tn Heb “the son of his brother.”
[12:5] 19 tn For the semantic nuance “acquire [property]” for the verb עָשָׂה (’asah), see BDB 795 s.v. עָשָׂה.
[12:5] 20 tn Heb “went out to go.”
[12:6] 22 sn The Hebrew word Moreh (מוֹרֶה, moreh) means “teacher.” It may well be that the place of this great oak tree was a Canaanite shrine where instruction took place.
[12:6] 23 tn Heb “as far as the place of Shechem, as far as the oak of Moreh.”
[12:6] 24 tn The disjunctive clause gives important information parenthetical in nature – the promised land was occupied by Canaanites.
[12:7] 25 tn The same Hebrew term זֶרַע (zera’) may mean “seed” (for planting), “offspring” (occasionally of animals, but usually of people), or “descendants” depending on the context.
[12:7] 26 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abram) has been supplied in the translation for clarification.
[20:3] 28 tn Heb “Look, you [are] dead.” The Hebrew construction uses the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) with a second person pronominal particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) with by the participle. It is a highly rhetorical expression.
[20:3] 29 tn Heb “and she is owned by an owner.” The disjunctive clause is causal or explanatory in this case.
[37:5] 30 tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
[37:5] 31 tn Heb “dreamed a dream.”
[37:5] 32 sn Some interpreters see Joseph as gloating over his brothers, but the text simply says he told his brothers about it (i.e., the dream). The text gives no warrant for interpreting his manner as arrogant or condescending. It seems normal that he would share a dream with the family.
[37:5] 33 tn The construction uses a hendiadys, “they added to hate,” meaning they hated him even more.
[37:6] 34 tn Heb “hear this dream which I dreamed.”
[37:7] 35 tn All three clauses in this dream report begin with וְהִנֵּה (vÿhinneh, “and look”), which lends vividness to the report. This is represented in the translation by the expression “there we were.”
[37:7] 36 tn The verb means “to bow down to the ground.” It is used to describe worship and obeisance to masters.
[37:8] 37 tn Heb “Ruling, will you rule over us, or reigning, will you reign over us?” The statement has a poetic style, with the two questions being in synonymous parallelism. Both verbs in this statement are preceded by the infinitive absolute, which lends emphasis. It is as if Joseph’s brothers said, “You don’t really think you will rule over us, do you? You don’t really think you will have dominion over us, do you?”
[37:8] 38 tn This construction is identical to the one in Gen 37:5.
[37:8] 39 sn The response of Joseph’s brothers is understandable, given what has already been going on in the family. But here there is a hint of uneasiness – they hated him because of his dream and because of his words. The dream bothered them, as well as his telling them. And their words in the rhetorical question are ironic, for this is exactly what would happen. The dream was God’s way of revealing it.
[37:9] 40 tn Heb “And he dreamed yet another dream.”
[37:9] 41 tn Heb “and he said, ‘Look.’” The order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse have been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons. Both clauses of the dream report begin with הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”), which lends vividness to the report.
[37:10] 42 sn The question What is this dream that you had? expresses Jacob’s dismay at what he perceives to be Joseph’s audacity.
[37:10] 43 tn Heb “Coming, will we come, I and your mother and your brothers, to bow down to you to the ground?” The verb “come” is preceded by the infinitive absolute, which lends emphasis. It is as if Jacob said, “You don’t really think we will come…to bow down…do you?”
[41:1] 44 tn Heb “two years, days.”
[41:1] 45 tn Heb “was dreaming.”
[41:2] 46 tn Heb “And look, he was standing by the Nile, and look, from the Nile were coming up seven cows, attractive of appearance and fat of flesh.” By the use of the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”), the narrator invites the audience to see the dream through Pharaoh’s eyes.
[41:3] 47 tn Heb “And look, seven other cows were coming up after them from the Nile, bad of appearance and thin of flesh.”
[41:3] 48 tn Heb “the Nile.” This has been replaced by “the river” in the translation for stylistic reasons.
[41:7] 52 tn Heb “And look, a dream.”
[41:7] sn Pharaoh’s two dreams, as explained in the following verses, pertained to the economy of Egypt. Because of the Nile River, the land of Egypt weathered all kinds of famines – there was usually grain in Egypt, and if there was grain and water the livestock would flourish. These two dreams, however, indicated that poverty would overtake plenty and that the blessing of the herd and the field would cease.
[41:11] 53 tn Heb “and we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he, each according to the interpretation of his dream we dreamed.”
