Kejadian 29:32-35
Konteks29:32 So Leah became pregnant 1 and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, 2 for she said, “The Lord has looked with pity on my oppressed condition. 3 Surely my husband will love me now.”
29:33 She became pregnant again and had another son. She said, “Because the Lord heard that I was unloved, 4 he gave me this one too.” So she named him Simeon. 5
29:34 She became pregnant again and had another son. She said, “Now this time my husband will show me affection, 6 because I have given birth to three sons for him.” That is why he was named Levi. 7
29:35 She became pregnant again and had another son. She said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” That is why she named him Judah. 8 Then she stopped having children.
Kejadian 30:5-20
Konteks30:5 Bilhah became pregnant 9 and gave Jacob a son. 10 30:6 Then Rachel said, “God has vindicated me. He has responded to my prayer 11 and given me a son.” That is why 12 she named him Dan. 13
30:7 Bilhah, Rachel’s servant, became pregnant again and gave Jacob another son. 14 30:8 Then Rachel said, “I have fought a desperate struggle with my sister, but I have won.” 15 So she named him Naphtali. 16
30:9 When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she gave 17 her servant Zilpah to Jacob as a wife. 30:10 Soon Leah’s servant Zilpah gave Jacob a son. 18 30:11 Leah said, “How fortunate!” 19 So she named him Gad. 20
30:12 Then Leah’s servant Zilpah gave Jacob another son. 21 30:13 Leah said, “How happy I am, 22 for women 23 will call me happy!” So she named him Asher. 24
30:14 At the time 25 of the wheat harvest Reuben went out and found some mandrake plants 26 in a field and brought them to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, “Give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” 30:15 But Leah replied, 27 “Wasn’t it enough that you’ve taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes too?” “All right,” 28 Rachel said, “he may sleep 29 with you tonight in exchange for your son’s mandrakes.” 30:16 When Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, “You must sleep 30 with me because I have paid for your services 31 with my son’s mandrakes.” So he had marital relations 32 with her that night. 30:17 God paid attention 33 to Leah; she became pregnant 34 and gave Jacob a son for the fifth time. 35 30:18 Then Leah said, “God has granted me a reward 36 because I gave my servant to my husband as a wife.” 37 So she named him Issachar. 38
30:19 Leah became pregnant again and gave Jacob a son for the sixth time. 39 30:20 Then Leah said, “God has given me a good gift. Now my husband will honor me because I have given him six sons.” So she named him Zebulun. 40
Kejadian 35:16-19
Konteks35:16 They traveled on from Bethel, and when Ephrath was still some distance away, 41 Rachel went into labor 42 – and her labor was hard. 35:17 When her labor was at its hardest, 43 the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid, for you are having another son.” 44 35:18 With her dying breath, 45 she named him Ben-Oni. 46 But his father called him Benjamin instead. 47 35:19 So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). 48
Kejadian 46:8-27
Konteks46:8 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt – Jacob and his sons:
Reuben, the firstborn of Jacob.
46:9 The sons of Reuben:
Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.
46:10 The sons of Simeon:
Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar,
and Shaul (the son of a Canaanite woman).
46:11 The sons of Levi:
Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.
46:12 The sons of Judah:
Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah
(but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan).
The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.
46:13 The sons of Issachar:
Tola, Puah, 49 Jashub, 50 and Shimron.
46:14 The sons of Zebulun:
Sered, Elon, and Jahleel.
46:15 These were the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan Aram, along with Dinah his daughter. His sons and daughters numbered thirty-three in all. 51
46:16 The sons of Gad:
Zephon, 52 Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli.
46:17 The sons of Asher:
Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, and Serah their sister.
The sons of Beriah were Heber and Malkiel.
46:18 These were the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter. She bore these to Jacob, sixteen in all.
46:19 The sons of Rachel the wife of Jacob:
Joseph and Benjamin.
46:20 Manasseh and Ephraim were born to Joseph in the land of Egypt. Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, 53 bore them to him.
46:21 The sons of Benjamin: 54
Bela, Beker, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim and Ard.
46:22 These were the sons of Rachel who were born to Jacob, fourteen in all.
46:23 The son of Dan: Hushim. 55
46:24 The sons of Naphtali:
Jahziel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem.
46:25 These were the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to Rachel his daughter. She bore these to Jacob, seven in all.
46:26 All the direct descendants of Jacob who went to Egypt with him were sixty-six in number. (This number does not include the wives of Jacob’s sons.) 56 46:27 Counting the two sons 57 of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt, all the people of the household of Jacob who were in Egypt numbered seventy. 58
Kejadian 49:8-12
Konteks49:8 Judah, 59 your brothers will praise you.
Your hand will be on the neck of your enemies,
your father’s sons will bow down before you.
49:9 You are a lion’s cub, Judah,
from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He crouches and lies down like a lion;
like a lioness – who will rouse him?
49:10 The scepter will not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, 60
until he comes to whom it belongs; 61
the nations will obey him. 62
49:11 Binding his foal to the vine,
and his colt to the choicest vine,
he will wash 63 his garments in wine,
his robes in the blood of grapes.
49:12 His eyes will be dark from wine,
and his teeth white from milk. 64
[29:32] 1 tn Or “Leah conceived” (also in vv. 33, 34, 35).
[29:32] 2 sn The name Reuben (רְאוּבֵן, rÿ’uven) means “look, a son.”
[29:32] 3 tn Heb “looked on my affliction.”
[29:32] sn Leah’s explanation of the name Reuben reflects a popular etymology, not an exact one. The name means literally “look, a son.” Playing on the Hebrew verb “look,” she observes that the
[29:33] 4 tn Heb “hated.” See the note on the word “unloved” in v. 31.
[29:33] 5 sn The name Simeon (שִׁמְעוֹן, shim’on) is derived from the verbal root שָׁמַע (shama’) and means “hearing.” The name is appropriate since it is reminder that the
[29:34] 6 tn Heb “will be joined to me.”
[29:34] 7 sn The name Levi (לֵוִי, levi), the precise meaning of which is debated, was appropriate because it sounds like the verb לָוָה (lavah, “to join”), used in the statement recorded earlier in the verse.
[29:35] 8 sn The name Judah (יְהוּדָה, yÿhudah) means “he will be praised” and reflects the sentiment Leah expresses in the statement recorded earlier in the verse. For further discussion see W. F. Albright, “The Names ‘Israel’ and ‘Judah’ with an Excursus on the Etymology of Todah and Torah,” JBL 46 (1927): 151-85; and A. R. Millard, “The Meaning of the Name Judah,” ZAW 86 (1974): 216-18.
[30:5] 9 tn Or “Bilhah conceived” (also in v. 7).
[30:5] 10 tn Heb “and she bore for Jacob a son.”
[30:6] 11 tn Heb “and also he has heard my voice.” The expression means that God responded positively to Rachel’s cry and granted her request.
[30:6] 13 sn The name Dan means “he vindicated” or “he judged.” The name plays on the verb used in the statement which appears earlier in the verse. The verb translated “vindicated” is from דִּין (din, “to judge, to vindicate”), the same verbal root from which the name is derived. Rachel sensed that God was righting the wrong.
[30:7] 14 tn Heb “and she became pregnant again and Bilhah, the servant of Rachel, bore a second son for Jacob.”
[30:8] 15 tn Heb “[with] a mighty struggle I have struggled with my sister, also I have prevailed.” The phrase “mighty struggle” reads literally “struggles of God.” The plural participle “struggles” reflects the ongoing nature of the struggle, while the divine name is used here idiomatically to emphasize the intensity of the struggle. See J. Skinner, Genesis (ICC), 387.
[30:8] 16 sn The name Naphtali (נַפְתָּלִי, naftali) must mean something like “my struggle” in view of the statement Rachel made in the preceding clause. The name plays on this earlier statement, “[with] a mighty struggle I have struggled with my sister.”
[30:9] 17 tn Heb “she took her servant Zilpah and gave her.” The verbs “took” and “gave” are treated as a hendiadys in the translation: “she gave.”
[30:10] 18 tn Heb “and Zilpah, the servant of Leah, bore for Jacob a son.”
[30:11] 19 tc The statement in the Kethib (consonantal text) appears to mean literally “with good fortune,” if one takes the initial בְּ (bet) as a preposition indicating accompaniment. The Qere (marginal reading) means “good fortune has arrived.”
[30:11] 20 sn The name Gad (גָּד, gad) means “good fortune.” The name reflects Leah’s feeling that good fortune has come her way, as expressed in her statement recorded earlier in the verse.
[30:12] 21 tn Heb “and Zilpah, the servant of Leah, bore a second son for Jacob.”
[30:13] 22 tn The Hebrew statement apparently means “with my happiness.”
[30:13] 23 tn Heb “daughters.”
[30:13] 24 sn The name Asher (אָשֶׁר, ’asher) apparently means “happy one.” The name plays on the words used in the statement which appears earlier in the verse. Both the Hebrew noun and verb translated “happy” and “call me happy,” respectively, are derived from the same root as the name Asher.
[30:14] 25 tn Heb “during the days.”
[30:14] 26 sn Mandrake plants were popularly believed to be an aphrodisiac in the culture of the time.
[30:15] 27 tn Heb “and she said to her”; the referent of the pronoun “she” (Leah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
[30:15] 28 tn Heb “therefore.”
[30:15] 29 tn Heb “lie down.” The expression “lie down with” in this context (here and in the following verse) refers to sexual intercourse. The imperfect verbal form has a permissive nuance here.
[30:16] 30 tn Heb “must come in to me.” The imperfect verbal form has an obligatory nuance here. She has acquired him for the night and feels he is obligated to have sexual relations with her.
[30:16] 31 tn Heb “I have surely hired.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verbal form for emphasis. The name Issachar (see v. 18) seems to be related to this expression.
[30:16] 32 tn This is the same Hebrew verb (שָׁכַב, shakhav) translated “sleep with” in v. 15. In direct discourse the more euphemistic “sleep with” was used, but here in the narrative “marital relations” reflects more clearly the emphasis on sexual intercourse.
[30:17] 33 tn Heb “listened to.”
[30:17] 34 tn Or “she conceived” (also in v. 19).
[30:17] 35 tn Heb “and she bore for Jacob a fifth son,” i.e., this was the fifth son that Leah had given Jacob.
[30:18] 36 tn Heb “God has given my reward.”
[30:18] 37 tn The words “as a wife” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied for clarity (cf. v. 9).
[30:18] sn Leah seems to regard the act of giving her servant Zilpah to her husband as a sacrifice, for which (she believes) God is now rewarding her with the birth of a son.
[30:18] 38 sn The name Issachar (יְשָּׁשכָר, yishakhar) appears to mean “man of reward” or possibly “there is reward.” The name plays on the word used in the statement made earlier in the verse. The Hebrew noun translated “reward” is derived from the same root as the name Issachar. The irony is that Rachel thought the mandrakes would work for her, and she was willing to trade one night for them. But in that one night Leah became pregnant.
[30:19] 39 tn Heb “and she bore a sixth son for Jacob,” i.e., this was the sixth son that Leah had given Jacob.
[30:20] 40 sn The name Zebulun (זְבֻלוּן, zevulun) apparently means “honor.” The name plays on the verb used in the statement made earlier in the verse. The Hebrew verb translated “will honor” and the name Zebulun derive from the same root.
[35:16] 41 tn Heb “and there was still a stretch of the land to go to Ephrath.”
[35:16] 42 tn Normally the verb would be translated “she gave birth,” but because that obviously had not happened yet, it is better to translate the verb as ingressive, “began to give birth” (cf. NIV) or “went into labor.”
[35:17] 43 tn The construction uses a Hiphil infinitive, which E. A. Speiser classifies as an elative Hiphil. The contrast is with the previous Piel: there “she had hard labor,” and here, “her labor was at its hardest.” Failure to see this, Speiser notes, has led to redundant translations and misunderstandings (Genesis [AB], 273).
[35:17] 44 sn Another son. The episode recalls and fulfills the prayer of Rachel at the birth of Joseph (Gen 30:24): “may he add” another son.
[35:18] 45 tn Heb “in the going out of her life, for she was dying.” Rachel named the child with her dying breath.
[35:18] 46 sn The name Ben-Oni means “son of my suffering.” It is ironic that Rachel’s words to Jacob in Gen 30:1, “Give me children or I’ll die,” take a different turn here, for it was having the child that brought about her death.
[35:18] 47 tn The disjunctive clause is contrastive.
[35:18] sn His father called him Benjamin. There was a preference for giving children good or positive names in the ancient world, and “son of my suffering” would not do (see the incident in 1 Chr 4:9-10), because it would be a reminder of the death of Rachel (in this connection, see also D. Daube, “The Night of Death,” HTR 61 [1968]: 629-32). So Jacob named him Benjamin, which means “son of the [or “my”] right hand.” The name Benjamin appears in the Mari texts. There have been attempts to connect this name to the resident tribe listed at Mari, “sons of the south” (since the term “right hand” can also mean “south” in Hebrew), but this assumes a different reading of the story. See J. Muilenburg, “The Birth of Benjamin,” JBL 75 (1956): 194-201.
[35:19] 48 sn This explanatory note links the earlier name Ephrath with the later name Bethlehem.
[35:19] map For location see Map5 B1; Map7 E2; Map8 E2; Map10 B4.
[46:13] 49 tc The MT reads “Puvah” (cf. Num 26:23); the Samaritan Pentateuch and Syriac read “Puah” (cf. 1 Chr 7:1).
[46:13] 50 tc The MT reads “Iob,” but the Samaritan Pentateuch and some LXX
[46:15] 51 tn Heb “all the lives of his sons and his daughters, thirty-three.”
[46:16] 52 tc The MT reads “Ziphion,” but see Num 26:15, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX, all of which read “Zephon.”
[46:20] 53 sn On is another name for the city of Heliopolis.
[46:21] 54 sn The sons of Benjamin. It is questionable whether youthful Benjamin had ten sons by the time he went into Egypt, but it is not impossible. If Benjamin was born when Joseph was six or seven, he was ten when Joseph was sold into Egypt, and would have been thirty-two at this point. Some suggest that the list originally served another purpose and included the names of all who were in the immediate family of the sons, whether born in Canaan or later in Egypt.
[46:23] 55 tn This name appears as “Shuham” in Num 26:42. The LXX reads “Hashum” here.
[46:26] 56 tn Heb “All the people who went with Jacob to Egypt, the ones who came out of his body, apart from the wives of the sons of Jacob, all the people were sixty-six.”
[46:26] sn The number sixty-six includes the seventy-one descendants (including Dinah) listed in vv. 8-25 minus Er and Onan (deceased), and Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim (already in Egypt).
[46:27] 57 tn The LXX reads “nine sons,” probably counting the grandsons of Joseph born to Ephraim and Manasseh (cf. 1 Chr 7:14-20).
[46:27] 58 tn Heb “And the sons of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt were two people; all the people belonging to the house of Jacob who came to Egypt were seventy.”
[46:27] sn The number seventy includes Jacob himself and the seventy-one descendants (including Dinah, Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim) listed in vv. 8-25, minus Er and Onan (deceased). The LXX gives the number as “seventy-five” (cf. Acts 7:14).
[49:8] 59 sn There is a wordplay here; the name Judah (יְהוּדָה, yÿhudah) sounds in Hebrew like the verb translated praise (יוֹדוּךָ, yodukha). The wordplay serves to draw attention to the statement as having special significance.
[49:10] 60 tn Or perhaps “from his descendants,” taking the expression “from between his feet” as a euphemism referring to the genitals. In this case the phrase refers by metonymy to those who come forth from his genitals, i.e., his descendants.
[49:10] 61 tn The Hebrew form שִׁילֹה (shiloh) is a major interpretive problem. There are at least four major options (with many variations and less likely alternatives): (1) Some prefer to leave the text as it is, reading “Shiloh” and understanding it as the place where the ark rested for a while in the time of the Judges. (2) By repointing the text others arrive at the translation “until the [or “his”] ruler comes,” a reference to a Davidic ruler or the Messiah. (3) Another possibility that does not require emendation of the consonantal text, but only repointing, is “until tribute is brought to him” (so NEB, JPS, NRSV), which has the advantage of providing good parallelism with the following line, “the nations will obey him.” (4) The interpretation followed in the present translation, “to whom it [belongs]” (so RSV, NIV, REB), is based on the ancient versions. Again, this would refer to the Davidic dynasty or, ultimately, to the Messiah.
[49:10] 62 tn “and to him [will be] the obedience of the nations.” For discussion of this verse see J. Blenkinsopp, “The Oracle of Judah and the Messianic Entry,” JBL 80 (1961): 55-64; and E. M. Good, “The ‘Blessing’ on Judah,” JBL 82 (1963): 427-32.
[49:11] 63 tn The perfect verbal form is used rhetorically, describing coming events as though they have already taken place.
[49:12] 64 tn Some translate these as comparatives, “darker than wine…whiter than milk,” and so a reference to his appearance (so NEB, NIV, NRSV). But if it is in the age of abundance, symbolized by wine and milk, then the dark (i.e., red or perhaps dull) eyes would be from drinking wine, and the white teeth from drinking milk.
