Kejadian 17:15-17

17:15 Then God said to Abraham, “As for your wife, you must no longer call her Sarai; ¹  Sarah ²  will be her name. 17:16 I will bless her and will give you a son through her. I will bless her and she will become a mother of nations. ³  Kings of countries ⁴  will come from her!”

17:17 Then Abraham bowed down with his face to the ground and laughed ⁵  as he said to himself, ⁶  “Can ⁷  a son be born to a man who is a hundred years old? ⁸  Can Sarah ⁹  bear a child at the age of ninety?” ¹⁰ 

Kejadian 22:1-12

The Sacrifice of Isaac

22:1 Some time after these things God tested ¹¹  Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am!” Abraham ¹²  replied. 22:2 God ¹³  said, “Take your son – your only son, whom you love, Isaac ¹⁴  – and go to the land of Moriah! ¹⁵  Offer him up there as a burnt offering ¹⁶  on one of the mountains which I will indicate to ¹⁷  you.”

22:3 Early in the morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. ¹⁸  He took two of his young servants with him, along with his son Isaac. When he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he started out ¹⁹  for the place God had spoken to him about.

22:4 On the third day Abraham caught sight of ²⁰  the place in the distance. 22:5 So he ²¹  said to his servants, “You two stay ²²  here with the donkey while ²³  the boy and I go up there. We will worship ²⁴  and then return to you.” ²⁵ 

22:6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on his son Isaac. Then he took the fire and the knife in his hand, ²⁶  and the two of them walked on together. 22:7 Isaac said to his father Abraham, ²⁷  “My father?” “What is it, ²⁸  my son?” he replied. “Here is the fire and the wood,” Isaac said, ²⁹  “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” 22:8 “God will provide ³⁰  for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham replied. The two of them continued on together.

22:9 When they came to the place God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there ³¹  and arranged the wood on it. Next he tied up ³²  his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. 22:10 Then Abraham reached out his hand, took the knife, and prepared to slaughter ³³  his son. 22:11 But the Lord’s angel ³⁴  called to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am!” he answered. 22:12 “Do not harm the boy!” ³⁵  the angel said. ³⁶  “Do not do anything to him, for now I know ³⁷  that you fear ³⁸  God because you did not withhold your son, your only son, from me.”

Kejadian 37:5-7

37:5 Joseph ³⁹  had a dream, ⁴⁰  and when he told his brothers about it, ⁴¹  they hated him even more. ⁴²  37:6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: ⁴³  37:7 There we were, ⁴⁴  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 ⁴⁵  to it!”

Kejadian 37:28

37:28 So when the Midianite ⁴⁶  merchants passed by, Joseph’s brothers pulled ⁴⁷  him ⁴⁸  out of the cistern and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. The Ishmaelites ⁴⁹  then took Joseph to Egypt.

[17:15]  ¹ tn Heb “[As for] Sarai your wife, you must not call her name Sarai, for Sarah [will be] her name.”

[17:15]  ² sn Sarah. The name change seems to be a dialectical variation, both spellings meaning “princess” or “queen.” Like the name Abram, the name Sarai symbolized the past. The new name Sarah, like the name Abraham, would be a reminder of what God intended to do for Sarah in the future.

[17:16]  ³ tn Heb “she will become nations.”

[17:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “peoples.”

[17:17]  ⁵ sn Laughed. The Hebrew verb used here provides the basis for the naming of Isaac: “And he laughed” is וַיִּצְחָק (vayyitskhaq); the name “Isaac” is יִצְחָק (yitskhaq), “he laughs.” Abraham’s (and Sarah’s, see 18:12) laughter signals disbelief, but when the boy is born, the laughter signals surprise and joy.

[17:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “And he fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart.”

[17:17]  ⁷ tn The imperfect verbal form here carries a potential nuance, as it expresses the disbelief of Abraham.

[17:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “to the son of a hundred years.”

[17:17]  ⁹ sn It is important to note that even though Abraham staggers at the announcement of the birth of a son, finding it almost too incredible, he nonetheless calls his wife Sarah, the new name given to remind him of the promise of God (v. 15).

[17:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the daughter of ninety years.”

[22:1]  ¹¹ sn The Hebrew verb used here means “to test; to try; to prove.” In this passage God tests Abraham to see if he would be obedient. See T. W. Mann, The Book of the Torah, 44-48. See also J. L. Crenshaw, A Whirlpool of Torment (OBT), 9-30; and J. I. Lawlor, “The Test of Abraham,” GTJ 1 (1980): 19-35.

[22:1]  ¹² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[22:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[22:2]  ¹⁴ sn Take your son…Isaac. The instructions are very clear, but the details are deliberate. With every additional description the commandment becomes more challenging.

[22:2]  ¹⁵ sn There has been much debate over the location of Moriah; 2 Chr 3:1 suggests it may be the site where the temple was later built in Jerusalem.

[22:2]  ¹⁶ sn A whole burnt offering signified the complete surrender of the worshiper and complete acceptance by God. The demand for a human sacrifice was certainly radical and may have seemed to Abraham out of character for God. Abraham would have to obey without fully understanding what God was about.

[22:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “which I will say to.”

[22:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his donkey.”

[22:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “he arose and he went.”

[22:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “lifted up his eyes and saw.”

[22:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “And Abraham.” The proper name has been replaced in the translation by the pronoun (“he”) for stylistic reasons.

[22:5]  ²² tn The Hebrew verb is masculine plural, referring to the two young servants who accompanied Abraham and Isaac on the journey.

[22:5]  ²³ tn The disjunctive clause (with the compound subject preceding the verb) may be circumstantial and temporal.

[22:5]  ²⁴ tn This Hebrew word literally means “to bow oneself close to the ground.” It often means “to worship.”

[22:5]  ²⁵ sn It is impossible to know what Abraham was thinking when he said, “we will…return to you.” When he went he knew (1) that he was to sacrifice Isaac, and (2) that God intended to fulfill his earlier promises through Isaac. How he reconciled those facts is not clear in the text. Heb 11:17-19 suggests that Abraham believed God could restore Isaac to him through resurrection.

[22:6]  ²⁶ sn He took the fire and the knife in his hand. These details anticipate the sacrifice that lies ahead.

[22:7]  ²⁷ tn The Hebrew text adds “and said.” This is redundant and has not been translated for stylistic reasons.

[22:7]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Here I am” (cf. Gen 22:1).

[22:7]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and he said, ‘Here is the fire and the wood.’” The referent (Isaac) has been specified in the translation for clarity. Here and in the following verse the order of the introductory clauses and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[22:8]  ³⁰ tn Heb “will see for himself.” The construction means “to look out for; to see to it; to provide.”

[22:8]  sn God will provide is the central theme of the passage and the turning point in the story. Note Paul’s allusion to the story in Rom 8:32 (“how shall he not freely give us all things?”) as well as H. J. Schoeps, “The Sacrifice of Isaac in Paul’s Theology,” JBL 65 (1946): 385-92.

[22:9]  ³¹ sn Abraham built an altar there. The theme of Abraham’s altar building culminates here. He has been a faithful worshiper. Will he continue to worship when called upon to make such a radical sacrifice?

[22:9]  ³² sn Then he tied up. This text has given rise to an important theme in Judaism known as the Aqedah, from the Hebrew word for “binding.” When sacrifices were made in the sanctuary, God remembered the binding of Isaac, for which a substitute was offered. See D. Polish, “The Binding of Isaac,” Jud 6 (1957): 17-21.

[22:10]  ³³ tn Heb “in order to slaughter.”

[22:11]  ³⁴ sn Heb “the messenger of the Lord” (also in v. 15). Some identify the angel of the Lord as the preincarnate Christ because in some texts the angel is identified with the Lord himself. However, see the note on the phrase “the Lord’s angel” in Gen 16:7.

[22:12]  ³⁵ tn Heb “Do not extend your hand toward the boy.”

[22:12]  ³⁶ tn Heb “and he said, ‘Do not extend…’”; the referent (the angel) has been specified in the context for clarity. The order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[22:12]  ³⁷ sn For now I know. The test was designed to see if Abraham would be obedient (see v. 1).

[22:12]  ³⁸ sn In this context fear refers by metonymy to obedience that grows from faith.

[37:5]  ³⁹ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[37:5]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “dreamed a dream.”

[37:5]  ⁴¹ 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]  ⁴² tn The construction uses a hendiadys, “they added to hate,” meaning they hated him even more.

[37:6]  ⁴³ tn Heb “hear this dream which I dreamed.”

[37:7]  ⁴⁴ 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]  ⁴⁵ tn The verb means “to bow down to the ground.” It is used to describe worship and obeisance to masters.

[37:28]  ⁴⁶ sn On the close relationship between Ishmaelites (v. 25) and Midianites, see Judg 8:24.

[37:28]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “they drew and they lifted up.” The referent (Joseph’s brothers) has been specified in the translation for clarity; otherwise the reader might assume the Midianites had pulled Joseph from the cistern (but cf. NAB).

[37:28]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “Joseph” (both here and in the following clause); the proper name has been replaced both times by the pronoun “him” in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[37:28]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Ishmaelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.