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 

Ulangan 28:3-12

28:3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field. ⁵  28:4 Your children ⁶  will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 28:5 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be blessed. 28:6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. ⁷  28:7 The Lord will cause your enemies who attack ⁸  you to be struck down before you; they will attack you from one direction ⁹  but flee from you in seven different directions. 28:8 The Lord will decree blessing for you with respect to your barns and in everything you do – yes, he will bless you in the land he ¹⁰  is giving you. 28:9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments ¹¹  and obey him. ¹²  28:10 Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you belong to the Lord, ¹³  and they will respect you. 28:11 The Lord will greatly multiply your children, ¹⁴  the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land which he ¹⁵  promised your ancestors ¹⁶  he would give you. 28:12 The Lord will open for you his good treasure house, the heavens, to give you rain for the land in its season and to bless all you do; ¹⁷  you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow from any.

[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.

[28:3]  ⁵ tn Or “in the country” (so NAB, NIV, NLT). This expression also occurs in v. 15.

[28:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[28:6]  ⁷ sn Come in…go out. To “come in” and “go out” is a figure of speech (merism) indicating all of life and its activities.

[28:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “who rise up against” (so NIV).

[28:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “way” (also later in this verse and in v. 25).

[28:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” Because English would not typically reintroduce the proper name following a relative pronoun (“he will bless…the Lord your God is giving”), the pronoun (“he”) has been employed here in the translation.

[28:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

[28:9]  ¹² tn Heb “and walk in his ways” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[28:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “the name of the Lord is called over you.” The Hebrew idiom indicates ownership; see 2 Sam 12:28; Isa 4:1, as well as BDB 896 s.v. קָרָא Niph. 2.d.(4).

[28:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “will give you a lot of children.”

[28:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 36, 64).

[28:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “all the work of your hands.”