Translation:Genesis

For other English-language translations of this work, see Genesis (Bible).

Chapter 1

¹ Originally,^[1] God created the sky^[2] and the earth. ² And the earth was inchoate chaos^[3] and darkness upon abyss^[4], God's spirit levitating^[5] upon the water.

³ And God said, "Light is to be," and light was to be. ⁴ And God saw this light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ And God called the light day, and called the darkness night. And it was evening, and it was morning, one day.

⁶And God said, "A dome^[6] is to be inside the waters, and it is to separate water from water." ⁷And God made the dome, and separated the water which was below the dome from the water which was above the dome; and so it was. ⁸ And God called the dome 'sky'. And it was evening, and it was morning, a second day^[7].

⁹ And God said, "The waters below the sky are to pool in one place, and the dry land show." And so it was. ¹⁰ And God called the dry land 'earth', and the pool of water he called 'seas'. And God saw it was good. ¹¹ And God said, "Regrassed is the Earth to be with vegetation seeding seeds, fruit trees making fruit of its kind, with its seed inside, on the land." And so it was. ¹² And the land sprouted vegetation seeding seeds, of each kind, and fruit trees making fruit of its kind with its seed inside, on the land. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And it was evening and it was morning, a third day.

¹⁴ And God said, "There are to be lights in the dome of the sky, to distinguish the night from the day; and they will be for signs and for seasons, for days and years. ¹⁵ And the lights in the dome of the sky are to light up the earth." And so it was. ¹⁶ And God made the two great lights: the big light, to govern the day, and the small light to govern the night, and the stars. ¹⁷ And God gave them in the dome of the sky to light up the earth, ¹⁸ and to govern the day and night, and to separate the light and the dark. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And it was evening, and it was morning: a fourth day.

²⁰ And God said, "The waters are to teem with teeming animal spirit; and fliers will fly over the land, upon the dome of the sky." ²¹ And God created the big sea dragons^[8], and all the kinds of crawling beings which teemed in the water, and every winged flier to its kind, and God saw that it was good. ²² And God blessed them, saying: "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the water in the seas, and birds will multiply on the land." ²³ And it was evening, and it was morning: a fifth day.

²⁴ And God said, "The land is to emit animal beings of each kind: cattle and crawlers and wild animals, to a kind." And so it was. ²⁵ And God made the wild animals to a kind, and the domestic beasts to a kind, and the crawler to a kind. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶ And God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness. And they will oversee the fish of the sea and the bird of the sky, and the domestic beasts, and all the wild animals and all the crawlers that crawl the earth."^[9]

²⁷ And God created man in his image; in the image of God created him; male and female he created them. ²⁸ And God blessed them, and God told them, "Bear fruit and multiply and fill up the earth, subdue and conquer it, and oversee the fish in the sea, and the birds in the sky, and every animal which crawls upon the earth."

²⁹ And God said, "Here: I give to you every seeding plant throughout all the earth, and every tree which has tree fruit, which produces seed. They are for you to eat. ³⁰ And to every wild animal, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything crawling on the land which has within it the breath of life, every green plant for food." And so it was.

³¹ And God saw everything which he had done, and here it is, very good! And it was evening, and it was morning: the sixth day. ¹ Completed were the sky and the earth and all their ranks.^[10]

² And God completed on the seventh day the creation which he had done, and rested (shabbath) on the seventh day from all the creation which he had done.

³ And God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy, because on it he rested from his creation which was created by God for making.

Chapter 2

⁴ These are the lineages^[11] of the sky and the earth, when they were created, on the day that Yahweh^[12] God made earth and sky.

⁵ No field bush was yet on the earth, and no field grass had yet sprouted, because Yahweh God had not sprinkled rain on the earth, and no man was there to work the ground. ⁶ Then a mist rose up from the earth, and irrigated all the surface of the earth.^{[13] 7} And Yahweh God created a man (adam), dust from the ground (adamah), and blew in his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living spirit. ⁸ And Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden, to the east; and he put there the man whom he had crafted.

⁹ And Yahweh God grew from the ground every tree pleasant to see and good for food, and the tree of life inside the garden, and the tree of knowing right and wrong.^[14]

¹⁰ And a river came out of Eden to irrigate the garden, and from there it split and became four sources.

¹¹ The name of the one was Pishon, which wound about all the land of Ḥavilah^[15], where there is gold. ¹² And the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and onyx stones.^{[16] 13} And the name of the second river was Giḥon, and it wound about all the land of Kush^[17]. ¹⁴ And the name of the third river is Tigris, which goes to the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.^[18]

¹⁵ And Yahweh God took the man, and set him in the garden of Eden, for him to work and to maintain.

¹⁶ And Yahweh God commanded the man, "From all the trees of the garden, you may eat. ¹⁷ But from the tree of knowing right and wrong, you will not eat, because the day you eat from it, you'll die a certain death."

¹⁸ And Yahweh God said: "It is no good that the man is to be alone. I will make him a helpmate, complementing him."

¹⁹ And Yahweh God formed from the ground every wild animal, and every bird in the sky, and brought to the man to see what he would call it. And anything the man called a living thing, that was its name. ²⁰ And the human gave names to all domestic beasts and to birds of the sky, and to all wild animals, and the man did not find a helpmate to complement him.

²¹ And Yahweh God dropped the man into a deep sleep, and as he slept, took one of his rib-bones, and closed the flesh back beneath. ²² And Yahweh God built the rib-bone which he had taken from the man into a woman, and he brought her to the man.

²³ And the man said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. I will call this a woman (isha), because she was taken from a man (ish). ²⁴ For this a man will leave his father and his mother, and cling to his wife, and they become one flesh."

²⁵ And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and felt no shame.

Chapter 3

¹ And the snake was more devious^[19] than any wild animal that Yahweh God made. And it said to the woman, "Did God really say, Don't eat of any of the garden's trees?"

² And the woman said to the snake, "Of the garden trees, we'll eat. ³ While from the tree which is inside the garden, God said: You won't eat of it, and you won't touch it, else you'll die."

⁴ And the snake said to the woman, "No death will you die.^{[20] 5} Because God knows that the day you will have eaten of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil."

⁶ And the woman saw that the tree's food was good, that it was an eye-lust, and temptingly the tree made wisdom, and she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her man with her, and he ate. ⁷ And both their eyes did open, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves and made themselves waist-belts.

⁸ And they heard the voice of Yahweh God, walking in the garden in the day's breeze, and the man and his wife hid from the face of Yahweh God in the tree of the garden.

⁹ And Yahweh God called to the man, and said "Where are you?"

¹⁰ And he said, "I heard your voice in the garden, and I saw that I am naked, and I hid."

¹¹ And said, "Who told you that you are naked? But from the tree which I commanded you to not eat from, you ate?"

¹² And the man said, "The woman you gave alongside me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate."

¹³ And Yahweh God said to the woman, "What's this you've done?"

And the woman said, "The snake got me carried away, and I ate."

¹⁴ And Yahweh God said to the snake, "Because you did this, cursed are you from all the domestic beasts, and from all the wild animals. On your torso you will walk, and eat dust all the days of your life. ¹⁵ And I will sow discord between you and the woman, and between your descendants and her descendants. They will smite your head, and you will smite their heel."

¹⁶ To the woman he said, "Much will I multiply your sorrows and your wails. In distress will you bear sons, and toward your husband your desire, and he will govern you."

¹⁷ And to the man he said, "Because you listened to your wife, and ate from the tree which I commanded you to say you would not eat from, the land is cursed for you. In distress you will eat of it all the days of your life. ¹⁸ And thorns and thistles will grow for you, and you will eat the field grasses. ¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow will you eat bread, until you return to the dirt, because from it you were taken: because you are dust, so will you return to dust."

²⁰ And the man called his wife Eve (Ḥawa), because she was the mother of all living (Ḥai).

²¹ And Yahweh God made for the man and his wife gowns of leather, and dressed them.

²² And Yahweh God said, "So, the man is like one of us, to know right and wrong, and now, lest he reach out his hand and take from the tree of life too, and eat, and live forever . . . " ²³ So Yahweh God sent him from the garden of Eden, to work the land to which he was taken, away from there. ²⁴ And he evicted the man, and he placed eastward of the garden of Eden the Griffins^[21] and the flash of the flipping sword^[22], to guard the path to the tree of life.

Chapter 4

¹ And the man lay with Eve, his wife. She conceived and gave birth to Cain (Ka-in), and said, "I've owned (Kaniti) a man with Yahweh."^{[23] 2} And she went on to give birth to his brother, to Abel.^[24] And Abel became a shepherd, and Cain worked the land.

³ And after many days, Cain brought from the fruit of the earth an offering to Yahweh. ⁴ And Abel, he also brought from the firstborn of his sheep, and their fat. And Yahweh took favor of Abel and his offering, ⁵ but he did not take favor to Cain and his offering; and Cain was fuming and his face fell.

⁶ And Yahweh said to Cain, "Why are you embittered and why is your face fallen? ⁷ See, if you improve, swell^[25]. And if you don't improve, sinstuff^[26] stalks crouched^[27] at the opening, and at you it desires. You will govern it." ^[28]

⁸ And Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let us go to the field".^[29] Then, when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.

⁹ And Yahweh said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?"

And he said, "I don't know. Am I my brother's guardian?"

¹⁰ And he said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood^[30] shouts to me from the ground. ¹¹ And now, cursed are you from the earth, who has opened her mouth to take your brother's blood from your hands. ¹² When you work the ground, she will no longer give her strength to you. You will sway and wander on the earth."

¹³ And said Cain to Yahweh, "My woe is more than I can bear! ¹⁴ Here you have evicted me today from the face of the earth, and from your face I will hide, and I will wander and sway, and anyone who finds me will kill me!"

¹⁵ And Yahweh said to him, "For this reason, on anyone who kills Cain, seven times revenge." And put Yahweh on Cain a mark, so that no one who found him would strike him.

¹⁶ And Cain left from the presence of Yahweh, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

¹⁷ And Cain lay with his wife, who conceived and bore Enoch. And he was a city-builder, and named the city after his son, Enoch. ¹⁸ And to Enoch was born 'Irad, and Irad fathered Meḥuyael, and Meḥiyael^[31] fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. ¹⁹ And Lamech took himself two wives: the one named 'Adah, and the second Ẓillah.^{[18] 20} And Adah bore Jabal: he was the father of the tent-dweller and cattleman. ²¹ And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all those who grasp the harp and the flute. ²² And Ẓillah, she also, gave birth to Tubal-Cain, grinder, sharpener,^[32] of all that can smith iron and copper.^[33] And Tubal-Cain's sister was Na'amah.

²³ And Lamech said to his wives: "Adah and Ẓillah, hear my voice; wives of Lamech, listen to what I say. For I have killed a man for wounding me, and a boy for bruising me. ²⁴ As Cain will be avenged seven times, so Lamech, seventy-seven."^[34]

²⁵ And Adam again lay with his wife, and she bore a son, and named him Seth (Sheth), "Because God planted (shath-li) another seed in me under Abel's, because Cain killed him." ²⁶ And Seth, he also fathered a son, and he named him Enosh (Humanity). Then it started, the calling of Yahweh by name.

Chapter 5

¹ This is the lineage^[11] book of Adam. On the day of God's creating Adam, in the image of God he made him. ² Male and female he created them, and blessed them, and gave mankind^[35] to be their name, on the day of their creation.^[36]

³ And Adam lived 130 years, and he had a child in his image, as his likeness, and named him Seth. ⁴ And Adam's days after having Seth were 800 years. And he had sons and daughters. ⁵ And all of Adam's days totaled 930 years, and he died.

⁶ And Seth lived 105 years, and had Enosh. ⁷ And Seth lived after having Enosh 807 years, and had sons and daughters. ⁸ And the days of Seth totaled 912 years, and he died.

⁹ And Enosh lived 90 years, and had Kenan (Keynan). ¹⁰ And Enosh lived after having Kenan 815 years, and had sons and daughters. ¹¹ And the days of Enosh totalled 905 years, and he died.

¹² And Kenan lived 70 years, and had Mahalalel (God-praiser). ¹³ And Kenan lived after he had Mahalalel 840 years, and had sons and daughters. ¹⁴ And the days of Kenan totaled 910 years, and he died.

¹⁵ And Mahalalel lived 65 years, and had Jared (Yared). ¹⁶ And Mahalalel lived after having Jared 830 years, and had sons and daughters. ¹⁷ And all the days of Mahalalel totaled 895 years, and he died.

¹⁸ And Jared lived 162 years, and had Enoch (Ḥanoḥ).^{[37] 19} And Jared lived after having Enoch 800 years, and had sons and daughters.^{[38] 20} And all the days of Jared totaled 962 years, and he died.^[39]

²¹ And Enoch lived 65 years, and had Methuselaḥ. ²² And Enoch walked with God, after having Methuselaḥ for 300 years, and had sons and daughters. ²³ And all the days of Enoch totaled 365 years. ²⁴ And Enoch walked with God, and was no more, because God took him.

²⁵ And Methuselaḥ lived 187 years, and had Lamech.^{[40] 26} And Methuselaḥ lived after having Lamech 782 years, and had sons and daughters.^{[41] 27} And all the days of Methuselah totaled 969 years, and he died.^[42]

²⁸ And Lamech lived 182 years, and he had a son.^{[43] 29} And he named him Noaḥ (comfortable) saying, "This one will comfort us (yenaḥmeinu) in our doings, from our hands' distress, and from the earth which Yahweh has cursed." ³⁰ And Lamech lived after having Noaḥ 595 years, and had sons and daughters.^{[44] 31} And all the days of Lamech totaled 777 years, and he died.^[45]

³² And Noaḥ lived 500 years, and Noaḥ had Shem (Name), Ḥam (Warm), and Japheth (Yapheth/Good-Stuff).

Chapter 6

¹ So it was, as mankind began to be plentiful upon the ground, and girls were born to them, ² that the sons of the gods^[46] saw the daughters of Adam, that they were beautiful, and took for themselves wives of anyone they chose. ³ And Yahweh said, "My spirit will not contend with^[47] a man forever, furthermore^[48] he is flesh, so his days will be one hundred and twenty years." ⁴ The Fallen-Titans^[49] were in the land in those days, and also afterward when the sons of the gods came to the daughters of Adam, who bore children for them. They are the heroes of old, the greatest names.

⁵ And Yahweh saw that many are the evils of man on Earth, and every thought his heart produces is only evil all day long. ⁶ And Yahweh regretted that he made mankind on the earth, and he saddened deep in his heart. ⁷ And Yahweh said, "I shall wipe out that man I have created from the face of the earth, from man to beast, to crawler things, onto the birds in the sky, for I am fed up that I made them. ⁸ But Noaḥ looked all right^[50][51] to Yahweh God.

⁹ These are the lineages^[11] of Noaḥ.

Noaḥ was a just and innocent man of that generation. With God Noah walked. ¹⁰ Three sons were born to Noaḥ: Shem, Ḥam, and Japheth.

¹¹ And the land facing God decayed,^[52] and filled with violence. ^{[53] 12} And God saw the earth, and it was rotten, because every flesh corrupts its path along the earth.

¹³ And God said to Noaḥ, "The end of all flesh is coming to me, because the earth is full of violence because of them, and I will ruin them, the earth. ¹⁴ Make yourself an ark from gofer^[54] wood. Make the ark in nests,^[55] and smear it inside and out with tar. ¹⁵ And this is how you'll make it: three hundred cubits the ark's length, fifty cubits its width, and thirty cubits its height.^{[56] 16} Make a storeroom^[57] for the ark, and fill it to a cubit from the top, and the opening to the ark put on its side. Make a lower level, a second, and a third. ¹⁷ And me: I will bring a deluge of water on the earth,^[58] to lay waste to all flesh with the life spirit inside it under the sky. Everything on the earth will perish. ¹⁸

But I will make my pact with you. And you'll go in the ark, you and your sons, and your wife, and your sons' wives with you. ¹⁹ And from all that lives, of all flesh, two of each bring to the ark to stay alive with you; they will be male and female. ²⁰ From the birds of a kind, and the domestic beasts of a kind, and of all the Earth-crawlers of each kind, two of each will come with you, to survive. ²¹ And you, take some of every food which can be eaten, and gather it for yourself. It will be food for you and for them to eat.

²² And Noaḥ did it. Everything that God commanded him, so he did.

Chapter 7

¹ And Yahweh said to Noaḥ, "Come, you and all your household, to the ark, because I see you as righteous before me in this generation. ² Of every pure beast, take seven/seven, husband and wife, and from the beasts which are not pure two, husband and wife.^{[59][60][61] 3} Also from the fliers in the sky seven/seven, male and female, to survive as seed for the entire earth. ⁴ Because in seven days I still shall rain on the Earth for forty days and forty nights. And I shall wipe every being which I have made from the face of the earth.

⁵ And Noaḥ did all that Yahweh commanded him.

⁶ And Noaḥ was six hundred years old, and it was deluge: water on the earth.^{[62] 7} And Noaḥ, along with his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives, came into the ark, away from the deluge waters. ⁸ From the pure beast, from beast which is impure, and from birds and all that crawls on the ground, ⁹ two by two, they came to Noaḥ in the Ark, male and female, as God had commanded Noaḥ. ¹⁰ And it was after seven days and the waters of the deluge were on the earth.

¹¹ In the six-hundredth year of Noaḥ's years, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the wells of the abyss overflowed, and the floodgates of the sky opened.^{[63][64] 12} And the rain was on the earth for forty days and forty nights.

¹³ On that very day Noaḥ came, and Shem, Ḥam, and Japheth, Noaḥ's sons, and Noaḥ's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark: ¹⁴ they, and every animal to its kind, and every beast of its kind, and every crawler crawling on the earth of its kind, and every flier of its kind: every bird, all wings.^{[65] 15} And they came to Noaḥ, to the ark, two by two, of all flesh which within it has the spirit of life.

¹⁶ And those that came, male and female of every flesh came, as God commanded him. And Yahweh closed it for him.^[66]

¹⁷ And the deluge was forty days on the earth, and the waters multiplied, and carried the ark, and it lifted above the earth.

¹⁸ And the waters intensified and multiplied on the land, and the ark walked on the face of the water. ¹⁹ And the waters intensified so so much over the land, and the high mountains under the entire sky were covered. ²⁰ Fifteen cubits from the top the waters built, and the mountains were covered. ^[67]

²¹ And all the flesh crawling on the earth perished: the fowl and beast and animals, and all the teeming creatures infesting the earth, and all mankind. ²² Everything with the breath of life in its nostrils, everything on dry land, died.

²³ And wiped out were all beings on the earth: from man to beasts, onto crawlers and to the birds of the sky. And they were wiped off the Earth. And only Noaḥ and those with him were left.

²⁴ The waters overcame the land one hundred fifty days.

Chapter 8

¹ And God remembered Noaḥ, and every animal and beast which were with him in the ark; and God passed a wind over the earth, and the waters calmed. ² And the wells of the abyss were stoppered — also the floodgates of the sky — and rain from the skies ended.

³ And the waters went back above the earth, back and forth. And the water diminished from the one hundred and fifty day point. ⁴ And the ark came to rest on the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.^{[68][69] 5} The waters swayed and lessened, until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the peaks of the mountains showed.^{[70] [71]}

⁶ And so, at the end of forty days, Noaḥ opened the window of the ark which he made. ⁷ And he sent the crow, and out it went hither and thither, until the waters on the land dried off.

⁸ And he sent the dove away, to see: have the waters upon the ground abated? ⁹ And the dove did not find a resting place for her feet, and she returned to him in the ark, because, upon all the land — water. He reached his hand, and he took her, and he brought her with him into the ark.^[72]

¹⁰ And another seven days passed again, and once more he sent the dove out from the ark. ¹¹ And the dove came back to him towards evening, and there — A fresh olive leaf in her mouth! So Noah knew that the waters had abated from off the land. ¹² And he let pass another seven days. And he sent out the dove, but she did not return to him again.

¹³ And so, in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the waters dried up off the earth. And Noah removed the cover from the ark, and looked, and there — the face of the land was exposed!

¹⁴ And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the land dried.

¹⁵ And God spoke to Noaḥ, saying: ¹⁶ "Exit the ark: you and your wife and your sons, and your sons' wives with you. ¹⁷ Every animal that is with you, all flesh: let the birds, and let the beasts, and let the crawlers crawling on the earth exit with you. Infest the earth, and bear fruit and multiply on the earth."

¹⁸ And Noaḥ exited, with his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives. ¹⁹ Every animal, every crawler, every bird. Every thing that crawls on the earth, in their families, exited the ark.

²⁰ And Noaḥ built an altar for Yahweh. And he took from every pure beast, and from every pure bird, and raised it in offer on the altar. ²¹ And Yahweh smelled the soothing scent, and in his heart he thought: "No more will I curse the ground over mankind, just because the products of man's heart are evil from adolescence. And I will not go on to strike down all life, as I have done. ²² Onward, all the days of the earth: seeding and reaping, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and night and day, will not arrest."

Chapter 9

¹ And God blessed Noaḥ and his sons and told them, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the earth. ² And you will shock and awe the wild animals, and the fliers of the sky, and all that crawls on the ground, and all the fish of the sea. In your hands they are given. ³ Every crawling thing which is alive will be food for you. As of the green plants. I give you all.

⁴ "But flesh with its soul, its blood, you will not eat."

⁵ "And I will reckon of your soul's blood. From every animal I will reckon it, and from the hand of a man, from the hand of man and his brother, will I reckon the soul of man."

⁶ "Any spiller of man's blood, by man his blood be spilled. Because in the image of God is man made."

⁷ "And you: bear fruit and multiply. Infest the land and be many there."

⁸ And God spoke to Noaḥ and to his sons with him, saying, ⁹

"And now I set my pact with you, and with your seed after, ¹⁰ and with every living being which is with you, of bird, and domestic beast, and all the wild animals with you, with all that exited the ark, with every wild animal. ¹¹ And I set my pact with you: no more flesh will be cut down by the waters of the deluge, and there will never be another deluge to decompose the Earth."

¹² And God said, "This is the sign of the pact which I make between me, and you, and every living being with you, to endless generations. ¹³ My bow I put in the cloud, and it will be a sign of the pact between me and the earth."

¹⁴ "And when I bring clouds over the earth, the bow will appear in the cloud. ¹⁵ And I'll remember my pact, which is between me and you, and every living being, every flesh. And never again will the waters become a deluge to decompose all flesh. ¹⁶ And the bow will be in a cloud, and you will see it to remember the permanent pact between God and every living soul inside all the flesh upon the earth."

¹⁷ And God said to Noaḥ, "This is the sign of the pact which I set up between me and all flesh upon the earth."

¹⁸ And the sons of Noaḥ who went out of the ark were Shem, Ḥam, and Japheth, and Ḥam was Canaan's father. ¹⁹ These three were Noaḥ's sons, and from them branched out all the earth.

²⁰ And Noaḥ began as a farmer, and planted a vineyard. ²¹ And he drank of the wine, and got drunk and exposed in his tent. ²² And Canaan's father, Ḥam, saw his father's nudity, and told his two brothers outside.

²³ And Shem and Japheth took a tunic and put it on both their shoulders, and walked backwards, and covered their father's nudity. Their faces, backward, and their father's nudity they did not see. ²⁴

And Noaḥ came to from his drunkenness, and he knew what his smallest boy had done to him. ²⁵ And he said, "Canaan is cursed! A slave of slaves he will be to his brothers."

²⁶ And he said, "Blessed be Yahweh, the god of Shem; and Canaan will be his slave." ²⁷ "And God will be good to Japheth; and he will dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan will be a slave to him."^[73]

²⁸ And after the deluge Noaḥ lived 350 years. ²⁹ And the days of Noaḥ totaled 950 years, and he died.

Chapter 10

¹ These are the lineages of the sons of Noaḥ: Shem, Ḥam, and Japheth. And sons were born to them after the deluge.^[11]

² Japheth's sons: Gomer & Magog & Madai & Javan (Yawan/Ionians/Greece) & Tuval & Meshech & Tiras. ³ And Gomer's sons: Ashkenaz & Riphath & Togarmah. ⁴ And Javan's sons: Elishah & Tharshish & Kittim & Dodanim.^{[74] 5} From these branched out the islands of peoples,^[75] in their lands, each to his tongue, to their families, in their peoples.

⁶ And Ḥam's sons: Kush (Ethiopia) & Miẓra-im (Egypt) & Phut^[76] & Canaan (Kna'an).^{[77] 7} And Kush's sons: Sva & Ḥavilah^[78] & Savta & Ra'amah & Savteḥa. The sons of Ra'amah: Sheba^[79] & Dedan.

⁸ And Kush had Nimrod, who began to be a hero on the earth.^{[80] 9} He was a mighty hunter before Yahweh. That's why it's said: "like Nimrod, mighty hunter before Yahweh." ¹⁰ And the start of his kingdom was Babel (Bavel/Babylon) & Erech (Uruk) & Akkad & Calneh in the land of Shin'ar. ¹¹ From that land Ashur came,^[81] and built Nineveh '(Ninweh) & City Reḥovoth & Calaḥ, ¹² and Resen between Nineveh and Calaḥ — it's the big city.

¹³ And Miẓraim had Ludim & 'Anamim & Lehavim & Naphtuḥim ¹⁴ & Pathrusim & Casluḥim — Philistines (Plishtim) are from there — & Caphtorim.

¹⁵ And Canaan had Ṣidon ^[82][18] — his firstborn — & Ḥeth (Ḥittites),^{[83] 16} & the Jebusite (Yevusi)^[84], and the Amorite^[85] & the Girgashite, ¹⁷ & the Ḥivite & the 'Arkite & the Sinite, ¹⁸ & the Arwadite & the Ẓemarite & the Ḥamathite.

And after, the families of the Canaanites branched out. ¹⁹ And the borders of the Canaanites are from Ṣidon, coming from Gerar, as far as Gaza, coming to Sodom, and Gomorrah and Admah, and Ẓvo-im, up to Lasha'. ²⁰ These are the sons of Ḥam, in their families, in their tongues, in their lands and their peoples.

²¹ And sons were also born to Shem, ancestor of all Eber's ('Ever's) sons, Jepheth's older brother.^{[86] 22} Shem's sons: Elam^[87] & Ashur & Arpachshad & Lud & Aram.^{[88] 23} And Aram's sons: Uẓ & Ḥul & Gether & Mash.

²⁴ And Arpachshad had Shelaḥ, and Shelaḥ had Eber.^{[89] 25} Two sons were born to Eber: one's name was Peleg (Faction), because in his days the earth split in factions (niphlega), and his brother's name was Joktan. ²⁶ And Joktan had Almodad & Shaleph & Hazarmaveth & Jeraḥ ²⁷ & Doram & Uzal & Diklah ²⁸ & 'Oval & Avimael & Sheba (Shva/Yemen) ²⁹ & Ophir & Ḥawilah^[90] & Jobab. All these are Joktan's sons. ³⁰ Their settlement was from Mesha, going to Sepharah, the eastern mountain.^{[91] 31} These are Shem's descendents, by their families, by their tongues, by their lands, by their peoples.

³² These are the families of Noah's sons, in their lineages, in their nations. And from these the peoples of the earth branched out after the deluge.

Chapter 11

¹ Now all the earth had one language, with the same words.^[92]

² And during their eastern journey^[93] they found a valley in the land of Shin'ar, and they settled there.^{[94] 3} And they said to each other, let's dry bricks white, and burn them in fire. And brick replaced stone for them, and clay became their mortar.^{[95] 4} And they said, "Come on, let's build us a city. And a tower with its top in the sky, and make a name for ourselves, so that we do not disperse all over the earth."

⁵ And Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower which the humans had built. ⁶ And Yahweh said, "They are one people and all have one language. If this is what they are beginning to do, now nothing which they plan to do will be blocked to them. ⁷ Let's go down there and confuse their language there, so the one won't understand his peer's language." ⁸ So Yahweh dispersed them from there, across the entire earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ Because of this, it's called Babel. Because there Yahweh confused (Balal) the language across the entire earth; and from there Yahweh dispersed them across the entire earth.

¹⁰ These are Shem's lineages:^[11]

Shem was 100 years old, and had Arpachshad^[96] two years after the deluge. ¹¹ And Shem lived after having Arpachshad 500 years, and had sons and daughters.

¹² And Arpachshad lived 35 years, and had Shelaḥ. ¹³ And Arpachshad lived after having Shelaḥ 403 years, and had sons and daughters.

¹⁴ And Shelaḥ lived 30 years and had Eber. ¹⁵ After he had Eber, Shelaḥ lived 403 years, and had sons and daughters.

¹⁶ And Eber lived 34 years, and had Peleg. ¹⁷ After he had Peleg, Eber lived 430 years, and had sons and daughters.

¹⁸ And Peleg lived 30 years, and had Re'u. ¹⁹ After he had Re'u, Peleg lived 209 years, and had sons and daughters.

²⁰ And Reu lived 32 years, and had Serug. ²¹ After he had Serug, Reu lived 207 years, and had sons and daughters.

²² And Serug lived 30 years, and had Naḥor. ²³ After he had Naḥor, Serug lived 200 years, and had sons and daughters.

²⁴ And Naḥor lived 29 years, and had Teraḥ. ²⁵ After he had Teraḥ, Naḥor lived 119 years, and had sons and daughters.

²⁶ And Teraḥ lived 70 years, and had Abram (Avram), Naḥor, and Haran.

²⁷ These are Teraḥ's lineages.^[11]

Teraḥ was the father of Abram, Naḥor, and Haran. And Haran had Lot. ²⁸ And Haran died in front of Teraḥ his father, in the land of his birth, in Ur Kasdim.^{[97] 29} Abram and Naḥor took wives for themselves. Abram's wife was named Sarai, and Nahor's wife was Milca, daughter of Haran's, Milca's father and Jessica's (Isca's) father. ³⁰ And Sarai was barren; she had no child.

³¹ And Teraḥ took his son Abram, and Haran's son Lot, his grandson, and Sarai his wife, his son Abraham's wife, and left Ur Kasdim with them, to go to Canaan's land. And they went until Ḥaran, and settled there.^{[18] 32} And the days of Teraḥ were 205 years, and Teraḥ died in Ḥaran.

Chapter 12

¹ And Yahweh said to Abram, "You go from your land, from your birthplace, from your father's household,^[98] to the land which I will show you. ² And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you and grow your number, and your name will be a blessing. ³ I'll bless those who bless you, and those who cuss at you I'll curse; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you."^[99]

⁴ And Abram went, as Yahweh told him to, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Ḥaran. ⁵ And Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew,^[100] and all the property which they had purchased, and all souls^[101] they'd gotten in Ḥaran, and they left to go towards Canaan's land. ⁶

They arrived in Canaan's land, and Abram traveled through the land, to Shechem, to Moreh Oak.^[102] And the Canaanite was in the land then.

⁷ And Yahweh appeared to Abram and said "To your offspring I will give this land". And he built an altar there to Yahweh, who appeared to him.^[103]

⁸ And he uprooted himself from there towards the mountain east of Beth-El (God's-house), and he pitched his tent, Beth-El^[104] westward and the Ai toward east. And he built an altar there to Yahweh, and there he called out Yahweh's name. ⁹ Then Abram journeyed on, heading towards the Negev.^[105]

¹⁰ Now there was a famine^[106] in the land, and Abram emigrated down to Egypt to live there, because the hunger in the land was heavy.

¹¹ And then, when he was close to entering Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, "Listen please, I know that you are a beautiful looking woman. ¹² So when the Egyptians see you, they'll say, 'It's his wife.' And they will kill me, and leave you alive. ¹³ Please say you are my sister, so that my lot will improve due to you, and my soul will be spared because of you."

¹⁴ So it was, as Abram came to Egypt, that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very beautiful. ¹⁵ And the ministers of Pharaoh saw her, and they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken to the house of Pharaoh. ¹⁶ And due to her, he did well by Abram . And he had sheep^[107] and cattle, and male donkeys, and male and female slaves, and female donkeys, and camels.

¹⁷ And Yahweh plagued the Pharaoh with great ills,^[108] and his household, on account of Sarai, Abram's wife.

¹⁸ And Pharaoh called Abram to him and said, "What's this you've done to me? Why didn't you tell me that she's your wife? ¹⁹ Why did you say, 'She's my sister,' so that I took her for myself for a wife? Now here's your wife. Take her and go!" ²⁰ And Pharaoh commanded men about him, and they sent him away with his wife and all he owned.

Chapter 13

¹ And Abram emigrated up from Egypt, he and his wife, and all he had, and Lot with him, to the Negev. ² And Abram was heavily loaded with livestock,^[109] with silver, and with gold. ³ And he went in his journeys from the Negev to Beth-El, to the place where he had first tented, between Beth-El and and the Ai, ⁴ to the location of the altar which he had made there originally, and there Abram called out Yahweh's name.

⁵ And also to Lot, who went with Abram, were sheep and cattle and tents. ⁶ And the land could not support them both settling together, because their property was so vast that they could not settle together. ⁷ So Abram's herdsmen and Lot's herdsmen fought.

The Canaanite and Perizzite were then settled in the land. ⁸ And said Abram to Lot, "Please, let there be no fighting between me and you, and my herdsmen and your herdsmen: because we are kinfolk. ⁹ After all, the entire land is before you. Please separate from me, if to the left, I'll go right, and if right, I'll go left."

¹⁰ Lot lifted his gaze and saw all the Jordan plain, that it was all watered — this was before Yahweh lay waste to Sodom and Gomorrah — like Yahweh's garden, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Ẓo'ar. ¹¹ And Lot chose all the Jordan plain for himself, and Lot journeyed east; and they separated each from his brethren.

¹² Abram settled in Canaan, and Lot settled in the cities of the plain, his tents as far as Sodom.

¹³ And the men of Sodom were very much evil sinners to Yahweh.

¹⁴ And Yahweh said to Abram, after Lot separated from him, "Lift your gaze, from the place where you are. Look north, and south, and east, and west,^{[110][111] 15} because I'll give all the land you see, to you and to your descendants forever. ¹⁶ I will make your descendants like the Earth's dust, so that if a man could count the dust, so could he count your descendants. ¹⁷ Get up and walk through the land, along its length and width, because I will give it to you.

¹⁸ And Abram moved tent and came to settle among the Oaks^[102] of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and he built an altar to Yahweh there.

Chapter 14

¹ And then, in the days of Amraphel king of Shin'ar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Kedorla'omer king of Eylam, and Tid'al king of Goyim,^{[112] 2} they made war against Sodom's King Bera', against Gommorah's King Birsha', Admah's King Shinav, Ẓvoyim's King Shemever, and the king of Bela', that's Ẓo'ar.^{[113] 3} All these were allied in Siddim Valley, which is the Salt Sea.^[114]

⁴ Twelve years they served Kedorlaomer, and year thirteen rebelled. ⁵ And in the fourteenth year, Kedorlaomer came, and the kings with him, and they struck Titans^[115] in Horns of Ashteroth, and the Zuzim among them, and the Eymim in Shaweh-Kiriathaim, ⁶ and the Ḥorites in their Mt. Seir, onto Paran's Deer, which is in wilderness.

⁷ And they returned and and came to Ein Mishpat, that's Kadesh, and struck all the 'Amaleki fields, and also the Amorites settled at Haẓeẓon Tamar.

⁸ And Sodom's king, Gommorah's king, Admah's king, Ẓvoyim's king, the king of Bela', that's Ẓoar, went out and staged a war against them in the valley of Siddim. ⁹ Against Elam's King Kedorlaomer, and Goyim's King Tidal, and Shinar's King Amraphel, and Ellasar's King Arioch — four kings against five.

¹⁰ And Siddim Valley is tarpits and claypits, and Sodom and Gomorrah's kings fled and fell there, and the survivors fled to hill-country. ¹¹ And they took all the property in Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their food, and left. ¹² And they took Lot, Abram's nephew — he lived in Sodom — and his property. And they left.

¹³ And a refugee came and told this to Abram the Hebrew, who was staying at Mamre's Oaks;^[102] [Mamre] the brother of Eshkol and of 'Aner. Amorites. And Abram's allies.

¹⁴ And Abram heard that his brother had been captured, and he mustered all his apprentices in his household, 318 of them, and gave chase til Dan.^{[116] 15} And he snuck in^[117] at night, he and his slaves, and struck them and chased them til Ḥovah (Duty), left of Damascus (Damesheq/Blood-Market). ¹⁶ And he retrieved all the property, also Lot his brother and all his property he retrieved. And the women also, and the people.

¹⁷ And the king of Sodom came to meet him after his return from striking Kedorlaomer and the kings with him, in Shaweh Valley, that's King's Valley.

¹⁸ And Melchizedek, king of Shalem,^[118] brought out bread and wine. And he's the priest of Highest God. ¹⁹ And he blessed him, and said, "Blessed be Abram to Highest God, creator of sky and earth. ²⁰ And blessed be Highest God, who gathered your foes into your hands." And he gave him a tenth of everything.

²¹ And the king of Sodom said to Abram, "Give me all the souls, and you take the property."

²² And Abram said to the king of Sodom, "I have raised my hand to Yahweh, Highest God, master of sky and earth: ²³ Even if a thread or a shoelace, if I will take of anything of yours, won't you say, 'I have made Abram rich'? ²⁴ For my share, only what the lads have eaten, and the portion of the men who went with me: Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre. They will take their share."

Chapter 15

¹ After these events, the words of Yahweh to Abram, in a vision, said, "Don't fear, Abram. I am your shield; your wages are very great."^[119]

² And Abram said, "My lord Yahweh, what would you give me, when I myself go childless, and my financial son is Damascus Eliezer."^{[120] [121]}

³ And Abram said, "Here, to me you gave no offspring, and look: a son of my slaves will be my heir."

⁴ And then Yahweh's words came to him, saying, "That one won't be your heir, rather one who comes out of your loins, he'll be your heir."

⁵ And he led him outdoors, and said, "Look, please, at the sky, and count the stars, if you can count them". And he said to him, "Such will be your offspring."

⁶ And he believed in Yahweh; and he counted it to him as righteousness.

⁷ And he said to him, "I am Yahweh, who took you out of Ur Kasdim, to give you this land as an inheritance."^[122]

⁸ And he said, "Lord Yahweh, how will I know that I will inherit it?"

⁹ And said to him, "Take me a three years old cow, and a three year old goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtle-dove, and a hatchling."

¹⁰ And took himself all these, and on the altar split them, and set each half before the other, toward its partner, but he did not split the bird.

¹¹ And the kites descended on the bodies, but Abram shooed them.

¹² And as the sun set, sleep fell on Abram, and a terror, a great darkness, fell upon him. ¹³ And he said to Abram, "Know you that your offspring will live as strangers in a foreign land, and they will be worked and tormented four hundred years. ¹⁴ Then I will judge the nation that enslaves them, and afterwards they will leave with much property.

¹⁵ "And you will come to your fathers in peace; you will be buried only after a long stay. ¹⁶ And the fourth generation will return here, because not yet completed is the Amorite woe until now."

¹⁷ And the sun went down, and it was pitch black, and there was a furnace of smoke and a torch of fire which passed between the shreds. ¹⁸ On that day, Yahweh cut a pact with Abram, saying: "To your offspring I'll give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates river, ¹⁹ the Kenite & the Kenizzite & the Kadmonite (Easterners/Primitives) ²⁰ & the Ḥittite & the Perizzite & the Titans, ²¹ & the Amorite & the Canaanite & the Girgashite & the Yevusite." ^[115]

Chapter 16

¹ Abram's wife Sarai didn't bear him children, and she had an Egyptian slave woman named Hagar. ² And Sarai said to Abram, "Please, see, Yahweh stopped me from bearing. Come, please, to my maid; maybe I will generate from her." And Abram listened to Sarai.

³ So Abram's wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, ten years after Abram settled in Canaan's land, and gave her to Abram, her husband, as his wife. ⁴ And he came to Hagar, and she conceived, and when she knew that she conceived, her opinion of her mistress diminished.

⁵ And Sarai said to Abram, "My rage upon you! I, who gave my maid to your breast. And she sees that she is pregnant, and I become less worthy in her eyes? Yahweh will adjudicate between me and you."

⁶ And Abram said to Sarai, "Here is your maid, she is in your hands. Do to her what you think is best." And Sarai tormented her, and she fled from her presence.

⁷ And an angel of Yahweh found her at a desert oasis, at the spring toward Shur.^{[123] 8} And he said, "Hagar, Sarai's maid, from where did you come, and where shall you go?"

And she said, "I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai's presence."

⁹ And the angel of Yahweh said to her, "Return to your mistress, and suffer her hands."

¹⁰ And the angel of Yahweh said to her, "I will make your offspring many. Too many to count."

¹¹ And the angel of Yahweh said to her, "Here you are pregnant, and you will bear a son, and you gave him the name Ishmael (God-will-hear) because Yahweh has heard your agony. ¹² And he will be a wild man, his hand in everything, and the hand of every man upon him. He will dwell facing his brothers."

¹³ And she called the name of Yahweh, who was speaking to her, "You are a God of sight (El Ra-i)," she said, "For I didn't see you, after you saw me."^{[124] 14} So the well is called the well Lachai Roi (to-the-living my-seer). Here, between Kadesh and Bered.^[125]

¹⁵ And Hagar bore Abram a son. Abram named his son from Hagar Ishmael. ¹⁶ And Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Abram Ishmael.

Chapter 17

¹ And Abram was ninety-nine years old, and Yahweh appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am El Shaddai (God my-breast), walk before me, as an innocent.^{[126] 2} And I will give you a pact, between me and you, and I will make you into so very very many."

³ And Abram fell before him, and God talked to him, saying,

⁴ "Me: Here's my pact with you. You will be the father to many peoples. ⁵ No longer will your name be Abram. Your name is to be Abraham, because I have appointed you the father to many peoples (Av Hamon Goyim). ⁶ I will make you very, very fruitful, and I appoint that peoples and kings shall emerge from you. ⁷ And I carry my pact, between me and you and between your offspring after you in their generations, a permanent covenant: to be for you a God. And for your offspring after you. ⁸ And I gave to you, and your offspring after you, the land you're settling, all of Canaan's land, as a permanent landholding. I would be for you a God."

⁹ And God said to Abraham, "You will keep my pact, you and your offspring after, to their generations. ¹⁰ This is my pact which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after: circumcise every of your males. ¹¹ And strip away the flesh of your foreskin, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and you. ¹² At eight days old, you must circumcise every male of your generations. Circumcise, circumcise the son of your household slaves, or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your offspring. ¹³ You must circumcise anyone born into your household or bought with money. And my pact will be in your flesh, a permanent pact. ¹⁴ And a foreskinned man, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, such a one will be shunned from his people. He broke my pact." ^[127]

¹⁵ And God said to Abraham, "Sarai, your wife, you will not call by the name Sarai. Because Sarah is her name. ¹⁶ And I have blessed her, and have given a son by her to you. And I have blessed her, and she will become [a mother of] peoples. Kings of nations will come from her."

¹⁷ And Abraham fell face down and laughed (Yiẓḥak), and said to himself, "Shall a centenarian's son be born? And shall ninety-year-old Sarah give birth?"

¹⁸ And Abraham said to the God, "Would that Ishmael would live in your presence."

¹⁹ And God said, "But Sarah, your wife, is bearing you a son! And you will name him Isaac (Yiẓḥak/will-laugh). And I will found my pact with him, a permanent pact, with his offspring after him."

²⁰ "As for Ishmael, I have listened to you. Here: I have blessed him, and made him fruitful, and made him many many: twenty two princes he will father, and I grant him a great people. ²¹ My pact I will found with Isaac, which Sarah will bear you at this time period in another year."

²² And he finished speaking to him, and God ascended up from Abraham.

²³ And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all the children of his household, and all those purchased with money, every male of the house of Abraham, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskins. On the very day that God spoke with him. ²⁴ Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he circumcised the flesh of his foreskin. ²⁵ And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he circumcised the flesh of his foreskin. ²⁶ On that very day, Abraham and Ishmael his son were circumcised. ²⁷ And all the men of his household, those born to the slaves, and those purchased from a foreigner, were circumcised along with him.

Chapter 18

¹ And Yahweh appeared to him at Mamre's Oak;^[102] and he was sitting at the tent entrance, as the day was hot. ² And he lifted his gaze and he saw: here are three men upon his land, stationary. And he saw, and ran toward them from the tent entrance, and they bowed flat on the earth.

³ And he said, "Lord,^[128] please, if I look all right to you,^[50] don't pass by your servant. ⁴ Now a bit of water will be brought. Wash your feet, and lean beneath the tree. ⁵ I will get a loaf of bread. Eat to your heart's content. Pass on by afterwards, because this is why you've passed by your servant."

And they said, "Do so, as you said."

⁶ And Abraham hurried towards his tent, to Sarah, and said, "Quick — take three seahs^[129] of fine flour, knead it, and make cakes." ⁷ And Abraham ran to the cattle, and he took a good tender calf, and gave it to the boy,^[130] and he hurried to prepare it. ⁸ And he took butter and milk, and the calf he prepared, and presented it to them. And he stood over them under the tree as they ate.

⁹ And they said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?"

And he said "Here, in the tent."

¹⁰ And said, "I will return to you, return in one gestation time,^[131] and here: a son from your wife Sarah." And Sarah heard at the tent's opening, just behind. ¹¹ And Abraham and Sarah were old, getting on in years, and the monthly ritual of women had ceased for Sarah.

¹² And Sarah laughed (tiẓḥak) inwardly, "In decrepitude I'll have pleasure! And sir is old!"

¹³ And Yahweh said to Abraham, "Why is it that Sarah laughed, saying, 'Will I really give birth when I'm so old?' ¹⁴ Will any feat evade Yahweh? In time I'll return, a gestation period,^[131] and Sarah will have a son."

¹⁵ And Sarah denied it, and said, "I didn't laugh", because she was fearful.

And he said, "No, but you did laugh!"

¹⁶ And the men stood up from there, and they gazed toward Sodom. And Abraham walked with them, to send them off.

¹⁷ And Yahweh said, "Can I disguise from Abraham what I am doing? ¹⁸ When Abraham onwards will be a great big people, and through him all the nations of the earth will be blessed?"^{[99] 19} Because it was known to him what he commanded his sons and his household to do, that they kept the way of Yahweh, to make charity and justice, leading to Yahweh bringing Abraham that which he spoke to him about.

²⁰ And Yahweh said, "The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is so loud, and their sin has became so heavy.^{[132] 21} It will please me to go down, and see if its cries, which come to me, are due to them all. And if not, I will know it."

²² And the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham was still left standing before Yahweh.^[133]

²³ And Abraham submitted to ask: "Will you slay the righteous with the wicked? ²⁴ Maybe there are fifty righteous in the city. Will you slay and not spare the place? For the fifty righteous ones' sake, within? ²⁵ Unthinkable of you, to do such a thing. To put to death the righteous along with the wicked, and the righteous would be as the wicked. Unthinkable of you. Will the whole earth's judge not bring justice?"

²⁶ And Yahweh said, "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous, in the city, then I will spare the whole place for their sake."

²⁷ Then Abraham replied, "Here now — I have dared to speak to My Lord, and I am but dust and ashes. ²⁸ Maybe the fifty righteous will be missing five. Will you lay the whole city to waste over the five?"

And he said, "I will not lay waste if I find there forty-five."

²⁹ He continued to talk to him, saying, "Maybe, over there, forty will be found?"

And he said, "I won't do it. For the forty."

³⁰ And he said, "If it will not upset my Lord, I will speak. Maybe there shall be found thirty?"

And he said, "I will not do it if I find thirty there."

³¹ And he said, "Here I have dared to speak my lord. Maybe twenty are found there?"

And he said, "I will not lay it waste, for the twenty's sake."

³² And he said, "Let it not upset my lord, and I will speak just once more. Maybe ten are found there?"

And he said, "I will not lay it waste, for the ten's sake."

³³ Then Yahweh left when he had finished speaking with Abraham, and Abraham went back to his place.

Chapter 19

¹ And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening. Lot was sitting then at Sodom's gate. And Lot saw, and he stood to meet them, and they bowed, nose to the ground.

² And he said, "Here, please, sirs, come to the house of your servant, and kip down, and wash your feet. And as you wake up go on your way."

And they said, "No — we'll sleep in the street."

³ But he implored them a lot, and they were swayed, and they came to his house. He made them a drink and baked crackers, and they ate.^[134]

⁴ Before they could lie down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, from teen to elder, all the people onto the outskirts. ⁵ And they called Lot, and said to him, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, and we will use them."^[135]

⁶ And Lot came to the door, and out to them, and he shut the door behind him. ⁷ He said, "Brothers, please, do no evil!

⁸ Please — here: I have two daughters who have lain with no man. Please, I'll bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Just to those men do nothing, because this is why they came under my roof's shadow."

⁹ And they said, "Get outta here!" And they said, "This foreigner came to stay here, and now judges judgements! We'll hurt you worse than them." They coerced Lot strongly, and came to break the door down.

¹⁰ But the men reached out their arms and pulled Lot inside the house with them, and they closed the door. ¹¹ And the men who were at the doorstep they dazzled blind, the big and the small, so that they gave up finding the door.

¹² And the men said to Lot, "Who else do you have here? Your son-in-law, and your sons, and your daughters, and all you own — get them out of this place, ¹³ because we are laying this place to waste, because the cry is loud in Yahweh's countenance, and Yahweh sent us to waste it.

¹⁴ And Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, chosen by his daughters, and said, "Get up! Leave this place, because Yahweh will lay waste to the city." But to his sons-in-law, it looked like he was joking. ¹⁵ And as soon as dawn came, the angels urged Lot, saying: "Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, else you'll be swept away in this city's torments."

¹⁶ But he procrastinated, so the men grabbed his hand, and his wife's hand, and his two daughters' hands — it was by Yahweh's mercy toward them — and brought him out, and landed him outside the city.^[136]

¹⁷ And as they were bringing them out, he said, "Flee for your life! Don't look behind you, and don't stop in any part of the valley. Flee to the mountain, or you'll be slain."^[137]

¹⁸ And Lot said to them, "Please, don't, my lord. ¹⁹ Please, look, your servant seems all right by you, and your mercy, which you showed me, was great enough to spare my life. But I can't escape to the mountains before the badness catches up with me and I die.^{[50] 20} And here, please, there is a town nearby to flee towards, and it is derelict (Miẓ'ar). Please, I'll escape there — isn't it derelict? — and my soul will be spared."^[138]

²¹ And he said to him, "Here, I have countenanced you even regarding this thing, so I won't overturn the city which you have mentioned. ²² Quickly flee there, because I can't do anything until you get there."

For this reason, the city is called Ẓo'ar (Dereliction).^[138]

²³ The sun rose above the land, and Lot arrived at Ẓo'ar. ²⁴ Then Yahweh rained down sulfur and fire onto Sodom and Gomorrah. From Yahweh, from out the sky. ²⁵ And he overturned those cities, and the entire plain, and all the cities' inhabitants, and the ground's plants.

²⁶ And his wife looked back behind him, and became a pillar of salt.

²⁷ Abraham woke up early morning, going to where he had stood there, before Yahweh, ²⁸ And he gazed upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and on all the land of the plain, and he saw that on this land there rose smoke, like the smoke from a furnace.

²⁹ So it was, when God destroyed the cities of the Jordan plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out from the upturning when he overturned the cities where Lot lived.

³⁰ And Lot went up from Ẓo'ar and settled in the hills, and his two daughters with him. Because he was afraid to stay in Ẓo'ar. So he lived in a cave, him and his two daughters.

³¹ And the elder said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man on earth to come to us, in the way of the entire Earth. ³² Let's fill our father drunk with wine, and sleep with him, and we shall give life to our father's seed."

³³ And they plied their father with wine, and that night, the eldest came and slept with her father, and he was not aware of her lying down or getting up.

³⁴ And so, the next day, the elder said to the younger, "Look: yesterday evening I slept with my father. We will ply him with wine to drink tonight too. Come, sleep with him, and we will give life to our father's seed." ³⁵ And they plied him that night too, and the younger got up and slept with him, and he was not aware of her lying down or getting up.

³⁶ And they conceived, the two daughters of Lot, from their father. ³⁷ The eldest gave birth to a son, and named him Moab (Mo-av). He is the father of the Moab nation, of this day. ³⁸ The younger one had a son as well, and called him Ben-Ammi (son-of-my-people). He is the father of the Ammonite nation (Bnei-Ammon), of this day.

Chapter 20

¹ And Abraham journeyed from there to the land of the Negev, and he settled between Kodesh and Shur, and he lived in Gerar.^{[139] 2} And Abraham said about Sarah his wife, "She is my sister." And Abimelech (Avi-Melech/King-Father), the king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah.

³ And God came to Abimelech in a dream at night, and said to him, "Look, you're a dead man because of that woman you've taken. She's married to a husband."

⁴ But Abimelech had not come near her, so he said, "My Lord, would you kill even a righteous nation? ⁵ For he told me, 'She's my sister'? And she even said herself 'He's my brother.' I did this with an innocent heart and clean hands."

⁶ And God in a dream told him, "I also know that you did this innocently, so I myself spared you from sinning on me. That's why I did not let you touch her. ⁷ And now, return the man's wife, because he's a prophet, and he'll pray for you, and you'll live. But if you don't return her, know that you will certainly die, you and all yours."

⁸ And Abimelech woke early, and called all his slaves, and told all these things in their ears. And the men were very afraid.

⁹ And Abimelech summoned Abraham, and said to him, "What have you done to us? How have I wronged you, that you would bring upon me and my kingdom a great sin? You have done unspeakable things to me."^[140]

¹⁰ And Abimelech said to Abraham, "What possessed you^[141] to do such a thing?"

¹¹ And Abraham said:

Because I thought, "This place just isn't God-fearing^[142]. They'll kill me over my wife." ¹² And also, she really is my sister. She's my father's daughter, but not my mother's; and she became my wife. ¹³ And so, when God^[143] tempted me away from my father's household, I said to her, "Do me this kindness: whatever place we come to, say about me, 'He's my brother'."

¹⁴ And Abimelech took sheep and cattle, male and female slaves, and gave them to Abraham; and returned Sarah his wife. ¹⁵ And Abimelech said, "Here my land is before you: settle where you please."

¹⁶ And to Sarah he said, "Look — I have given your brother a thousand silver. Now, let it be a veil for the eyes for you, for all with you and everyone, and you're cleared."^[144]

¹⁸ So Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife, and his female slaves, and they gave birth. ¹⁷ Because Yahweh had closed up all the wombs of Abimelech's household, on account of Sarah, Abraham's wife.

Chapter 21

¹ And Yahweh appointed Sarah, as he'd said. Yahweh did for Sarah as he'd spoken.^[145]

² Sarah conceived and gave birth to Abraham's son, of his old age, at the set time that God told him. ³ And Abraham named his son, born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac (Yiẓḥak). ⁴ And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac. Eight days old, as God had commanded him. ⁵ And Abraham was one hundred years old at the birth of his son Isaac.

⁶ And Sarah said, "God has made me laughter (ẓḥok). Everyone who hears will laugh (yiẓḥak)."^{[146] 7} And she said, "Who gossiped to Abraham, 'Sarah is nursing sons'? Because I bore him a son in his old age." ⁸ And the boy grew, and was weaned.

And Abraham held a big feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. ⁹ And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, who bore a son to Abraham, having fun (meẓaḥek) with Isaac her son.^{[147] 10} And she said to Abraham, "Drive out this slave-woman and her son! Because this slave-woman's son will not inherit along with my son, with Isaac."

¹¹ And this matter greatly troubled Abraham, on account of his son. ¹² And God said to Abraham, "Don't trouble over the boy and your slave-woman. Everything Sarah tells you, listen to her. Because through Isaac is your offspring vested. ¹³ And I will also make the slave-woman's son a nation, because he's your offspring."

¹⁴ And Abraham awoke at dawn, and took bread and a pitcher of water, and gave them to Hagar, put it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away. And she walked and got lost in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.^{[148] 15} And the water in the pitcher finished, so she sent the child under one of the bushes^[149]

¹⁶ And she walked and sat by herself opposite [him], as far as a bow-shot, because she said, "Let me not see the boy's death." She sat opposite, lifted her voice, and wept. ¹⁷ And God heard the lad's voice, and an angel of God called to Hagar from the sky, and said to her, "What's with you, Hagar? Don't be afraid, because God heard the voice of the lad, while he was over there. ¹⁸ Stand up, carry the lad, and hold him by the hand, because I will make him into a big nation."

¹⁹ And God opened her eyes, and she saw a water-well. So she went and filled the pitcher with water, and she kissed the lad.

²⁰ And God was with the lad. And he grew, and settled in the wilderness, and became an archer. ²¹ And he settled in the wilderness of Paran, and took himself a wife from the land of Egypt.

²² It happened in that time that Abimelech and Phichol his general said to Abraham, "God is with you, in everything you do. ²³ And now, swear (hishbe'a) to me here: by God, would you to lie to me or my great grandsons and grandsons: As I did you kindness, so do me, and those of the land you have wandered."^[150]

²⁴ And Abraham said, "I do swear."

²⁵ And Abraham rebuked Abimelech on account of a well of water which Abimelech's slaves had filched.^[151]

²⁶ And Abimelech said, "I didn't know who did this thing. Not only did you not tell me, but I didn't hear of it until today."

²⁷ And Abraham took sheep and cattle, and gave them to Abimelech. And the two of them carved a pact.

²⁸ And Abraham placed the seven (sheva') female lambs by themselves.

²⁹ And Abimelech said to Abraham, "What are these? These seven (sheva') ewes, which you have placed by themselves?"

³⁰ And he said, "Because you will take these seven (sheva') ewes from me, so that you will be my witness, that I dug this well (be-er)."

³¹ Therefore that place is called Beer-sheba (Well-Oath/Well-Seven), because there the two of them swore an oath (nishbe'u).

³² And they carved a pact in Beer-sheba. Then Abimelech and Phichol his general arose and returned to the Philistines' land.

³³ And he planted an oak in Beer-sheba, and there he called out the name of Yahweh, Eternity's God (El Olam).^[102]

³⁴ And Abraham dwelt alien in the Philistines' land many days.

Chapter 22

¹ And it was after these events that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham", and he replied "Here I am."

² And he said, "Take now your son, your only, whom you love, Isaac, and go you to the land of Moriah,^[152] and raise him up there as an offering^[153] on one of the mountains, which I will tell you."

³ And Abraham awoke at dawn, and saddled his donkey, and took his two servant-lads with him, and Isaac his son. And he split the offering wood, and got up and walked to the place where God told him.

⁴ On the third day, Abraham lifted his gaze and saw the place in the distance. ⁵ And Abraham told his lads, "Stay here with the donkey, and me and the lad will go until there, and prostrate ourselves, and return to you."

⁶ And Abraham took the offering wood, and placed it on Isaac his son, and took the fire and the knife, and the two of them walked together.

⁷ And Isaac said to Abraham his father, and said, "Father?"

And he replied, "Here I am, son."

And he said, "Here's the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the offering?"

⁸ And Abraham said, "God will see to it, the lamb for the offering, son."

And the two of them walked together.

⁹ And they came to the place where God had told him, and Abraham built the altar there, and arranged the wood. And he immobilized Isaac his son, and put him on the altar over the wood.

¹⁰ And Abraham reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.

¹¹ And an angel of Yahweh called to him from the sky, and said, "Abraham! Abraham!"

And he said, "Here I am."

¹² And he said, "Don't lift your hands against the boy, or do a thing to him. Because now I know that you fear God, and would not spare your son, your only son, from me."

¹³ Then Abraham lifted his gaze and saw a ram behind him, caught by its horns in the underbrush. And Abraham went and took the ram, and raised him as an offering, instead of his son.

¹⁴ And Abraham named the place Yahweh Yireh (Yahweh will-see), because as he said that day, on this mountain, Yahweh had been seen (Yiraeh).^[154]

¹⁵ And the angel of Yahweh called to Abraham a second time from the sky. ¹⁶ He said, "Yahweh's speech: I, upon myself, have sworn, answering to you having done this thing, that you didn't spare your son, your only, ¹⁷ I will bless a blessing on you. And I will make your seed so many, like the stars of the sky, and the sand on the seashore, and your offspring will inherit their enemies' gate. ¹⁸ And through your offspring all the peoples of the earth will be blessed, following because you listened to me."^[99]

¹⁹ And Abraham returned to his lads, and they rose and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham settled in Beer-sheba.

²⁰ And then after these things, it was told to Abraham, "Here: Milcah also gave birth, to boys, for your brother Naḥor: ²¹ to 'Uẓ his first, Buz his brother, and Kemu-el the father of Aram, ²² and Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Yidlaph, and Bethuel" ²³ And Bethuel had Rebecca. These eight Milcah bore for Nahor, Abraham's brother. ²⁴ And his concubine, her name Re'umah, she also gave birth: to Tevaḥ, to Gaḥam, to Taḥash, and to Ma'acah.

Chapter 23

¹ And the life of Sarah, the years of Sarah's life, amounted to one hundred twenty-seven years. ² And Sarah died in Kiryath-Arba, that's Hebron, in Canaan's land, so Abraham came to mourn Sarah, and weep for her.

³ And Abraham arose from atop his dead, and spoke with the Hittites, saying, ⁴ "I'm a foreigner settling among you. Grant me a plot for graves within you, that I may bury my dead away from me."

⁵ And the Hittites replied to Abraham, ⁶ "Hear us, my lord: You're an emissary of God among us.^[155] Bury your dead in the best of our graves. Not one of us will withhold his graves from you, for you to bury your dead."

⁷ And Abraham arose, and bowed flat before the land's people, before the Ḥittites. ⁸ And he spoke with them, saying, "If your judgment deems that I should bury my dead away from me, listen to me, and alert 'Ephron Ẓoḥar's son about me, ⁹ so that he will give me the cave of the Machpelah, which is his, which is at the edge of his field. Let him sell me at the full cost, within you, for a gravesite.

¹⁰ Now 'Ephron lived among the Ḥittites. And 'Ephron the Ḥittite replied to Abraham in witness of the Ḥittites and all who came to his city's gates, ¹¹ "No, my lord, listen to me: I give you the field, and I give you the cave within it. I give it to you in full view of my people. I give it to you: bury your dead."

¹² And Abraham bowed prostrate before the people of the land. ¹³ And he spoke to 'Ephron in witness of the land's people, saying, "If you would only please hear me. I'm giving you the money for the field. Take it from me, and I will bury my dead there."^[156]

¹⁴ And 'Ephron replied to Abraham, saying to him: ¹⁵ "My lord, listen to me. What's a land worth four hundred silver between you and me? So bury your dead."

¹⁶ And Abraham heard 'Ephron, and Abraham weighed for him the silver of which he spoke in witness of the sons of Ḥet. Four hundred shekels of silver passed to the merchant.

¹⁷ So 'Ephron's field, which is in the Machpelah, which is in front of Mamre, the field with the cave within it, and all the trees which were in the field, in all its borders within, formally became ¹⁸ Abraham's possession, in the Ḥittites' full view, among all at the city's gate.

¹⁹ After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of Machpelah field facing Mamre, that's Hebron (Ḥevron), in Canaan's land. ²⁰ And the field and the cave within it were transferred to Abraham, as a gravesite, from the Ḥittites.

Chapter 24

¹ Now Abraham was old, advanced in years, and Yahweh had blessed Abraham in all things. ² And Abraham said to the oldest servant of his household, who ruled over all that he had, "Please, put your hand under my thigh, ³ and I'll make you swear by Yahweh, God of the sky and God of the earth, that you won't take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, ⁴ but you'll go to my land and to my family, and take a wife for my son Isaac."

⁵ And the servant said to him, "Maybe the woman won't be willing to follow me to this land. Am I to return your son to resettle in the land that you came from?"

⁶ And Abraham said to him, "Woe upon you should you return my son to that place. ⁷ Yahweh, the god of the skies, who took me from the house of my father, and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me, who swore to me, saying, 'To your offspring I'll give this land.' He'll send his angel before you, to take a wife for my son, from there. ⁸And if the woman isn't willing to go after you, you would be released from this oath to me. Just do not resettle my son there."

⁹ And the servant placed his hand underneath the thigh of Abraham his master; and swore to him an oath on this matter.

¹⁰And the servant took ten camels of his master's camels, and went off, and all his master's goods were in his hand. And he got up and went to Mesopotamia (Aram Naharaim), to Nahor's city.^[157]

¹¹ And made his camels kneel down outside of the city by the well of water at dusk, at that time when women go out who draw water. ¹² And he said, "O Yahweh, God of my master Abraham, please call her to me today, and do kindness to my master Abraham. ¹³ Look, I'm standing by the fountain of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. ¹⁴ And let it be, that the young woman to whom I say, 'Let down your jug, please, that I may drink,' and she says, 'Drink, and I'll also water your camels'— she's who you've chosen for your servant, for Isaac. And by that I'll know that you have treated my master with kindness."

¹⁵ And it happened, before he had finished speaking, that there was Rebecca (Rivqah), daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, Abraham's brother Naḥor's wife, coming out with her jug on her shoulder. ¹⁶ And the girl was very good-looking, a virgin, no man had lain with her. And she went down to the fountain, and filled up her jug, and came up. ¹⁷ And the servant ran to meet her, and said, "Please let me drink a little water from your jug."

¹⁸ And she said, "Drink, sir." And she quickly let down her jug in her hand, and gave him a drink. ¹⁹ When she finished giving him a drink, she said, "I'll draw water for your camels too, until they've finished drinking." ²⁰ And she quickly emptied her jug into the watering-trough, and ran back to the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels. ²¹ And the man, watching her thoughtfully, kept silent, to know whether Yahweh had made his trip successful or not.

²² And then, when the camels had finished drinking, the man took a golden nose-ring weighing a half-shekel, and two bracelets for her hands of weight ten gold. ²³ And he said, "Whose daughter are you? Please tell me, is there room in your father's house for us to lodge in?"

²⁴ And she said to him, "I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Naḥor."

²⁵ She said to him, "We have plenty of feed and straw, and a place to lodge."

²⁶ And the man bowed, to Yahweh bowed. ²⁷ And he said, "Bless Yahweh, God of my master Abraham, who did not abandon his grace and trust toward my master. And I have been led by Yahweh to the house of my master's brethren."

²⁸ And the girl ran and told these things to her mother's household. ²⁹ And Rebecca had a brother, whose name was Laban (Lavan/White). And Laban ran to the man who was outside, to the fountain. ³⁰ When he saw the nose-ring and the bracelets on his sister's hands, and when he heard the words his sister Rebecca said: "So the man said to me", then he came to the man. And there he was: standing by the camels at the well.

³¹ And he said, "Come, you blessed of Yahweh. Why stand outside? I have cleared the house, and a place for the camels."

³² And the man came into the house, and released the camels. And was given straw and feed for the camels, and water to wash his feet, and the feet of the men who were with him.

³³ And food was set before him to eat, but he said, "I won't eat until I've told my errand."

And he said, "Speak."

³⁴ And he said:

I am Abraham's servant. ³⁵ And Yahweh has blessed my master greatly, and he has become great. And he has given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and male servants and female servants, and camels and donkeys. ³⁶ And Sarah my master's wife bore a son to my master when she was old, and he has given him all that he has. ³⁷ And my master made me swear, saying, "You shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites in whose land I dwell, ³⁸ but you shall go to my father's house, and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son."

³⁹ And I said to my master, "Maybe the woman won't follow me."

⁴⁰ And he said to me, "Yahweh, before whom I walk, will send his angel with you, and prosper your way. And you shall take a wife for my son from my relatives, and from my father's household. ⁴¹ Then you will be clear of my oath, when you come to my relatives. And if they do not give her to you, you will be clear from my oath."

⁴² And today I came to the fountain, and said, "O Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham, if you'd please prosper my path, ⁴³ see, I am standing by the fountain of water, and let it be, that the girl who comes to draw water, to whom I'll say, "Please give me a little water from your jug to drink," ⁴⁴ and she'll say to me, "You drink, and I'll also draw water for your camels" — let that one be the woman that Yahweh's appointed for my master's son." ⁴⁵ And before I was done speaking in my heart, there she was: Rebecca came out with her jug on her shoulder! And she went down to the fountain, and drew water. And I said to her, "Let me drink, please."

⁴⁶ And she hurried to remove her jug from her shoulder, and said, "Drink, and I'll also give water for your camels." So I drank, and she made the camels drink also.

⁴⁷ And I asked her, saying, "Whose daughter are you?"

And she said, "Daughter of Bethuel Naḥor's son, born to Milcah."

And I put the ring on her nose, and the bracelets on her hands. ⁴⁸ And I bowed prostrate to Yahweh, and blessed Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham, who has placed me on the true path to take my master's brother's daughter for his son. ⁴⁹ And now if you can find it within you to be kind and true towards my master, tell me. And if not, tell me, and I'll turn to the right, or to the left.

⁵⁰ Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, "This thing comes from Yahweh. We cannot speak to you bad or good. ⁵¹ Here is Rebecca in front of you, take her and go, and let her be your master's son's wife, as Yahweh has spoken." ⁵² And when Abraham's servant heard their words, he prostrated himself to the ground before Yahweh. ⁵³ And the servant brought out trinkets of silver, and trinkets of gold, and clothing, and gave them to Rebecca, and offerings also for her brother and mother.

⁵⁴ And they ate and drank, he and the men who were with him, and stayed all night. And they got up at dawn, and he said, "Send me away to my master."

⁵⁵ And her brother and her mother said, "Let the young woman stay with us some days, ten. After that she'll go."

⁵⁶ And he said to them, "Don't make me late, since Yahweh has prospered my way. Send me and I'll go to my master."

⁵⁷ And they said, "We'll call in the girl, and get her opinion." ⁵⁸ And they called Rebecca, and said to her, "Will you go with this man?"

And she said, "I'll go." ⁵⁹ So they sent Rebecca their sister away, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and his men.

⁶⁰ And they blessed Rebecca, and said to her, "Our sister, you'll become thousands of ten thousands, and your offspring will control the gate of their despisers."

⁶¹ And Rebecca and her girls arose, and they rode upon camels, and followed the man. And the servant took Rebecca, and went his way.

⁶² And Isaac came from the way of Beer Lahai Roi, and he dwelt in the land of Canaan. ⁶³ And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the evening. And he lifted his gaze, and saw: there were camels coming. ⁶⁴ And Rebecca lifted her gaze. And when she saw Isaac, she dropped from the camel, ⁶⁵ and she said to the servant, "What man is this who walks in the field to meet us?"

And the servant said, "It's my master." And she took the veil and covered herself. ⁶⁶ And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. ⁶⁷ And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebecca, and she became his wife, and he loved her. And Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.

Chapter 25

¹ Abraham went on to take another wife, and her name Keturah.

² And she bore him Zimran & Jokshan (Yaqshan/Toughy) & Medan & Midian & Ishbak & Shuaḥ. ³ And Jokshan had Sheba & Dedan. And Dedan's sons were Ashurim & Letushim & Leummim. ⁴ And Midian's sons were 'Eiphah & 'Epher & Anoch & Avida' & Elda'ah. All these were Keturah's sons.

⁵ And Abraham gave everything he owned to Isaac. ⁶ And to the sons of Abraham's concubines, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he still lived, eastward to eastern land.

⁷ And these are the days of the years of the life of Abraham, which he lived: one hundred and seventy-five years. ⁸ And he perished, he died, at a good age, old and content, and was gathered to his people.^[158]

⁹ And Isaac and Ishmael, his sons, buried him in the Machpela cave, in Ḥittite Ephron Ẓoḥar's son's field, which is facing Mamre, ¹⁰ the field which Abraham bought from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried, and Sarah with him.

¹¹ And then, after the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac his son, and Isaac lived by Beer Lahai Roi.

¹² These are the lineages of Ishmael Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's slave, bore to Abraham.^[11]

¹³ These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names and their generations. Ishmael's firstborn Nevaioth, & Kedar & Adbe-el & Mivsam, ¹⁴ & Mishma & Dumah & Massa, ¹⁵ Hadad & Teyma, Jetur (Yetur), Naphish & Kedmah.

¹⁶ These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names in their villages and in their nomadic encampments, twelve princes of their nations.^{[159] 17} And these are the years of Ishmael's life: one hundred and thirty-seven years. And he perished, he died, and gathered onto his people.^[158]

¹⁸ And they lived from Ḥawilah as far as Shur, which is facing Egypt as you go towards Assyria. Facing all his brothers he fell.^[160]

¹⁹ And these are the lineages of Isaac Abraham's son.^[11]

Abraham was the father of Isaac. ²⁰ And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebecca, Padan-Aram's Aramean Bethuel's daughter, Aramean Laban's sister, as his wife. ²¹ Isaac prayed to Yahweh concerning his wife, because she was infertile. And Yahweh accepted his prayer, and Rebecca his wife conceived. ^[161]

²² And the boys were tossing inside her, and she said, "If it's this way, why me?"^[162] And she went to petition^[163] Yahweh.

²³ And Yahweh said to her, "Two peoples are in your belly, and two nations will branch from your insides. People shall overcome people, and younger shall enslave elder."

²⁴ When her day to bear had come, here: twins in her belly. ²⁵ The first came out ruddy, all a coat of hair, and they named him Esau. ²⁶ And afterward his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau's heel ('Ekev). He was named Jacob (Ya'akov/Will-Heel).^[164] Isaac was sixty years old when he had them.

²⁷ And the boys grew. Esau came to know hunting, an outdoorsman, while Jacob was a simple man, a homebody.^{[165] 28} And Isaac loved Esau, he ate the game-meat, while Rebecca loved Jacob.

²⁹ And Jacob stewed a stew. And Esau came from the fields; and he was exhausted. ³⁰ And Esau said to Jacob, "Please, let me gulp your red redness (adom adom)! Because I'm exhausted." That's why he was called Edom (Edomites).^[166][167]

³¹ And Jacob said, "Sell me this day your firstborn's birthright."

³² And Esau said, "Look — I'm about to die. What's a birthright to me?"

³³ And Jacob said, "Swear to me today." And he swore, and sold his birthright to Jacob. ³⁴ So Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew. And he ate, drank, got up, and he left. Esau treated his birthright with contempt^[168].

Chapter 26

¹ And a famine came over the land, beyond the first famine which was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech (Avimelech/King-Father), Philistine king at Gerar.

² And Yahweh appeared to him and said:

Do not go down to Egypt. Stay in the land I tell you. ³ Wander this land, and I'll be with you, and bless you, because to you and your offspring I'll give these lands. I'll uphold the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.

⁴ I'll multiply your offspring like the stars in the sky, and I'll give all these lands to your offspring, and all the peoples of the earth will be blessed by your offspring,^[99]

⁵ on account of how Abraham heeded me, and observed my rituals, my commandments, my laws, and my doctrine.

⁶ And Isaac settled in Gerar.

⁷ And the men of that place asked about his wife, but he said "She's my sister," because he was afraid to say "my wife", "lest the men of this place will kill me over Rebecca, because she is good-looking." ⁸ And when he had been there long enough, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out through a window, and saw Isaac tickling Rebecca his wife.^{[169] 9} And Abimelech summoned Isaac, and said, "Here now, she's your wife! How come you said 'She's my sister'?"

And Isaac said to him, "Because I said, 'or else I'll die over her.'"

¹⁰ And Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people nearly slept with your wife. Then you would have brought guilt on us!"

¹¹ And Abimelech commanded all the people, saying, "Whoever touches this man or his wife will be killed dead."

¹² And Isaac planted seed in that land, and that year he reaped a hundredfold. And Yahweh blessed him. ¹³ So the man grew, went on to grow, until he was very great. ¹⁴ He had livestock, both flocks and herds, and many slaves, and the Philistines envied him. ¹⁵ So all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, the Philistines plugged up and filled with dust.

¹⁶ And Abimelech said to Isaac, "Leave us, because you've become mightier than us." ¹⁷ So Isaac went from there and encamped in the valley of Gerar, and settled there.

¹⁸ And Isaac redug the water wells which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had plugged up after Abraham's death. And he named them the names his father had called them.

¹⁹ And Isaac's slaves dug by the creek, and they found a well of flowing water. ²⁰ And the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, "The water is ours." And he called the name of the well Esek (bickering), because they bickered with him.

²¹ And they dug another well and they argued over it too, and he named it Sitnah (Accusation).

²² And he uprooted from there, and he dug another well, and they did not argue over it. And he named it Reḥovot (streets/open spaces) and said, "Because now Yahweh has made space (hircḥiv) for us, and we'll be fertile in the land."

²³ And he went up from there to Beer-sheba.

²⁴ And Yahweh appeared to him that night and said, "I am the god of your father Abraham. Don't fear, because I am with you, and I'll bless and multiply your offspring for the sake of my servant Abraham." ²⁵ So he built an altar there and called out Yahweh's name, and pitched his tent there, and Isaac's servants dug out a well.

²⁶ And Abimelech came to him from Gerar, with one of his friends Aḥuzzath, and his general Phichol.

²⁷ And Isaac said to them, "Why have you come to me? But you hate me, and sent me away from you?"

²⁸ And they said:

See, we saw that Yahweh was with you. So we said, "Let there be a rapprochement between us, between us and you." And we'll carve a pact with you. ²⁹

If you'll do us wrong when nobody touched you, and when we've only done you good, and we're sending you away in peace. You are Yahweh's blessed now."^[170]

³⁰ And he made a feast for them, and they ate and drank.

³¹ And they awoke early dawn, and swore man to partner. And Isaac sent them away, and they walked from him in peace.

³² It was on that very day that Isaac's servants came and reported to him about the well which they had dug, and they told him, "We've found water." ³³ And he called it Shiv'ah (Seven^fem/Oathy). That's why the city's name is Beer-sheba, to this day.

³⁴ When Esau was forty years old, he took as his wives Judith (Yudith), Ḥittite Be-eri's daughter, and Basmath, Ḥittite Elon's daughter.^{[171] 35} And they were bitter spirits to Isaac and Rebecca.

Chapter 27

¹ And when Isaac was old, and his eyesight darkened, he called Esau his elder son, and said to him, "Son."

And he said to him, "Here I am."

² And he said, "Here, I've grown old, and I don't know which day I'll die. ³ So please take your tools now, your quiver and bow, and go to the field and hunt game for me. ⁴ And make me those tasty dishes I love, and bring them to me, and I'll eat, so that my soul can bless you before I die."

⁵ Rebecca heard Isaac talking to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt wild game to bring back.

⁶ And Rebecca spoke to Jacob her son, saying:

I just heard your father talking to Esau your brother, saying, ⁷ "Bring me wild game and make me tasty dishes to eat, and I'll bless you before Yahweh, before my death."

⁸ So now son, listen to me. I command you. ⁹ Go now to the flock, and take me two good young goats; and I will make them into tasty dishes for your father, as he likes. ¹⁰ Bring them to your father, and he will eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.

¹¹ And Jacob said to Rebecca his mother, "But Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am smooth skinned. ¹² So maybe my father will feel me, and I will seem to him to mock him; and I'll have landed a curse upon me, not a blessing."

¹³ And his mother said to him, "Your curse'll land upon me, son. Just listen to me and go get me that."

¹⁴ And he went, and he took, and he brought, to his mom. And his mother made the tasty dishes like his father loved.

¹⁵ And Rebecca took clothes belonging to her elder son Esau, the nicest ones she had at home, and put them on her younger son Jacob. ¹⁶ And the goat skins she draped on his arms and the smooth part of his neck. ¹⁷ And she placed the tasty dishes, and the bread which she had made, in the hands of Jacob her son.

¹⁸ He came to his father, and said "Father".

And he said, "Here I am. Who are you son?"

¹⁹ And Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau, your eldest. I did as you told me. Please, get up here and sit down and eat some of my wild game, so that your soul may bless me."

²⁰ And Isaac said to his son, "What's this? You were so quick to find it, son."

And he said, "Because your god Yahweh called it to me."

²¹ And Isaac said to Jacob, "Please come near, and I'll feel you, son. Is it my son Esau, or not?"

²² And Jacob approached Isaac his father, and he felt him, and said, "The voice is Jacob's voice, and the hands are Esau's hands."

²³ And he did not recognize him, because his arms were like those of his brother Esau, hairy. So he blessed him.

²⁴ And he said, "Are you my son Esau, now?"

And he said, "I am."

²⁵ And he said, "Serve me and I'll eat my son's game, so my soul will bless you." And he served it, and he ate. And he brought him wine, and he drank.

²⁶ And his father Isaac said to him, "Come near, please, and kiss me, son."

²⁷ He came near, and kissed him, and he smelled the smell on his clothes, and he blessed him. He said,

See, the scent of my son,
like the scent of a field blessed by Yahweh.

²⁸May God give you heavenly dew,
of the oils of the land,
an abundance of grain and mead.

²⁹Peoples will serve you,
nations bow down to you.
Become mightier than your brother;
And your mother's descendents will bow down to you.

Cursed be whomever curses you;
blessed be whomever blesses you.

³⁰ And as Isaac finished blessing Jacob, just as Jacob went exiting from his father Isaac's presence, Esau arrived from his hunting.

³¹ He, too, made tasty dishes, and brought them to his father, and said to his father, "My father will rise and eat of his son's wild game, so that your soul may bless me."

³² And Isaac his father said to him, "Who are you?"

And he said "I'm your firstborn son, Esau."

³³ And a great wave of fearful suspicion struck Isaac, who said, "Who? Where's that one who hunted game and brought me, and I ate of everything, before you came? And I blessed him. So he will be blessed."

³⁴ When Esau heard what his father said, he let out a very loud, very bitter, shout, and he said to his father, "Bless me too, father!"

³⁵ And he said, "Your brother came in deviously, and took your blessing."

³⁶ And he said, "After all, his name is Jacob(heel/swindle), and he has swindled me twice.^[172] He took my birthright, and now look: he took my blessing!"^[173]

And he said, "Have you saved no blessing for me?"

³⁷ And Isaac answered and said to Esau, "Look — I have made him your victor, and I gave him all his kin as servants. I have supported him with grain and mead. Therefore what could I do for you, son?"

³⁸ And Esau said to his father, "Do you only have one blessing, father? Bless me too, father!" And Esau raised his voice, and wept.

³⁹ His father Isaac replied to him, saying

Behold, you'll dwell away from the fat of the land,
and the heavenly dew.

⁴⁰You will live by your sword,
enslaved to your brother.
But at the time you rebel,
you'll break his yoke off your neck.

⁴¹ And Esau grew livid at Jacob because of the blessing which he had received from his father. Esau told himself in his heart, "Come days of mourning for father, and I'll kill Jacob my brother."

⁴² Rebecca came to be told what her older son Esau said, and she sent and she called for Jacob, her younger son, and said to him, "Look: your brother Esau is plotting against you to kill you. ⁴³ Now, my son, listen to me. Get up and run away to Laban my brother in Haran. ⁴⁴ Stay with him a few days, until your brother's rage subsides, ⁴⁵ until your brother's rage recedes from you, and he forgets what you did to him. Then I'll send for you and take you back. Why should I grieve for both of you in one day?"

Chapter 28

⁴⁶ And Rebecca said to Isaac, "The Hittite women will be the death of me. If Jacob takes a wife from Hittite women like these, from this land's women, why am I alive?" ^[174]

¹ And Isaac called for Jacob, and blessed him; and commanded him, saying, "You will not take a wife from the daughters of Canaanites. ² Get up to Paden Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father; and there find your wife, from the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. ³ And El-Shaddai^[126] will bless you, and make you fertile, and make you many, and you'll become a crowd of peoples. ⁴ And he will give Abraham's blessing to you, you and your offspring with you: to inherit the land where you settled alien, which God gave to Abraham."

⁵ And Isaac sent Jacob, and he went toward Padan-aram, to the Aramean Laban Bethuel's son, brother of Rebecca, Jacob and Esau's mother.

⁶ And Esau saw that Isaac blessed Jacob, and sent him off to Padan-aram to take himself a wife from there; and when blessing him, he commanded him, saying, "You won't take a wife from the daughters of Canaanites." ⁷ And Jacob listened to his father and mother, and went towards Padan-aram. ⁸

So Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan were no good in the eyes of Isaac his father. ⁹ So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath, a daughter of Ishmael Abraham's son, Nebaioth's sister, to be his wife, in addition to his wives.

¹⁰ And Jacob left Beer-sheba, going toward Haran. ¹¹ And he was crossing and kipped down at a spot at sunset, and he took one of the stones there and placed it under his head, and he lay down in that spot. ¹²

And he dreamed.

And here: a ladder is planted on the earth, with its top reaching the sky. And on it God's angels ascend and descend. ¹³ And here is Yahweh, standing above him.^[175]

And he says, "I am Yahweh the god of Abraham your father, and Isaac's god. The land upon which you are lying, I'll give it to you and your offspring. ¹⁴ And your offspring will be like the dust particles on earth, and you'll burst out west, east, north, and south. And all the earth's families will be blessed by you,^[99] and by your offspring. ¹⁵ And here I am, with you. And I will protect you wherever you may go, and I will return you settled in this land, because I will not leave you until I have done that which I told you."

¹⁶ And Jacob awoke from his sleep, and said, "So in fact Yahweh is present in this place, and I did not know."

¹⁷ And he was awestruck, and said, "How intimidating^[176] is this place! It's none other than the house of God, and this is the Gate of Heaven."

¹⁸ And Jacob woke up at dawn, and took the stone which he had taken under his head, and put it as monument; and he anointed its head with oil. ¹⁹ And he called the place, Beth-El (God house) even though the city was originally named Luz.

²⁰ And Jacob made a vow: "If God will be with me, and protect me on the path I'm traveling, and give me bread to eat and clothes to wear, ²¹ and if I return safely to my father's house, then Yahweh would be God for me. ²² And this monument stone I've placed will be God's house. And of everything you'll give me, a tenth I'll tithe to you."

Chapter 29

¹ And Jacob set forth and went to the land of the eastern people.

² And he looked. There's a well in the field there, and there are three flocks of sheep lying by it, because from that well they watered the flocks. And the stone covering the well's mouth is big. ³ When all the flocks were gathered there, they would roll the stone from the well's mouth, and they would water the sheep, and return the stone on top of the well's mouth to its place.

⁴ And Jacob said to them, "My brothers, where are you from?"

And they said, "We're from Ḥaran."

⁵ And he asked them, "Do you know Laban Naḥor's son?"^[177]

And they said, "We know him."

⁶ And he asked, "Is he well?"

And they said, "Well. And here's his daughter Rachel coming with the sheep."

⁷ And he said, "Look, it's still midday.^[178] It's not time for gathering the livestock. Water the sheep, and go graze them."

⁸ And they said, "We can't. Not until all the herds are gathered, and the stone is rolled off the well's mouth, and we'll water the sheep."

⁹ As he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with the flock of her father's, because she was a shepherd.

¹⁰ Then, when Jacob saw Rachel, daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the flock of Laban, his mother's brother, he approached and rolled the stone off the mouth of the well, and watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother.

¹¹ And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted his voice, and cried.

¹² Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's kin, that he was Rebecca's son. And she ran and told her father.

¹³ And when Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son, he ran out to meet him, and hugged him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Then he told Laban all these things.

¹⁴ And Laban told him, "Surely you are my flesh and blood." And he stayed with him a full month.

¹⁵ And Laban said to Jacob, "Because you're my kin, should you work here for free? Tell me, what's your wage?"

¹⁶ And Laban had two daughters. The elder named Leah, and the younger named Rachel. ¹⁷ And Leah's eyes were gentle,^[179] but Rachel had a beautiful body and beautiful face. ¹⁸ And Jacob loved Rachel, and said, "I will work for you seven years, for Rachel, your youngest daughter."

¹⁹ And Laban said, "Better I give her to you, than give her to another man. Stay with me."

²⁰ So Jacob worked seven years, for Rachel. And in his eyes, it was just a few days, so did he love her.

²¹ And Jacob said to Laban, "Bring my wife! Because my time is done, and I will come to her!"

²² And Laban gathered all the men there and held a feast. ²³ When evening came, he took Leah his daughter and brought her to him, and he came to her. ²⁴ And Laban gave her his slave maid Zilpa, as slave to Leah his daughter.

²⁵ When morning came, but, it's Leah! And he said to Laban, "What's this you've done to me? Didn't I work for you over Rachel? Why did you cheat me?"

²⁶ And Laban said, "It's just not done, here. Giving away the younger sister before the firstborn. ²⁷ Finish this one's week,^[180] and we will give you the other one as well for work under me, another seven years."

²⁸ And Jacob did so, and when the week ended, he gave him Rachel his daughter as wife. ²⁹ And Laban gave his daughter Rachel his female slave Bilhah, for her as slave.

³⁰ He came to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and worked with him another seven years.

³¹ And Yahweh saw that Leah was hated, so he opened her womb. But Rachel was barren. ³² Leah conceived and bore a son, and named him Reuben (see-son), for she said, "For Yahweh's seen (ra-a) my suffering, for now my husband will love me."^[181]

³³ She conceived again, and bore a son. And she said, "Because Yahweh has heard (Shama') that I am hated, he has given me this one also." And she named him Simeon (Shim'on).

³⁴ She conceived again, and bore a son, and said, "Now, this time, my husband will keep me company (yelawe), because I have borne him three sons." That is why she called him Levi (Lewi).

³⁵ And again she conceived and gave birth to a son, and said, "This time I thank (Odeh) Yahweh." That is why she named him Judah (Yehuda).^[182] Then she stopped having children.

Chapter 30

¹ And Rachel saw that she had not borne Jacob any children, and Rachel became jealous of her sister, and said to Jacob, "Bring me sons. And if not, I'll die!"

² And Jacob fumed at Rachel, and said, "Am I God's agent,^[183] who made your womb fruitless?"

³ And she said, "Here is my maid Bilhah. Go to her, and she will give birth with my blessing, and I will also generate from her."

⁴ So she gave him Bilhah her slave as a wife, and Jacob came to her. ⁵ Bilhah conceived, and bore Jacob a son. ⁶ And Rachel said, "God has judged me (danani), and also listened to me, and gave me a son." That's why she named him Dan (Judged).

⁷ Again Rachel's slave Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a second son. ⁸ And Rachel said, "With godlike contortions (Naphtulei) I've wrestled (Niphtalti) my sister, and I also won." So she called him Naphtali.

⁹ And Leah saw that she had stopped having children, so she took Zilpah her slave, and gave her to Jacob as wife. ¹⁰ And Zilpah, Leah's slave, bore Jacob a son. ¹¹ And Leah said, "How fortunate! (Ba Gad/Gad's coming)" And she named him Gad (Fortune).

¹² And Zilpah, Leah's slave, bore a second son to Jacob. ¹³ And Leah said, "In my joy (be-oshri)! Because daughters gave me joy (ishruni)." So she named him Asher.

¹⁴ And Reuben went out at wheat harvest time, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to Leah, his mother. And Rachel said to Leah, "Please give me of your son's mandrakes."

¹⁵ And she said, "Is taking my husband such a small thing that you'll also take my son's mandrakes?"

And Rachel said, "He will sleep^[184] with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes."

¹⁶ When Jacob came in from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him, and said, "You'll come to me, because I've hired you paying my son's mandrakes." And he slept with her that night.

¹⁷ And God heard Leah, and she conceived and she bore Jacob a fifth son. ¹⁸ And Leah said, "God has given me my due wage (Schari), for giving my man my maid." And she called him Issachar (Wage-man).^[185]

¹⁹ And Leah conceived again, and bore a sixth son to Jacob. ²⁰ And Leah said, "God has endowed me with a good dowry.^[186] This time my husband will endow (Yizbeleni) me, because I have borne him six sons." So she named him Zebulun (Zevulun).^[187]

²¹ Afterward, she bore a girl, and named her Dinah.

²² Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb. ²³ She conceived and bore a son, and said, "God has gathered away (Asaf) my embarrassment." ²⁴ And she named him Joseph (Yoseph), meaning, "Yahweh will add (Yoseph) me another son."

²⁵ Now when Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, "Send me away, and I'll go to my place, to my land. ²⁶ Give me my wives and my children, for whose sake I have worked for you, and I will go, because you know the labor I've done for you."

²⁷ And Laban said to him, "Please, if I look all right to you — I divined it, Yahweh will bless me for your sake."^[50][188]

²⁸ And he said to him, "Name your price, and I will pay you."

²⁹ And he said to him, "You know how I've worked for you, and how your livestock did with me. ³⁰ Because what little you had before has exploded into much, and Yahweh has blessed you on my path. And now, when will I do something for my own household?"

³¹ And he said, "What should I give you?"

And Jacob said, "Don't give me one bit, if you would do this one thing for me. I'll go back to pasturing and guarding your flock. ³² I'll pass through all your flock today, removing from it any spotted or dotted lamb, any brown ram, and the parti-colored and dotted goats. These will be my wages. ³³ So my fair dealing is clear, tomorrow, when you go over my wages before you, whatever goat isn't dotted or parti-colored, ram which isn't brown, if it's with me, it's stolen."

³⁴ And Laban said, "Ok. It'll be like you said."

³⁵ So on that day he removed the spotted and parti-colored male goats, and the spotted and parti-colored female goats, all that were partly white, and all the brown sheep, and handed them to his sons. ³⁶ And he placed three days' journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob took care of the remainder of Laban's flocks.

³⁷ And Jacob took himself fresh branches of poplar, almond, and plane trees, and peeled off white streaks in them, exposing the white on the branches. ³⁸ And he displayed the sticks which he had peeled in the troughs in the waterways where the flocks came to drink, in front of the flocks. And they copulated when they came to drink.^{[189] 39} The flocks copulated in front of the sticks, and the flocks gave birth spotted and dotted and parti-colored.

⁴⁰ Jacob separated the sheep, and he set aside the flocks facing, spotted and all-brown, in Laban's flock, and gathered flocks onto himself, and did not mix them with Laban's flocks. ⁴¹ And for every copulation of vigorous sheep or goats, Jacob put out the sticks in the watering-troughs for them to see, so they would copulate with sticks. ⁴² But for the flock's feeble, he didn't. So to Laban went the feeble, and to Jacob the vigorous. ⁴³ And Jacob expanded very very much, and had many flocks, male and female slaves, camels, and donkeys.

Chapter 31

¹ And he heard Laban's sons' talk, saying: "Jacob took everything our father had, and from that which is our father's he has made all this wealth." ² And Jacob saw Laban's expression now, and it wasn't with him like yesterday, or the day before. ³ So Yahweh said to Jacob, "Return to your fathers' land, to your birthplace, and I'll be with you."

⁴ And Jacob summoned Rachel and Leah to the field where his flock was. ⁵ And he said to them:

I see your father's expression, that he isn't with me like he was yesterday, the day before. But my father's God has been with me.

⁶ And you know that I served your father with all my power. ⁷ But your father slighted me, and changed my wages a dozen times, but God did not allow him to harm my standing. ^{[190] 8} And if he said this — "The dotted will be your wages." — then all the flocks bore dotted. Or if he said that — "The spotted ones will be your wages." — then all the flocks bore spotted. ⁹ So God released your father's livestock, and gave it to me.

¹⁰ And then, when the flocks were copulating, I lifted up my gaze and saw, in a dream, that here: the he-goats mounting the females are spotted and dotted and piebald.

¹¹ And an angel of God in the dream said to me "Jacob".

And I said "Here I am".

¹² And he said, "Please, lift your gaze, and see that all the he-goats mounting the flock are spotted and dotted and piebald, because I saw all that Laban did to you. ¹³ I am the Beth-El God, there where you anointed a monument, where you vowed a vow to me. Now rise up, leave this land, and return to the land of your birth."

¹⁴ And Rachel and Leah answered, and they said to him, "Do we still have any part in our father's inheritance? ¹⁵ Because he considered us as strangers, because he has sold us. And he's also eaten up the money we cost. ¹⁶ Therefore all the wealth which God has confiscated from our father is ours, and our sons'. So now, all that God told you to do, do."

¹⁷ So Jacob got up, and placed his sons and wives on the camels. ¹⁸ And he drove all his livestock, and all the property he acquired, the livestock he possessed, acquired in Padan-aram, to go to his father Isaac in Canaan's land.

¹⁹ And Laban had gone to shear his sheep, so Rachel stole the house-idols^[191] which belonged to her father. ²⁰ And Jacob had outwitted^[192] Laban the Aramean by stealing away without telling him. ²¹ And he and all he owned fled, and he rose up and crossed the river, and set off toward Mount Gilead.

²² And Laban was told on the third day that Jacob ran away. ²³ And he took his kinsmen with him and pursued him seven days' distance, and caught up to him at Mount Gilead.

²⁴ And God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night, and said to him, "Dont dare speak to Jacob regarding right and wrong."

²⁵ Then Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had planted his tent on the mountain, and Laban planted his kinsmen^[193] at Mount Gilead.

²⁶ And Laban said to Jacob:

What have you done? You have broken my trust, and drove my daughters away like prisoners of war. ²⁷ Why did you steal away, in secret, and deceive me? Were you to tell me, I would have happily sent you off, with drum and harp songs. ²⁸ And you didn't deign to let me kiss my sons and daughters? You've done foolish things.

²⁹ It is in my power to harm you, but your father's god told me last night, "Don't you dare speak to Jacob about right and wrong." ³⁰ So now you've left and gone, because you longed so long for your father's. Why did you steal my gods?

³¹ And Jacob answered, and said to Laban: "Because I was afraid, because I said otherwise you'll rob your daughters from my side. ³² Whoever you find your gods with will not live! In front of our kin, go through what I've got here, and take them." And Jacob didn't know that Rachel had stolen them.

³³ So Laban went into Jacob's tent and into Leah's tent, and into the tents of the two slave women, but he didn't find them. He left Leah's tent, and went into Rachel's tent.

³⁴ But Rachel had taken the house-gods, and put them in the camel's saddle, and sat on top of them. And Laban rifled through the whole tent, but did not find them. ³⁵ And she said to her father, "Please, my lord, don't be upset, because I can't stand up before you, because I am having my monthly ritual.^[194] And he searched, but did not find the house-idols.

³⁶ This upset Jacob, and he argued with Laban, and Jacob replied saying to Laban:

What's my crime? What's my sin, that you lit off after me? ³⁷ Now that you felt up all my things, what did you find of all your household items? Put it here in front of my kin and yours, and let them adjudicate between us!

³⁸ It's twenty years that I'm with you, your sheep and goats haven't miscarried, and I didn't eat rams of your flock. ³⁹ Preyed animals I didn't bring to you, I would sin. You held me responsible for those stolen by day and stolen by night. ⁴⁰ I was parched by day, and frostbitten at night. Sleep fled from my eyes.

⁴¹ That was twenty years my lot in your household. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you altered my wages a dozen times. ⁴² If my father's god, Abraham's God, Isaac's terror, hadn't been with me, then you would've sent me away empty-handed. God has seen my suffering and my labor's due, and proved it last night.

⁴³ And Laban replied to Jacob, "These daughters are my daughters, and these children are my children, and these flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. And what can I do about my daughters today, or about the children they bore? ⁴⁴ And now, let us cut a pact, me and you. And let it serve as witness between me and you."

⁴⁵ And Jacob took a stone, and set it up as a monument. ⁴⁶ And Jacob told his relatives, "Gather stones." So they took stones and they made a crest, and they ate there on top of the crest. ⁴⁷ And Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed (Gal-'Ed/Crest-Witness).^[195]

⁴⁸ And Laban said, "This crest is a witness between me and you today." That is why it is called Galeed, ⁴⁹ and the watch-point (Miẓpeh). As he said, "May Yahweh keep watch between me and you, because we'll be absent from each other. ⁵⁰ If you mistreat my daughters, and if you take other wives besides my daughters, even with no one else there, God will be witness between you and me."

⁵¹ And Laban said to Jacob, "Here is this crest, and here is the monument, which I have set up between me and you. ⁵² This crest is witness, this monument is witness, that I won't cross this crest and monument toward you, and you won't cross this crest and monument toward me, to do harm. ⁵³ Abraham's God and Naḥor's god will both judge between us, their father's god." And Jacob swore out of fear of his father Isaac.

⁵⁴ And Jacob offered an offering on the mountain, and called his kin to eat bread, and they ate bread and lodged on the mountain. ¹ And Laban woke up at dawn, kissed his sons and daughters and blessed them. Then Laban went back to his settlement.

Chapter 32

¹ And Jacob went on his way, and angels of God confronted him. ² And Jacob said when he saw them: "This is God's encampment", and he named that place Mahanaim (Two-Camps).

³ And Jacob sent messengers^[196] ahead to Esau his brother, in the land of Seir (Hairy), Edom's field. ⁴ And he ordered them, saying,

You'll say this to my master, Esau: "Your servant Jacob says: 'I was Laban's guest, and stayed until now. ⁵ I have bull and donkey, flocks and slaves, male and female. And I've sent word to my master so that I'll be all right by you.'"^[50]

⁶ And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, "We came to your brother Esau, and now he is coming toward you, and four hundred men with him."

⁷ And Jacob became so afraid, and anxious. So he split the people with him, and the flocks, the cattle, and the camels, into two camps. ⁸ And he said, "If Esau comes to one of the camps and strikes it, the remaining camp will escape."

⁹ And Jacob said:

My father Abraham's God, and my father Isaac's God, Yahweh, who told me, "Return to your land, the land of your birth, and I will do good by you.":

¹⁰ I am small compared to all the kindness and all the truth you have done your servant. Because with my own walking stick I crossed this Jordan river, and now I have become two camps.

¹¹ Save me, please, from my brother's hand, from Esau's hand. Because I fear he might come strike me and the women and children. ¹² And you said, "I will treat you well and good. And I will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which is too vast to count."

¹³ And he slept there that night, and took from what he had a gift for Esau his brother: ¹⁴ two hundred she-goats, and twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes, and twenty rams, ¹⁵ thirty lactating camels and their calves; forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys, and ten foals. ¹⁶ He handed them off to his slaves, each herd by itself. And he said to his slaves, "Cross ahead of me, and leave a gap between each herd and the next." ¹⁷

And he ordered the first, saying, "When Esau my brother meets you, and he asks you, 'Whose are you, and where are you going, and whose are these in front?', ¹⁸ then say, 'Jacob your servant's. It's a gift sent to master Esau. And look, he too is behind us.'"

¹⁹ And he also ordered the second, and the third, and all those who followed the herds, saying:

These words are what you'll say to Esau when you find him.

²⁰ And also say, "Here, Jacob your servant is also behind us, because he said, 'I'll make his amends with offering, and afterward face him. Perhaps he will accept me.'""

²¹ So the gift crossed over before him, and he stayed that night in the camp.

²² And he awoke that night, and took his two wives and two slave-wives and his eleven sons, and crossed at Jabbok crossing. ²³ He took them across the river, and took across his things.

²⁴ And Jacob was left alone, and a man scuffled with him until break of dawn. ²⁵ And when he saw he couldn't win, he touched the hollow of his thigh. And the hollow of Jacob's thigh was injured as he wrestled with him. ^{[197] 26}

And he said, "Let me go, because it's dawn."

And he said, "I won't let go unless you bless me."

²⁷ And he said to him, "What's your name?"

And he said "Jacob".

²⁸ And he said, "You won't be called by the name Jacob anymore, rather Israel (Outfight-God), because you have contended (sarita) with God and men, and won."^[198]

²⁹ And Jacob asked, saying, "Please tell me your name." And he said, "Why would you ask my name?"^[199]And he blessed him there. ³⁹ And Jacob named the place Penuel (Penei-El/God's-face), "Because I have seen God face to face, but my life was spared."

³¹ The sun rose as he passed through Penuel, and he was limping because of his thigh.

³² For this reason, Israel's sons won't eat the thigh-vein-sinew, which is in the hollow of the thigh, to this very day, because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh, in the sinew of the thigh-vein.^[200]

Chapter 33

¹ Jacob lifted his gaze and saw that Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. And he split the children between Leah, Rachel, and the two slave women. ² And he put the slave women and their children ahead, and Leah and her children behind, and Rachel and Joseph last. ³ And he crossed over before them, and bowed flat on the earth seven times before coming near his brother. ⁴ And Esau ran toward him and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they cried.

⁵ And he lifted his eyes, and saw the women and children, and said, "Who are they to you?"

And he said, "The children with which God has graced your servant." ⁶ And the slaves approached, and their children, and they bowed down. ⁷ And Leah and her children also approached, and bowed down, and afterwards Joseph approached with Rachel, and they bowed down.

⁸ And he said, "Who are they to you, all that camp I encountered?"

And he said, "To be all right by my lord."^[50]

⁹ And Esau said, "I have much, brother. You keep what you have."

¹⁰ And Jacob said, "No, please, if I am all right by you,^[50] then take my present from my hands, because this is why I saw your face as if I'm seeing the face of God. You accept me. ¹¹ And please take my blessing, which you deserve, because God had mercy on me, and because I have all." And he insisted, so he accepted.

¹² And he said, "We'll drive and we'll walk and I'll walk alongside you."

¹³ And he said to him, "My lord knows that the children are delicate, and that my flocks and herds are my responsibility. Drive them hard one day, and all the sheep die. ¹⁴ Let my lord, please, cross over ahead of his servant, and I will lead them along slowly, at a pace suited for my herding here, at the children's pace, until I come to my lord at Seir."

¹⁵ And Esau said, "Please, I'll leave with you some of the people with me."

And he said, "Why so? Let me look all right by my lord."^[50]

¹⁶ So Esau turned back that day on his way to Seir.

¹⁷ Jacob journeyed on to Succoth and built himself a house. And for his livestock he made huts, and this is why the place is named Succoth(huts).

Chapter 34

¹⁸ And Jacob came safely to Shechem city, which is in Canaan's land coming from Padan Aram. And he camped in front of the city.^{[201] 19} And he bought the parcel of land at the field where he planted his tent, from the hands of the sons of Ḥamor(Donkey), Shecḥem's father, for one hundred qesitah.^{[202] 20} And he erected an altar there and called it God the God of Israel (El Elohe Israel).^[203]

¹ And Dinah, Leah's daughter, whom she bore Jacob, went out to see the land's daughters. ² And Shechem, son of the Ḥivite Ḥamor, a local prominent, saw her. He took her and slept^[204] with her, and hurt her cruelly.^[205]

³ His soul became attached to Dinah Jacob's daughter, and he loved the girl, and spoke affectionately to the teenager. ⁴ And Shechem spoke to Ḥamor his father, saying, "Make this little girl my wife."

⁵ And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter. Now his sons were with his livestock in the field, and Jacob held his tongue until they arrived.

⁶ And Ḥamor, the father of Shechem, went out to Jacob, to speak with him. ⁷ Jacob's sons returned from the field when they heard, and the men were saddened, it made them furious, because he did a rotten thing to Israel, sleeping with Jacob's daughter. It's just not done.

⁸ And Ḥamor spoke with them, saying, "Shechem, my son, his soul desires your daughter. Please, give her to him as a wife. ⁹ Intermarry with us. Give us your daughters, and take you our daughters. ¹⁰ Settle alongside us. The land is before you: live here, trade here, and buy land here."

¹¹ And Shechem said to her father and her brothers, "If I'll look all right by you,^[50] then I'll give what you tell me. ¹² Exact much dowry, and I'll give as you ask, if you'll give me the girl as a wife."

¹³ Then the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Ḥamor his father, speaking deceitfully, because he had defiled their sister Dinah. ¹⁴ They said to them, "We can't do this, give our sister to a man who has a foreskin, because it's a disgrace to us. ¹⁵ We'll only consent if you do this: if you'll be like us, and circumcise all your males. ¹⁶ Then we will give you our daughters, and we will take us your daughters, and we will settle with you and become one people. ¹⁷ But if you will not listen to us and circumcise, then we will take our daughter and leave."

¹⁸ Their words seemed good to Ḥamor and his son Shechem. ¹⁹ The young man did this without delay, because he was fond of Jacob's daughter, and he was the most respected member of all his father's household.

²⁰ Ḥamor and his son Shechem came to their city's gate, and spoke with the men of the town, saying, ²¹ "These people are at peace with us, and they will live in the land and trade in it. Look — this land is broad enough for their presence. We'll take their daughters for our wives, and our daughters we'll give to them. ²² But only this way will they give their consent to live among us and become one people: if every male among us is circumcised just as they are circumcised. ²³ Their livestock , possessions, all their animals, won't they be ours? If only we agree, and they settle with us?"

²⁴ And all the people of his city listened to Ḥamor and his son Shechem, and they circumcised all the males who passed the city's gate.^[206]

²⁵ And then on the third day, while they were in pain, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, each took his sword and came upon the city unawares, and killed every male. ²⁶ And they killed Ḥamor and his son Shechem with the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and left.

²⁷ Jacob's sons came to the corpses, and plundered the city which had polluted their sister. ²⁸ All their sheep, their cattle, their donkeys, and whatever was in the city, and whatever was in the field, they took. ²⁹ They captured all their wealth, all their tots, and their women, and plundered all that was in the house.

³⁰ And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have castrated me, to make me odious to the land's inhabitants, to the Canaanites, and to the Perizzites. I have few men. They will gather against me, and strike, and me and my household will be exterminated."

³¹ And they said, "Should he make our sister like a prostitute?"

Chapter 35

¹ And God said to Jacob, "Get up and go to Beth-El, and stay there, and make an altar to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau."

² And Jacob told his household, and all with him, "Remove the foreign gods, which are amongst you, and purify yourself, and change your clothes. ³ Let us get up and go up to Beth-El, where I will make an altar to the God who answered me on the day of my trouble and was with me as I went on my journey." ⁴ So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods which they carried, and the rings which were in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak which is by Shechem.^{[102] 5} Then they continued their journey, and a fear of God came over the cities around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.

⁶ And Jacob came to Luz which is in Canaan's land, it is Beth-El, him and all the people with him. ⁷ And he built an altar there, and he called the place El-Beth-El (God's House God/To Beth-El), because there God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

⁸ And Deborah, Rebecca's wetnurse, died and was buried under Beth-El underneath the oak. So they named it Weeping Oak.^[102][207]

⁹ And God appeared to Jacob again, as he was coming from Padan-Aram, and blessed him. ¹⁰ And God said to him, "Your name is Jacob. You won't be called Jacob anymore, rather Israel will be your name." And he named himself Israel.

¹¹ And God said to him, "I am El-Shaddai.^[126] Bear fruit and multiply. A nation and a crowd of peoples will come out of you, and kings will come out of your loins. ¹² I will give to you the land which I have given to Abraham and Isaac, and I will give this land to your offspring after you."

¹³ And God rose up above him, in the place which he had spoken to him. ¹⁴ And Jacob erected a monument at the place where he spoke to him, a stone monument. He consecrated it with balm, and anointed it with oil. ¹⁵ And Jacob named the place where God spoke to him Beth-El.

¹⁶ They journeyed on from Beth-El, and they were still some ways^[208] from Ephrath, and Rachel gave birth, and her labor was difficult. ¹⁷ Then, during her labor complications, the midwife said to her, "Don't be afraid, because this is also a son!" ¹⁸ And it was at her soul's escape, because she died, that she named him Ben-oni (Son-of-my-Woe), but his father called him Benjamin (Son-of-Right-Hand/Southerner).

¹⁹ And Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Ephrath, which is Bethleḥem. ²⁰ And Jacob erected a monument above her grave, which is the present day Rachel's grave monument.

²¹ And Israel journeyed, and lay tent just beyond Eder's Tower. ²² As Israel was staying in that land, Reuben went and slept with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel heard.

Jacob had twelve sons.

²³ Leah's sons: Jacob's firstborn Reuben, & Simeon & Levi & Judah & Issachar & Zebulun.
²⁴ Rachel's sons: Joseph & Benjamin.
²⁵ Rachel's slave Bilhah's sons: Dan & Naphtali.
²⁶ Leah's slave Zilpah's sons: Gad & Asher.

These are Jacob's sons which were born to him in Padan-Aram.

²⁷ And Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, Kiriath-'Arba, which is Ḥebron, where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned. ²⁸ And Isaac's days were one hundred eighty years. ²⁹ Isaac succumbed and died and gathered onto his people, old and content in his days. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him.^[158]

Chapter 36

¹ And these are the lineages^[11] of Esau, who's Edom.

² Esau took Canaanite women as wives:

Ḥittite Eylon's daughter 'Adah & 'Anah's daughter, Ḥivite Ẓiv'on's daughter, Oholibama (Ahalivamah) ³ & Ishmael's daughter, Basmath, Nevaioth's sister.

⁴ Adah bore Esau Eliphaz, and Basmath bore Re'u-el. ⁵ Oholibamah bore Jeush (Ye'ush/Frustration) & Jalam (Ya'lam) & Koraḥ.^[209]

These are Esau's sons, born to him in Canaan's land.

⁶ Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, all those in his household, his livestock, all his beasts, and all the possessions which he acquired in Canaan's land, and went to a land away from Jacob his brother, ⁷ because they had too much property to settle together, the land they wandered couldn't support them because of their livestock. ⁸ So Esau settled in Mt. Seir (Hairy).

Esau is Edom.

⁹ These are the lineages of Esau, Edom's father, in Mt. Seir.^[11][167]

¹⁰ These are Esau's son's names:

Eliphaz, son of Esau's wife 'Adah
Re-u'el, son of Esau's wife Basmath.

¹¹ Eliphaz's sons were Teiman, Omar, Ẓepho & Ga'tam & Kenaz.
¹² And Timna (Thimna') was concubine to Esau's son Eliphaz. And she bore Eliphaz 'Amalek.
These are Esau's wife Adah's sons.

¹³ These are Re-u'el's sons: Naḥath (Comfort) & Zeraḥ, Shammah (There) & Mizzah.
These were Esau's wife Basmath's sons.

¹⁴ These are the sons of Esau's wife Oholibamah, 'Anah's daughter, Ẓiv'on's daughter. She bore Esau Jeush & Jalam & Koraḥ.^[209]

¹⁵ These are the chiefs among Esau's sons, Esau's firstborn Eliphaz's sons: Teman chief, Omar chief, Ẓepho chief, Kenaz chief, ¹⁶ Koraḥ chief, Gatam chief, Amalek chief. These were Eliphaz's chiefs in Edom's land. These are Adah's sons.

¹⁷ These are Esau's son Reuel's sons: Naḥath chief, Zeraḥ chief, Shammah chief, Mizzah chief. These were Reuel's chiefs in Edom's land.
These are Esau's wife Basmath's sons.

¹⁸ These are Esau's wife Oholibamah's sons: Jeush chief, Jalam chief, Koraḥ chief. These were Anah's Daughter, Esau's wife, Oholibamah's chiefs.^[209]

¹⁹ These were the sons of Esau, and these were their chiefs. He is Edom.

²⁰ These are the Ḥorite Seir's sons, inhabitants there:

Lotan & Shoval & Ẓiv'on & 'Anah ²¹ & Dishon & Eẓer & Dishan.
These were the Ḥorite chiefs, Seir's sons in Edom's land.

²² And Lotan's sons were Ḥori & Heymam. And Lotan's sister was Timna.

²³ These are Shoval's sons: Alvan & Manaḥath & Eyval, Shfo & Onam.

²⁴ These are Ẓiv'on's sons: Wa'ayah & 'Anah. This is the 'Anah who found the springs in the wilderness, as he was pasturing his father Ẓiv'on's donkeys.^[210]

²⁵ These are 'Anah's sons: Dishon & Oholibamah, Anah's daughter.

²⁶ And these are Dishan's sons: Ḥemdan & Eshban & Yithran & Cheran.
²⁷ These are Eẓer's sons: Bilhan & Za'avan & 'Akan.
²⁸ These are Dishan's sons: Uẓ and Aran.

²⁹ These are the Horite chiefs: Lotan chief, Shoval chief, Ẓiv'on chief, 'Anah chief, ³⁰ Dishon chief, Ezer chief, Dishan chief.
These are the Ḥorite chiefs in Seir's land.

³¹ And these are the kings who ruled in Edom's land before a king ruled over Israel's sons:

³² Bela' Be'or's son ruled in Edom, and his city's named Dinhava.
³³ Bela died, and Jobab (Yovav) Zeraḥ of Baẓrah's son succeeded him.
³⁴ Jobab died, and Ḥusham from Teiman's land succeeded him.
³⁵ Ḥusham died, and succeeding him was Hadad Bedad's son, who defeated Midian in Moab's plain. His city's named 'Avith.
³⁶ Hadad died, and Samlah of Mashrekah (Whistle) succeeded him.
³⁷ Samlah died, and Sha-ul of River Rehoboth succeeded him.
³⁸ Shaul died, and Ba'al-Ḥanan Achbor's son succeeded him.
³⁹ Ba'al-Ḥanan Achbor's son died, and Hadar succeeded him. His city's named Pa'u, and his wife's named Meheytav-El (Of-God's-Best) Matred's daughter, Mey-Zahav's (Golden-Water's) daughter.

⁴⁰ And these are the names of Esau's chiefs, by their families, by their places, by their names:

Timna chief, Alvah chief, Jetheth (Yetheth) chief, ⁴¹ Oholibamah chief, Elah chief, Pinon chief, ⁴² Kenaz chief, Teman chief, Mivtzar chief, ⁴³ Magdi-el chief, 'Iram chief.
These are Edom's chiefs, in their settlements in the land they possess.

That's Esau, Edom's ancestor.

Chapter 37

¹ And Jacob settled in the land where his fathers wandered, in Canaan's land. ² And these are Jacob's lineages:^[11]

Joseph, seventeen years old, was a shepherd along with his brothers, and he was a teenager along with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph came with a bad report about them to their father.

³ And Israel loved Joseph most of all his sons, because he was a son to his old age, and he made him an ornate gown.^{[211] 4} And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and they hated him, and couldn't talk friendly to him.

⁵ And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told his brothers, and they hated him even more. ⁶ And he said to them: "Listen please, to this dream that I dreamed. ⁷ And here we are binding bundles in the field, and here my bundle rises up, also erect. And here: your bundles come around it, and bow down to my bundle."

⁸ And his brothers told him: "So you will reign a king over us? Rule over as a ruler?" and they continued to add to their hatred of him, for his dreams and his words.

⁹ And he dreamed another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, "Here, I dreamed another dream. And now, the sun and the moon and eleven stars bow down to me."

¹⁰ And he told his father and his brothers. And his father reproached him, and said to him: "What is this dream which you dreamed? Come, will I myself and your mother and your brothers come to bow down to you?"

¹¹ And his brothers were jealous of him. And his father remembered this thing.

¹² And his brothers went to herd the sheep when their father was in Shechem. ¹³ And Israel said to Joseph, "Since your brothers are sheep herding in Shechem — you go, I'll send you to them."

And he told him, "Here I am."

¹⁴ And he said to him, "Please go and see how your brothers are doing, and how the sheep are doing, and come back with news."

And he sent him from the valley of Hebron, and he came towards Shechem.

¹⁵ And a man found him, and here he was in the wrong field. So the man asked him, "What do you want?"

¹⁶ And he said, "I'm asking you about my brothers. Please tell me, where are they sheep herding?"

¹⁷ And the man said, "They drove out of this field. Because I heard them say 'Let's go to Dothan.'"

So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them in Dothan.

¹⁸ They saw him in the distance, and before he would approach them, they colluded against him, to kill him. ¹⁹ And they said, man to his brother, "Here comes the master of dreams. ²⁰ And now we'll go and we'll kill him, and we'll throw him in one of the wells, and we'll say a vicious animal ate him, and we'll see what will be of his dreams."

²¹ And Reuben heard, and rescued him from them. He said, "Let's not take a soul."

²² And Reuben said to them: "Don't spill blood. Throw him into that well in the wilderness, and don't lay a hand on him," so that he could rescue him from them and return him to their father.

²³ And so, when Joseph came to his brothers, then they stripped him of his gown, the ornate gown he was wearing. ²⁴ And they took him, and they threw him into the well, an empty well with no water.

²⁵ And they went back to eating bread, and they lifted their gaze and saw: here is a procession of Ishmaelites coming from Gilad, and their camels are carrying spices and balm and laudenum, to transport to Egypt. ²⁶ And Judah said to his brothers, "What is the point if we kill our brother and cover up his blood-cost? ²⁷ Let's go and sell him to the Ishmaelites, so we won't lay a hand on him, because he's our brother, our flesh." And his brothers listened.

²⁸ And Midianites passed by, merchants, and they pulled Joseph up and out of the well, and they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty silver. And they brought Joseph to Egypt.

²⁹ And Reuben returned to the well, and here: Joseph's not in the well! And he ripped his clothes. ³⁰ And he returned to his brothers to say: "The boy is gone. And me, where will I go?"

³¹ And they took Joseph's gown and they slaughtered a he-goat, and they dipped the gown in the blood. ³² And they threw the striped gown down, and they brought it to their father, and they said, "We found this. Identify it please. Is it your son's gown or not?"

³³ And he recognized it, and said, "This is my son's gown. A vicious animal has eaten him. Preyed on Joseph as prey."

³⁴ And Jacob ripped his gowns, and put a sack on his hips, and mourned over his son many days. ³⁵ And all his sons and daughters arose to comfort him, but he would not be comforted, and he said, "I'll go to the underworld still grieving for my son." And he wept for him, his father.

³⁶ And the Midianites sold him to Egypt, to Photiphar, Pharaoh's officer, chief executioner.^[212]

Chapter 38

¹ And it was at that time that Judah went away from his brothers and traveled to an Adulamite by the name of Ḥira.

² And Judah there saw the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua', and he married her and came to her. ³ And she conceived, and bore a son and named him 'Er (Aroused). ⁴ And she conceived again and bore a son and named him Onan (Wanker). ⁵ And continued, and bore a son, and named him Shelah (Hers); and she gave birth to him at Ḥeziv.

⁶ And Judah took a wife for his firstborn 'Er, her name Tamar. ⁷ And 'Er, Judah's firstborn, Yahweh saw as evil, so Yahweh put him to death.

⁸ And Judah said to Onan, come to your brother's wife and impregnate her, build offspring for your brother. ⁹ But Onan knew that the offspring wouldn't be his, so when he would go to his brother's wife he wasted it on the ground, so as not to give his brother offspring. ¹⁰ And Yahweh saw this as wrong, what he did, and killed him too.

¹¹ And Judah said to Tamar his bride, return as widow to your father's house, until Shelah my son grows. Because he thought, "Lest he die too, like his brothers." And Tamar went to live in her father's house.

¹² And many days went by, and Shua's daughter, Judah's wife, died. And Judah was comforted, and he and his friend the Adulamite Ḥira went to his sheep-shearers, to Timnath. ¹³ And Tamar was told this: "Here, your father-in-law's going to Timnath, to shear his sheep."

¹⁴ And she removed her widow's garments, and covered herself with a veil, and wrapped up, and she sat at the entrance to 'Einayim (Two-Eyes) which is on the way to Timna: because she saw that her man had grown, and she wasn't given him as wife. ¹⁵ And Judah saw her, and thought her a prostitute, because she had covered her face.

¹⁶ And he turned to her on the way, and said, "Let me come to you," because he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.

And she said, "What will you give me, if you come to me?"

¹⁷ And he said, "I will send a kid goat from the flock."

And she said, "Leave collateral then, until you send it."

¹⁸ And he said, "What collateral should I give you?",

and she said, "Your signet, your cord, and the staff you're holding." And he gave her, and he came to her, and she conceived by him.

¹⁹ And she got up and walked away, and took away her veil and put on the clothes of her widowhood.

²⁰ And Judah sent the kid-goat, through his Adulamite friend, to take the collateral from the hands of the woman, and he did not find her. ²¹ And he asked the men of the place, saying, "Where is she, the whore at Einayim, on the path?"

But they said, "There wasn't any whore there."

²² And he returned to Judah, saying, "I didn't find her. Also, the people of the place said 'there wasn't any whore there'."

²³ And Judah said, "Take it to her, or else we're disgraced. Here I sent this kid-goat, and you didn't find her."

²⁴ And it was three months later that it was told to Judah: "Your daughter-in-law Tamar whored around, and also conceived, through her whoring."

And Judah said, "Take her out and burn her."

²⁵ She found out, and she sent to her father-in-law, saying: "I'm pregnant by the man whose these are." And she said, "Please recognize whose signet and cord and staff these are."

²⁶ And Judah recognized them, and said, "She is more righteous than I am, because for this reason I did not give her to Shelah my son," and he never ceased laying with her.^[213].

²⁷ And at the time of childbirth, there are twins in her belly. ²⁸ And during her labor, one extended a hand and the midwife took it, and tied a thread on his hand, to mean, 'this one came out first.' ²⁹ And as he retracted his arm his brother came out, and she said, "How you've burst out (Paraẓta) through your breech (Pereẓ)!", and named him Pereẓ.

³⁰ After, his brother came out, the one with the thread on his hand, and his name was Zaraḥ (Sunshine).

Chapter 39

¹ And Joseph was taken down to Egypt, and Potiphar, Pharaoh's officer, chief executioner,^[212] bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there. ² And Yahweh was with Joseph; and he became a successful man. And it was in the house of his Egyptian master.

³ His master saw that Yahweh was with him, so that everything that he does, Yahweh makes succeed in his hands. ⁴ And Joseph looked all right to him, and he waited on him. And he appointed him over his household, and everything he had, he put in his hands.^[50]

⁵ And from the time that he appointed him head of household and everything he has, Yahweh blessed the Egyptian's household, because of Joseph. And Yahweh's blessing was on everything that he owned, in the house and in the field. ⁶ And he left everything he had in Joseph's hands, and didn't look to a thing about him except the bread he ate. And Joseph was well groomed and handsome.

⁷ And it was after these events that the wife of his master lifted her eyes to Joseph, and said, "Sleep^[214] with me."

⁸ And he declined, and spoke to his master's wife, saying: "As it is, my master does not know what goes on in the house with me, and everything he has is in my hands. ⁹ He is not greater in this house than I am, and he has not hidden anything from me, except for you, because you are his wife. So how could I do this great wrong? I would sin against God."

¹⁰ As it was, she spoke to Joseph day after day, and he didn't listen to her, didn't sleep with her, wasn't with her.

¹¹ And one of those days, he came home to work his craft, and there was nobody of the household there — in the house. ¹² And she grabbed him by his garment, saying, "Sleep with me." And he left with his garment in her hand, and escaped, and went outside.

¹³ And since she saw that he left his garment in her hand, and escaped outside, ¹⁴ she called the men of the household, and spoke to them, saying: "Look, he has brought us a Hebrew man to fondle us. He came to me to sleep with me, and I shouted loud. ¹⁵ And as he heard me raise my voice and shout, he left his garment with me, and escaped, and went outside."

¹⁶ And she placed his garment with her, until the master would come to his house. ¹⁷ And spoke to him the same words, saying: "The Hebrew servant, which you brought us, came to me, to fondle me. ¹⁸ And as I raised my voice and shouted, he left his clothes with me, and escaped outside."

¹⁹ And when his master heard the words his wife spoke to him, saying, "Your servant did things like this to me," he burned with fury.

²⁰ And Joseph's master took him, and gave him to the prison, the place where the prisoners of the king were imprisoned. And he was put in the prison. ²¹ But Yahweh was with Joseph, and he granted him a kindness, and he made him seem all right to the warden of the prison.^[50]

²² And the prison warden put all the prisoners in the prison in Joseph's hands, and everything that they did there, he was the one doing. ²³ And the head of the prison saw to nothing in his charge. Because Yahweh was with him, and whatever he did, Yahweh made succeed.

Chapter 40

¹ And it was after these events, that the wine-server of the King of Egypt, and the baker transgressed toward their master, the King of Egypt. ² And Pharaoh foamed against the head server and the head baker, two of his officers. ³ And he put them under guard, the household of the chief executioner,^[212] into the prison: the place where Joseph was imprisoned.

⁴ And the chief executioner appointed Joseph to be with them, and serve them, and they spent many days arrested. ⁵ And each of the two dreamed himself a dream, one night — to each man will be as the interpretation of his dream: the server and the baker of the King of Egypt, who are imprisoned in the prison. ⁶ And Joseph came to them in the morning, and saw them, and both are downcast. ⁷ And he asked the Pharaoh's officers, who were with him under the guard of his master's house — saying: "Why are your faces so down today?"

⁸ And they said to him — "We dreamed a dream, and we have no interpretation."

And Joseph said to them, "Why, God has interpretations — please tell me."

⁹ And the head server told his dream to Joseph, and said: "So, in my dream, here is a grapevine in front of me. ¹⁰ And on the vine are three branches. And one blooms and raises a pod, and upon its bunches the grapes turn ripe. ¹¹ And Pharaoh's cup is in my hands, so I take the grapes and drain them into Pharaoh's cup, and I put the cup in Pharaoh's palm."

¹² And Joseph said, "This is the interpretation: the three branches, they are three days. ¹³ In three days' time, Pharaoh will haul you off back to your seat and you'll serve Pharaoh's cup to his hand, in your original station, when you were his server. ¹⁴ But if you remember me, when you'll be better off, please do me a favor, and mention me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this house. ¹⁵ Because I was kidnapped, stolen from Hebrews' land. And also here I didn't do anything to get me into this pit."

¹⁶ And the head baker saw that he interpreted well, and said to Joseph: "As I'm in my dream, here: there are three baking baskets on my head. ¹⁷ And in the top basket is all Pharaoh's food which is baked. And the birds eat it from the basket over my head."

¹⁸ And Joseph answered, saying: "This is the interpretation: the three baskets are three days. ¹⁹ In three days, Pharaoh will haul you off, and hang you on a tree. And birds will eat your flesh off of you."

²⁰ And it was on the third day, Pharaoh's birthday, that he held a feast for all his servants. And he hauled the head server and the head baker off among his servants. ²¹ And he placed the head server to serve him drinks, and he put the cup in Pharaoh's palm. ²² But the head baker, he hanged, as Joseph had interpreted for them. ²³ But the head server didn't remember Joseph. He forgot him.

Chapter 41

¹ And it was at the end of two years' time, and Pharaoh's dreaming: Here he is standing by the Nile. ² And here, from the Nile, seven cows come up, looking beautiful, healthy with meat, and they grazed in the meadow. ³ And now: seven other cows come up after them from the river, looking ugly and scrawny, and they stood alongside the cows on the bank of the Nile. ⁴ And the ugly, scrawny cows ate the cows that were beautiful and healthy. Then Pharaoh awoke.

⁵ And he slept, and he dreamed again: And here are seven wheat bunches on one stalk, healthy and nice. ⁶ And here are seven bunches, thin and worn in front, growing after these. ⁷ And the thin stalks swallowed the seven healthy, full stalks, and Pharaoh awoke, and that was the dream.

⁸ And it was at morning, and his heart was beating, and he sent out for all the scribes of Egypt, and all her wise-men. And Pharaoh told them his dreams^[215], and none could interpret them for Pharaoh.

⁹ And the head server spoke to Pharaoh, saying: "I bring up my transgressions today. ¹⁰ Pharaoh fumed at his servants, and put me under guard, in the house of the chief executioner^[212] — me and the head baker. ¹¹ And we dreamed a dream one night, myself and him: to each according to his dream's interpretation, we dreamed. ¹² And there with us was a Hebrew boy, servant to the chief executioner, and we told him, and he interpreted our dreams: to each as his interpretation of his dream. ¹³ And as he interpreted for us, so it was: he placed me at my station, and he had him hang."

¹⁴ And Pharaoh sent out and called for Joseph, and they rushed him out of the pit. And he shaved and changed robes and came to Pharaoh.

¹⁵ And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I dreamed a dream, and there is no interpretation. But I heard it said about you that you hear a dream, you interpret it."

¹⁶ And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, "Without my doing. God will answer for Pharaoh's peace of mind."

¹⁷ And Pharaoh spoke to Joseph, "In my dream, here I am, standing on the bank of the Nile. ¹⁸ And here, from the Nile, seven cows rise up; full of healthy meat, and beautiful looking. And they graze in the meadow. ¹⁹ And here are seven other cows rising up after; scrawny and very ugly, and thin fleshed. As bad as these I haven't seen in all of Egypt. ²⁰ And the thin bad cows ate up the seven first cows, the healthy ones. ²¹ And they finish eating, and you wouldn't know that they had eaten! They looked just as bad as before. Then I woke up."

²² "And I saw — in my dream — and here seven wheat bunches are rising on one reed; full and good. ²³ And here seven stalks, withered and front-stripped, growing after. ²⁴ And the thin stalks swallowed the seven good stalks. And I told the scribes, and no one can tell me."

²⁵ And Joseph said to Pharaoh, "Pharaoh's dream is one. God told Pharaoh what God is going to do. ²⁶ The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good stalks are seven years. It's one dream. ²⁷ And the seven bad, weak cows rising after them, are seven years — and the seven weak front-stripped stalks will be seven years — of famine. ²⁸ These are the words which I speak to Pharaoh. God showed Pharaoh what God is going to do."

²⁹ "And here seven years are coming — a great plenty over all of Egypt. ³⁰ And after them will come a seven year famine. And in Egypt we'll all forget all the plenty, and the famine will decimate the land. ³¹ And no one in the land will know satiety, because — that famine that follows — it will be very heavy."

³² "And as for the dream returning to Pharaoh twice? It is because the thing is ready with God, and God is hurrying to do it."

³³ "So now, if Pharaoh sees a good wise intelligent man, to send out over the land of Egypt, ³⁴ Pharaoh will do it. And appoint officials on the land, and five-fold divide the land of Egypt, in the seven years of plenty. ³⁵ And gather all the food of these following good years, and amass grain under Pharaoh's control — food-silos — which he would guard. ³⁶ And the food would be a supplement for the land during the seven years of famine which will come to the land of Egypt so the land will not be decimated with hunger."

³⁷ And what he said sounded good to Pharaoh, and to all his servants. ³⁸ And Pharaoh said to his servants, "But will we find such a man, infused with the spirit of God?

³⁹ And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Since God informed you of all this, there is no one wise and intelligent as you. ⁴⁰ You will be placed over my household, and all my people will deal by your words; only the Throne will be your superior."

⁴¹ And Pharaoh told Joseph: "See I have placed you over all of Egypt."

⁴² And Pharaoh took his ring off his hand, and put it on Joseph's hand. And he dressed him in shesh, and put a gold chain on his neck.

⁴³ And he carried him in his secondary carriage, and called upon him, "Abrech" (bless?), and put him over all of Egypt.

⁴⁴ And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I am Pharaoh. And no man will lift a hand or a foot in all of Egypt without you."

⁴⁵ And Pharaoh called Joseph by the name Zephenath Paneha (Tzaphnat-Pa'neaḥ/Sign-Interpreter), and he gave him Asenath the daughter of Poti Pera (Poti Phera') priest of On, for a wife. And Joseph went out, over the land of Egypt. ⁴⁶ And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt, and Joseph left Pharaoh's presence, and traveled the whole of Egypt.

⁴⁷ And in the seven years of plenty, the land made heaps. ⁴⁸ And seven years, he collected all the food which was in the land of Egypt, and he distributed food in the cities: the food from the city's field which surrounded it, he distributed inside. ⁴⁹ And Joseph gathered as much grain as the sand of the seas, so much that he stopped counting, because it could not be counted.

⁵⁰ And to Joseph were born two sons, before the year of the famine came, which Asenath, the daughter of Poti Pera, priest of On, bore him. ⁵¹ And Joseph named the eldest Menashe: because God bore for me (nashani) all my burdens, and those of all my father's household. ⁵² And he named the second Ephraim: because God has made me fruitful (hephrani) in the land of my torment.

⁵³ And the seven years of plenty which were in the land of Egypt finished. ⁵⁴ And the seven years of famine began, coming just as Joseph had predicted. And there was a famine in all the lands, but in all Egypt, there was bread. ⁵⁵ And the land of Egypt hungered, and the people cried out to Pharaoh for bread. And Pharaoh told all of Egypt, "Go to Joseph, and do what he tells you."

⁵⁶ And the famine was over the entire Earth. But Joseph opened every store they had, and it provided grain for Egypt. And the famine intensified over Egypt. ⁵⁷ And all the Earth went to Egypt for grain, to Joseph: because the famine was strong over the entire Earth.

Chapter 42

¹ And Jacob saw that there is grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, "Why would you get frightened?" ² And he said, "Here, I've heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us from there, so we'll live and not die."

³ And Joseph's brothers went down, ten of them, to buy grain from Egypt. ⁴ But Jacob didn't send Joseph's brother Benjamin along with his brothers, because he said, "Lest we have a disaster."

⁵ And Israel's sons came to buy grain among all comers, because the famine was over Canaan's land. ⁶ And Joseph was the ruler of the land, he was the grain supplier for all the land's people. And Joseph's brothers came, and they bowed down to him, nose to the ground.

⁷ And Joseph saw his brothers, and recognized them, but he estranged himself from them and talked to them harshly, saying to them, "Where did you come from?"

And they said, "From Canaan's land, to buy food."

⁸ While Joseph recognized his brothers, they didn't recognize him. ⁹ And Joseph remembered the dreams that he dreamed for them. So he told them, "You are spies. You came to see the land's desolation."

¹⁰ And they told him, "No our lord! We came as your servants, to buy food. ¹¹ We are, all of us, the sons of one man. We are honest. Your servants would not be spies!"

¹² And he told them, "No! You have come to see the land's desolation."

¹³ And they said, "Your twelve servants are brothers, sons of one man in Canaan's land. And see, the youngest is with our father today, and one is no longer."^[216]

¹⁴ And Joseph told them, "It's like I told you, when I said 'you're spies'. ¹⁵ In this you'll be tested: on Pharaoh's life, you'll get out of this only if you bring your younger brother here. ¹⁶ Send out one of you, and he'll take your brother, and you'll be imprisoned. And your words will be tested, are they true? And if not, on Pharaoh's life, then you are spies."

¹⁷ And he put them under guard three days. ¹⁸ And Joseph said to them on the third day, "Do this and live. I am God fearing. ¹⁹ If you are honest: one of your brothers will be imprisoned in the guarded house, and you: go bring the famine-breaking grain to your homes. ²⁰ And bring me your youngest brother, then your words will be believed and you won't die;"

And so they did.

²¹ And they said to one another, "But we bear guilt to our brother, that we saw his soul's distress as he pleaded with us, and we didn't listen. That's why this trouble's come to us."

²² And Reuben answered them, saying, "Why, I told you so. Saying, 'Don't sin against the boy,' and you didn't listen. And his blood-cost, see, it's reckoned."

²³ And they didn't know that Joseph understood, because the interpreter had been between them.^{[217] 24} And he turned away from them, and wept, and returned to them, and talked to them. And he took Simeon from them, and imprisoned them as they watched.

²⁵ And Joseph commanded, that they fill their containers with grain, and to restore the money to each man's sack, and to give them provisions for the journey, and so it was done them. ²⁶ And they carried their grain on their donkeys, and went away from there.

²⁷ And one opened his sack to give feed to his donkey, in the lodge. And he saw his money, and here it is: at the top of his satchel! ²⁸ And he told his brothers: "My money's been returned, and here: in my satchel. And their hearts leapt from their chest, and they said in terror to each other: "What's this that God's done to us?"

²⁹ And they came to Jacob their father, Canaan's land. And they told him all that had happened to them, saying:

³⁰ The man, the land's master, talked to us harshly. And he made us out to be spies in the land. ³¹ And we said to him, "We are honest, we aren't spies! ³² We are twelve brothers, sons of our father, and one's not here, the youngest is with our father today in Canaan's land."

³³ And the land's master man, said to us, "With this I'll know if you're honest. Leave one brother with me, and take your house's famine relief and leave. ³⁴ And bring your youngest brother to me. Then I'll know that you aren't spies, rather you're honest. I'll give you your brother, and you can trade in the land."

³⁵ And as they were emptying their sacks, here was each man's bag of money in his sack! And they saw the bags of money, their father and them, and were afraid.

³⁶ And Jacob their father told them, "You made a fool of me. Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and you'll take Benjamin. It all falls on me."

³⁷ And Reuben spoke to his father, saying "Put my two sons to death if we don't bring him to you. Put him in my hands and I'll return him to you."

³⁸ And he said, "My son will not go down with you: because his brother's dead and he alone is left. And if some disaster strikes on your traveling path, then you'll bring my gray hair down in sorrow onto the underworld."

Chapter 43

¹ The famine was heavy on the land.

² So it was when they had finished eating the grain which they brought from Egypt, that their father told them, "Go back. Buy us a bit of food."

³ And Judah spoke to him, saying, "The man's rendered judgment on us: he said, 'You won't see my face, without your brother with you.' ⁴ If you'll allow us to take our brother with us, we'll go down and buy you food. ⁵ And if you don't allow it, we won't go down. Because the man told us, 'You won't see my face if your brother's not with you'."

⁶ And Israel said, "Why did you do me this wrong? To say to the man that you have yet another brother?"

⁷ And they said, "The man asked us about us and our birthplace, saying, 'Is your father still alive?', 'Do you have a brother?', and we told him, and on the basis of these things, how could we have known that he would tell us to bring our brother down?"^[218]

⁸ And Judah said to Israel his father, "Send the lad with me — and we'll rise up and go; and we'll live and not die; us, also you, and our tots too. ⁹ From me. Demand his collateral from me. If I don't bring him back to you, and show him to your face, then I have sinned to you until the end of days. ¹⁰ Because if we had not procrastinated, we would have by now returned twice."

¹¹ And Israel their father said to them, "If so then do this: take from the land's choice fruits in your containers. Offer them as gifts to the man. A bit of balm, a bit of honey. Spices and myrrh. Peanuts and almonds. ¹² And take double money with you, and the money that was returned in the mouth of your satchels. Hand it back. Maybe it was a mistake. ¹³ And take your brother and get up, go back to the man. ¹⁴ And El-Shaddai will show you mercy by the man, and he'll release your other brother to you, and Benjamin, otherwise I'll grieve to my grave."^[126]

¹⁵ And the men took this offering, and they took double money in their hands, and Benjamin, and they arose and went down to Egypt, and they stood before Joseph. ¹⁶ And Joseph saw them, saw Benjamin, and said to the steward of his house, "Bring the people to my house, and slaughter, slaughter, and prepare, because these men will eat with me at noon."

¹⁷ And the man did as Joseph said, and the man brought the men to Joseph's house. ¹⁸ And the men feared, because they were brought to Joseph's house, and they said, "It's on account of the money in our satchels the first time that we were brought here — to surround us and attack us, and take, us as slaves, and our donkeys."

¹⁹ And they approached the man in charge of Joseph's household, and they talked to him at the entrance of the house. ²⁰ And they said, "On our word, my lord, the first time we came, we came to buy food. ²¹ And it was as we came to the lodge that we opened our drawstrings, and here's each man's money at his satchel's mouth, the full weight. And we've come back carrying it. ²² And we carried down other money too, to buy food. Because we don't know who put our money in our satchels."

²³ And he said, "Peace be with you. Don't fear. Your God, your fathers' God, has given you a treasure in your satchels — your money is on my account^[219]." And he brought Simeon out to them. ²⁴ And the man brought the men to Joseph's house, and gave water so they washed their feet, and he gave their donkeys feed.

²⁵ So they prepared the gift until noon when Joseph came, because they heard that they would break bread there. ²⁶ And Joseph arrived home, so they gave him the gifts they were holding in his house, and they bowed to him, down to the earth.

²⁷ And he asked them their peace, and said, "Is your old father ok? The one you talked about — is he still alive?"

²⁸ And they said, "He's still ok, our father your servant." And they bowed their heads, then bowed down flat.

²⁹ And he lifted his gaze and saw Benjamin his brother by his mother, and he said, "Is this the youngest brother you told me about?"; and he said, "God have mercy on you, son." ³⁰ And Joseph hurried, because his emotions towards his brother overcame him, and he needed to weep. So he went to his room and wept there.

³¹ And he washed his face, and came out, and composed himself and said, "Serve bread."

³² And they placed his separately, and theirs separately; and the Egyptians eating with him separately — because Egyptians won't break bread alongside Hebrews, for it's an abomination to Egypt.

³³ And they sat before him, the firstborn as his birthright, the younger by age, and the men gawked at one another. ³⁴ And plates were brought past him to them. And Benjamin's portion was largest of all, as if for five. And they drank and got drunk with him.

Chapter 44

¹ And he commanded his steward, saying: "Fill the men's satchels with all the food they can carry; and put each man's money in his satchel's mouth. ² And my goblet, the goblet of silver, put in the youngest's satchel's mouth, with his grain-money." And he did as Joseph said.

³ The morning was light. And the men were sent off, them and their donkeys.

⁴ They left the city but didn't get far, when Joseph said to his steward, "Rise and chase after the men, and when you catch up, tell them, 'Why did you repay good deeds with bad? ⁵ Because my master drinks out of this. And as he divined to guess, you did evil.'"

⁶ And he caught up, and told them these things.

⁷ And they told him, "Why would master say such things? It's unthinkable for your servants to do such a thing! ⁸ This money we found in our satchels' mouths — we returned it to you from Canaan's land. So how could we steal silver or gold from your master's house? ⁹ Whichever of your servants you find it with will die. And we'll also become slaves to you, lord."

¹⁰ And he said, "Even now, it'll be like you say: whoever it's found with will be my slave, and you'll be absolved."

¹¹ And they hurried and each lowered his satchel to the ground, and each man opened his satchel. ¹² And he searched, starting with the biggest ending with the smallest. And he found the goblet in Benjamin's satchel.

¹³ And they tore their gowns, and each reloaded his donkey, and they returned to the city. ¹⁴ And Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house, and he's still there, and they fell to the ground before him.

¹⁵ And Joseph told them, "What deed have you done? Why, you must have known that a man like me would divine to guess."

¹⁶ And Judah said, "What will we say to our lord? What will we speak? How can we justify? God uncovered your servant's wrongdoing, and we are here slaves to you, master. Us, as well as the one the goblet was found with."

¹⁷ And he said, "It would be unthinkable for me to do this, the man in whose hand the goblet was found, he'll be my slave. And you, go up in peace to your father."

¹⁸ And Judah approached him, and he said:

"For me, sir. Please. Your servant will speak something to your ears, and don't burn in anger against your servant, because you are like Pharaoh himself.

¹⁹ Master asked his servants, saying, "Do you have a father or brother?"

²⁰ And we said to master, "We have an old father, with a little boy to his old-age. And his brother is dead, so he is the only one left from his mother. And his father loves him."

²¹ And you said to your servants, "Bring him down to me, and I will take a look at him."

²² And we said to our lord, "The lad couldn't leave his father. If he left his father, he would die." ²³ And you said to your servants, "If you won't bring your youngest brother down, you won't see my face again."

²⁴ And this is why we came up to your servant, our father, and told him the things master said. ²⁵ And our father said, "Return. Buy us a bit of food."

²⁶ And we said, "We can't go down unless our youngest brother is with us. If we go down, we won't be able to see the man's face if our youngest brother isn't with us."

²⁷ And your servant, our father, said to us, "You know that my wife bore me two children. ²⁸ And one's left me, surely preyed on as prey, and I never saw him anymore. ²⁹ If you take this one too from my side, and disaster struck him, then you brought out my gray hairs and sent me badly to the underworld."

³⁰ And on my return to your servant, my father, without the lad with us and — his soul is tied to his soul — ³¹ so it'll be that when he sees the lad isn't there, he would die. And your servants would have brought the gray hair down on your servant our father, in grief, to the underworld.

³² Because your servant guaranteed the boy for my father, saying, "If I don't bring him to you then I've eternally sinned to my father."

³³ And now, I'll sit slave in the lad's stead, please. A servant to master, and the lad will go up with his brothers. ³⁴ Because how can I go up to my father, when the boy is not with me? Lest I should see what evil upon my father will fall."

Chapter 45

¹ And Joseph could not hold back from all those standing in front of him, and he called out, "Take all the men away from me." So not a man was standing with him when Joseph confessed to his brothers.

² And his voice was filled with tears, which the Egyptians heard and Pharaoh's household heard. ³ And Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?"

And his brothers couldn't answer him, because they were startled from his face.

⁴ And Joseph said to his brothers, "Approach me please."

And they approached.

And he said:

I am Joseph, your brother, the one you sold toward Egypt.

⁵ And now, don't get sad, and don't let yourselves regret that you sold me here: because God sent me before you for sustaining life. ⁶ Because these past two years, the famine is upon the land, and five more years without plowing or reaping. ⁷ So God sent me before you, to put a remainder from the land away for you, and to save your life for a great exodus. ⁸ So now, it wasn't you that sent me here, but God. And he has placed me as Pharaoh's father, as a lord to all his household, and a governor of all the land of Egypt.

⁹ Hurry up to my father, and tell him, "Joseph, your son, said this: 'God has placed me as the lord of all of Egypt. Come down to me, don't wait. ¹⁰ And you'll settle in the land of Goshen, and you will be close to me — you and your sons and your sons' sons; and your sheep and your cows, and all that you own. ¹¹ And I will provide for you there, because there are five more years of famine, so that you won't be bankrupted, you, your household, and all you have.'"

¹² And here, your eyes' witness, your brother Benjamin's eyes, that the words are coming from my own mouth.

¹³ And you'll tell my father about my honored position in Egypt, and everything you saw, and you'll hurry and bring my father down here.

¹⁴ And he fell on his brother Benjamin's neck, and he wept; and Benajamin wept on his neck. ¹⁵ And he kissed all his brothers, and wept on them. And afterwards, his brothers talked with him.

¹⁶ And the call was heard throughout Pharaoh's household, saying, "Joseph's brothers have come!" And it was good in Pharaoh's eyes, and in the eyes of his servants.

¹⁷ And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Tell your brothers to do this: load up your beasts, and go, come from Canaan's land. ¹⁸ And take your father and your households and come to me. And I'll give you of the best of Egypt, and you'll eat of the fat of the land. ¹⁹ And you are commanded to do this: take you carts from Egypt, for your wives and your tots, and you carry your father, and come. ²⁰ And don't pay any attention to your implements, because the best of all the land of Egypt is for you."

²¹ And Israel's sons did so, and Joseph gave them carts as Pharaoh said, and gave them provisions for the journey. ²² And he gave to each man a change of clothes, and to Benjamin he gave three hundred silver, and five changes of clothes. ²³ And to his father he sent this much: ten pack-asses, the best of Egypt, and ten mules carrying grain and bread and food, to his father, for the journey. ²⁴ And he sent his brothers off, and they went; and he told them, "Don't lose your temper on the journey!"

²⁵ And they came up from Egypt and they came to Canaan's land, to their father Jacob.

²⁶ And they told him, saying, "Joseph is still alive, and he is even governor of all the land of Egypt."

And his heart faltered, because he did not believe them.

²⁷ And they told him all the things Joseph had told them, and he saw the carts that Joseph sent to carry him, and his father's spirit came alive.

²⁸ And Israel said, "Enough! My son Joseph is still alive. I will go and I will see him before I die."

Chapter 46

¹ And Israel journeyed with all he had, and came to Beer-sheba. And he sacrificed sacrifices to his father Isaac's God. ² And God spoke to Israel in night visions, and said "Jacob, Jacob."

And he said, "Here I am."

³ And he said, "I'm the god who was your father's God. Don't be afraid of going down to Egypt, because I will turn you there into a big people. ⁴ I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will raise you up also. And Joseph will extend his hand to your eyes.

⁵ And Jacob rose up from Beer-sheba. And Israel's sons carried their father Jacob, their tots and their wives, in the carts which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. ⁶ And they took their cattle and their property, acquired in Canaan's land, and they came to Egypt: Jacob, and all his offspring with him. ⁷ His sons, and his sons' sons with him. His daughters, and his daughters' daughters, all his offspring he brought along with him to Egypt. ⁸ And these are the names of Israel's sons coming to Egypt, Jacob and his sons:

Jacob's eldest is Reuben.
⁹ And Reuben's sons: Ḥanoch & Pallu (Phallu) & Ḥeẓron & Charmi.

¹⁰ And Simeon's sons: Yemu-el & Yamin (Right-hand) & Ohad & Yacḥin (Will-Ready) & Ẓoḥar (Mystic) & Saul (Sha-ul),, the Canaanite's son.

¹¹ And Levi's sons: Gershon, khath & Mrari.

¹² And Judah's sons: 'Er & Onan & Shelah & Pereẓ & Zaraḥ, but 'Er and Onan died in Canaan's land.
And Perez's sons were: Ḥeẓron & Ḥamul (Forgiven).

¹³ And Issacḥar's sons: Tola' & Puwah & Yov & Shimron.

¹⁴ And Zebulun's sons: Sered & Elon (Holy-Oak) & Jaḥleel (Yaḥl-El).

¹⁵ These are Leah's sons, which she bore Jacob in Paddan-Aram, and Dinah his daughter. All told, all souls of his sons and daughters were thirty-three.

¹⁶ And Gad's sons: Ẓiphion & Ḥagi (My-Holiday), Shuni & Eẓbon (Distress), 'Eri & Arodi & Areli.

¹⁷ And Asher's sons: Imna & Ishwa & Ishwi & Beriah (Vri'ah)— and their sister Seraḥ.
And Beriah's sons: Ḥever & Malkiel (God's-My-King).

¹⁸ There are the sons of Zilpa, who Laban gave to his daughter Leah. And she bore these for Jacob, sixteen souls.

¹⁹ The sons of Jacob's wife Racḥel:

Joseph & Benjamin.
²⁰ And to Joseph were born in Egypt, which were born him by Asenat, daughter of Poti-Pera, priest of On: Menasheh & Ephraim.

²¹ And Benjamin's sons: Bela' & Becher & Ashbel, Gera & Na'aman, Eḥi & Rosh (Head), Muppim & Ḥuppim & Ard.

²² These are Rachel's sons, which were born to Jacob — all told, fourteen souls.

²³ And Dan's sons: Ḥushim (Senses).

²⁴ And Naphtali's sons: Jaḥzeel (Yaḥtz-el/God-Will-Split) & Guni & Jeẓer (Yetzer/Inner-Nature) & Shillem (He-Paid).

²⁵ These are the sons of Bilhah, who Lavan gave to his daughter Rachel. And she bore these for Jacob, all told, seven souls.

²⁶ All the souls that came with Jacob to Egypt, those that came from his loins only except for Jacob's sons' wives, all told, sixty -souls. ²⁷ And Joseph's sons which were born to him in Egypt, two souls. All told the souls of Jacob's household coming down to Egypt are seventy.

²⁸ And Judah he sent to Joseph ahead of him, to give directions toward Goshen. And they came to the land of Goshen. ²⁹ And Joseph harnessed his carriage; and went up toward Israel his father, to Goshen. And he saw him and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck, for some time. ³⁰ And Israel said to Joseph, "Now I will die after seeing your face. Because you are still alive."

³¹ And Joseph said to his brothers and to his father's household:

"I'll go up and tell Pharaoh. And I'll say to him, 'My brothers and my father's household from Canaan's land came to me. ³² And the men are shepherds, they were cattlemen, and they brought their sheep, and cattle, and all they own.'

³³ And if Pharaoh calls you, and asks 'What do you do?', ³⁴ then you say, 'Your servants were herdsmen from our youth until now — we, and our fathers too.' So that you will settle in the land of Goshen, because Egyptians detest all shepherds."

Chapter 47

¹ And Joseph came and told Pharaoh, "My father and my brothers came from Canaan's land, with their sheep and their cattle and everything they have. They're now in the land of Goshen."

² And from among his brothers he took five, and he presented them before Pharaoh.

³ And Pharaoh said to his brothers, "What do you do?"

And they said to Pharaoh, "Your servants are shepherds — us, and our ancestors, also."

⁴ And they said to Pharaoh, "We came to stay in the land, because there are no pastures for your servants' sheep, because the hunger is heavy in Canaan's land. So now, please, your servants will settle in the land of Goshen."

⁵ And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Your father and your brother came to you. ⁶ Egypt is before you — settle your father and brothers in the best of the land. They'll be settled in the land of Goshen. And if you know of any men-of-arms among them, then you'll place them as officers over my own herds." ⁷

And Joseph brought his father Jacob and he stood him in front of Pharaoh. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh. ⁸ And Pharaoh said to Jacob, "How many years have you lived?"

⁹ And Jacob said to Pharaoh, "My wandering days amount to one hundred and thirty years. The days of my life have been meager and bad. They did not approach the days of my fathers' lives, in their wandering days."

¹⁰ And Jacob blessed Pharaoh; and left Pharaoh's presence.

¹¹ And Joseph settled his father and his brother, and gave them a landholding in Egypt, in the best of the land, in Raamses' land — as Pharaoh commanded. ¹² And Joseph supported his father and his brothers, and his father's whole household — bread according to their tots.

¹³ And there is no bread over the whole Earth, because the famine is very heavy; and Egypt and Canaan's land were crushed because of the hunger. ¹⁴ And Joseph collected all the money found in Egypt and Canaan's land, selling grain that they're purchasing. And Joseph brought the money to Pharaoh's house.

¹⁵ When the money from Egypt and Canaan's land was gone, all of Egypt came to Joseph, saying, "Give us bread! How could we die in front of you, because there's no money?" ¹⁶ And Joseph said, "Bring your herds. So I'll give to you for your herds — if your money's gone."

¹⁷ And they brought their herds to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread for their horses, the sheep and goat herds, and the cattle herds, and the donkeys, and he negotiated bread for all their livestock that year.

¹⁸ And that year ended, and they came to him on the second year and they said to him, "We won't keep from our lord that the money is finished, and the herds of beasts all to our lord, nothing is left before our lord, other than our dying bodies and our lands. ¹⁹ Why shall we die in front of you? Us and our lands. Buy our lands and us. For bread. And we and our lands will serve Pharaoh, and give us seed so we'll live and not die, so that the land won't be desolate."

²⁰ And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, because each of the Egyptians sold his field, because the hunger is tight upon them. So the land became Pharaoh's. ²¹ And the people he moved to cities, from one border of Egypt to the other.

²² Only the land of the priests he did he not buy. Because the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh's. And they ate the allotment which Pharaoh gave them, and that's why they didn't sell their lands.

²³ And Joseph said to the people, "Since I have bought you and your lands today, for Pharaoh, here is seed for you. Go seed the land. ²⁴ And at reaping season, you'll give a fifth to Pharaoh, and you'll get the four fifths for seeding the field and for eating, and for your households to eat, and for your tots."

²⁵ And they said, "You've saved our lives. We'll do all right by our lord, and we'll be servants to Pharaoh. ²⁶ And Joseph made of it a law, to this very day. The land of Egypt is Pharaoh's, to take a fifth part of — only the priests' land didn't become Pharaoh's."

²⁷ And Israel settled in Egypt, in the land of Goshen. And they possessed it, and they bore fruit and became very many. ²⁸ And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years, so Jacob's days, the years of his life, amounted to one hundred and forty-seven years.

²⁹ When Israel's dying days drew near, he called his son Joseph, and said to him, "If I'm all right by you, please place your hand under my thigh, and do me a favor. Please, truly, don't bury me in Egypt, ³⁰ but I will lay to rest with my fathers. So you take me from Egypt, and bury me at their gravesite."

And he said, "I'll do as you say."

³¹ And he said, "Swear to me!" — and he swore to him. And Israel bowed at the head of the bed.

Chapter 48

¹ And it was after these events, and it was said to Joseph, "Look, your father is sick."

So he took his two sons with him, Menashe and Ephraim. ² And he said to Jacob, "Here! Your son Joseph has come to you." And he embraced Joseph, and sat on the bed.

³ And Jacob said to Joseph:

El Shaddai appeared to me in Luz, in Canaan's land, and he blessed me.^{[126] 4} And he said to me, here I'll bear you fruit and I'll multiply you and I'll make you a crowd of peoples. And I'll give this land to your offspring after you, as a permanent landholding.

⁵ And now, your two sons, born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, they are mine: Ephraim and Menashe — they'll be like Reuben and Simeon to me. ⁶ And those born to you after them, they'll be yours: they will be named after their brothers in their inheritance.

⁷ And as I was coming from Paddan heading to Ephrat, Rachel died on me, in Canaan's land, along the way, with still a ways to go. So I buried her there on the way to Ephrat, in Bethlehem.

⁸ And Israel saw Joseph's sons and said, "Who are they?"

⁹ And Joseph said to his father, "These are my sons, which God gave me here."

And he said, "Bring them to me, please, and I will bless them."

¹⁰ And the eyes of Israel were heavy with age, he could not see, and he brought them close to him, and kissed them and hugged them. ¹¹ And Israel said to Joseph, "I did not imagine I'd see your face, and here God has shown me your offspring too."

¹² And Joseph took them out, from between his knees, and he bowed, nose to the ground. ¹³ And Joseph took the two of them, Ephraim in his right hand, to the left of Israel, and Menashe in his left hand, to the right of Israel, and he approached him.

¹⁴ And Israel sent his right hand and placed it on Ephraim's head, and he is the younger, and his left hand on Menashe's hand: with consideration upon his hands, because Menashe is firstborn. ¹⁵ And he blessed Joseph, and said, "The god before whom my fathers walked, Abraham and Isaac, the god who has shepherded me from before onto this day, ¹⁶ the angel who spares me any harm, will bless these lads, and will call into them my name, and the name of my forefathers Abraham and Isaac, and they will seed into many over this land."

¹⁷ And Joseph saw that his father had sent his right hand on the head of Ephraim — and this was wrong in his eyes. So he supported his father's hand to take it off Ephraim's head, onto Menashe's head. ¹⁸ And Joseph said to his father, "Not so, father. Because this is the firstborn. Put your hand on his head."

¹⁹ And his father declined, and said, "I know, my son. I know. He will also be a great nation, and he also will grow in number. But his younger brother will outgrow him, and his offspring will fill the nations."

²⁰ And he blessed them that day, saying, "Israel will bless you, saying, 'God will make you into Ephraim and into Menashe, but he will put Ephraim before Menashe.'"

²¹ And Israel said to Joseph, "Look, I'm dying. And God will be with you, and he'll return you to the land of your forefathers."

²² "And I gave to you one shoulder more than your brother, of what I've taken from Amorite hands with my sword and with my bow."

Chapter 49

¹ And Jacob called his sons, and said:

Gather, and I will tell you what will happen to you in the latter days.^{[220] 2} Gather you and hear you sons of Jacob, and listen to Israel your father.

³ Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength and my first ability. Abundant in dignity and abundant in courage. ⁴ Restless as water, without power, because you went atop your father's lay. You did defile yourself, gone on my issuer.^[221]

⁵ Brothers Simeon and Levi, weapons of hatred are their familiars. ⁶ Let my soul not come into their confidence, and let my honor dwell not within their crowd. Because in their fury they killed a man, and with premeditation they castrated a bull. ⁷ Cursed for then is their fury, their transgressions are but hard. I will divide them among [the sons of] Jacob and disperse them in Israel.

⁸ Judah, you are well known to your brothers. Your hand's on the nape of your enemies' neck. Your father's sons will bow down to you. ⁹ You are a lion's cub, Judah, you rose above preying my son. You kneel and stalk crouched as the lion and her cubs. Who shall found us? ¹⁰ The sceptre will not leave Judah, nor the lawmaker's staff between his legs. So long as they come to Shiloh, him will the people obey. ¹¹ I will bind his foal to the vine, and to the best vine his donkey's foal. He'll launder his clothes in wine, his vest in the blood of grapes. ¹² His eyes overflowing with wine, and his teeth will be whiter than milk.

¹³ Zebulun, in the coast of the sea will dwell. He is the boats of the coast, and his thigh upon Ṣidon.

¹⁴ Yisaschar is a strong stout donkey — crouching between the sheepfolds. ¹⁵ And he'll see an offering that's good, and the land become pleasant. And will give his shoulder for hauling, and he will be a servant porter.

¹⁶ Dan will judge his people as one. The tribes of Israel. ¹⁷ And Dan will be a snake on the road, slithering out of habit, which bites the heel of the horse, and his rider will fall off behind. ¹⁸ I have hoped for your salvation to Yahweh.

¹⁹ Gad will gather a troop,^[222] and his heels are for marching.

²⁰ Asher's bread will be fattened, he will offer kingly delicacies.

²¹ Naphthali is sent of a doe, who gives book proverbs.

²² Joseph is a fruitful-vine son, a fruitful vine on an oasis. Its tendrils wind upon the wall. ²³ And the arrowmen will embitter and shoot and hate him. ²⁴ And will settle in the bend of his bow, and his arms are limber. From the hands of Jacob's titan, from there, the shepherd. Rock of Israel.

²⁵ From your father's god, and he will help you. And the Shaddai, and he will bless you. Blessing of the skies above, blessings of the abyss crouching below, blessings of breasts and womb.

²⁶ Your father's blessings surpass my parents' blessings, until the envy of the world's peaks. They'll be the head of Joseph, at the crown of his brothers' prince.

²⁷ Benjamin, is a preying wolf, in the morning he will eat more, in the evening divide the spoils.

²⁸ These are all the tribes of Israel, twelve. And this is what their father told them, and he blessed them, each to their own blessing, blessed them. ²⁹ And he commanded them, and said to them:

I am gathering upon my people. Bury me with my fathers, in the cave in Ḥittite 'Ephron's field ³⁰ In the cave in Machpelah field, facing Mamre, in Canaan's land. The field which Abraham bought from Ḥittite 'Ephron so as to use as a burial ground.

³¹ There they buried Abraham, and Sarah his wife. There they buried Isaac, and Rebecca his wife. And there I buried Leah. ³² Because the field and the cave which is in it were purchased from the Ḥittites.

³³ And Jacob stopped commanding his sons, and picked up his legs onto the bed, and expired, and gathered onto his people.^[158]

Chapter 50

¹ And Joseph fell on his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.

² And Joseph commanded his servants, the doctors, to embalm his father, and his doctors embalmed Israel. ³ And forty days elapsed for him, as such is the wait for the embalmed ones. And the Egyptians cried for him seventy days.

⁴ And the days of his mourning passed, and Joseph spoke to the Pharaoh's household, saying:

Please, if I am all right by you^[50], speak please to the ears of Pharaoh, and say:

⁵ My father has sworn me to say: "Here I am dying. You will bury me there, in my grave, which I have set for myself in Canaan's land. There you will bury me. Please go up there and bury your father, and return."

⁶ And Pharaoh said, "Go up there and bury your father, as he has sworn you to do."

⁷ And Joseph went up to bury his father. And all Pharaoh's servants went up with him, the elders of the household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt. ⁸ And all of Joseph's household, and his brothers and his father's household. Only their tots and sheep and cattle did they leave in the land of Goshen. ⁹ And up with him went chariots and horsemen, and the camp was very full.

¹⁰ And they came to the threshing floor of 'Atad, which is trans-Jordan. And they wailed there a great very loud wailing. And he performed a mourning for his father, seven days.

¹¹ And the Canaanites settled on the land saw the grieving in 'Atad, and said, "This is heavy mourning for the Egyptians." That's why it was named Avel Miẓraim (Egypt's Mourning), which is trans-Jordan.

¹² And his sons did to him as he commanded. ¹³ And they carried him to Canaan's land. And they buried him in the cave in the Machpelah field, which Abraham bought as a gravesite from Ḥittite Ephron, facing Mamre.

¹⁴ And Joseph returned to Egypt, him, and his brothers and all those who came up with him to bury his father, after they had buried his father.

¹⁵ And Joseph's brothers saw their father had died, and they said to him, "Joseph will despise us. He will pay and repay all the evil we've dealt him."

¹⁶ And they commanded Joseph, saying:

Your father commanded us, before his death, saying, ¹⁷ "This you'll say to Joseph: 'Please don't dwell on your brothers' crime and their sin, because they dealt you a wrong. And please now come to forgive the crime of the servants of your fathers' God.'"

And Joseph wept as they spoke to him.

¹⁸ And they came, his brothers too, and they genuflected before him, and they said, "Here, we are your servants."

¹⁹ And Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Have I replaced God?^{[223] 20} And now, as you thought to do evil upon me, God has thought it good. For allowing a day such as this, so as to let a numerous nation live. ²¹ So now, don't fear — I will support you and your tots." And he comforted them, and spoke to their hearts.

²² And Joseph returned to Egypt, him and his father's household. And Joseph lived one hundred and ten years. ²³ And Joseph saw Ephraim's great grandchildren. Also the sons of Machir, Menashe's son, were born on Joseph's knees.

²⁴ And Joseph said to his brothers, "I am dying. And God has appointed you his appointment: that he will take you up from this land to the land which was sworn to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob."

²⁵ And Joseph had the Children of Israel swear an oath, saying, "God has appointed this appointment of you: that you will take up my bones from here."

²⁶ And Joseph died, one hundred and ten years old. And they embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

Footnotes

1. (1:1) "Originally" is in Hebrew ברשית b'reshit. The grammar of 1:1-3 is disputed by interpreters. It is possible to have b'reshit in a "construct state". In this alternate reading, there are two options: read Genesis 1:1-2 as: "Originally God created the sky and the earth, while the earth was vacuous havoc, and darkness upon the abyss." Or perhaps a single large sentence verse 1 to verse 3: "As God originally began to create the sky and the earth, and the earth was chaos and void and darkness upon the abyss, God's spirit hovering over the surface of the water, God said, 'Let there be light.' And there was light." The final version seems an unnatural translation to one of the translators here (RM) because such a sentence is very grammatically complex, requiring an enormous center embedding of a full sentence, and the rest of Genesis has no comparable center embedding (or, for that matter, any center embedding at all). Intepreters are divided as to the construct vs. absolute question in general. The most naive straightforward reading is the one translated, although whether the creation described is fully ex-nihilo or not is not clear in the text, and is hopefully equally vague in the translation, since this requires interpretation.
2. (1:1) The Hebrew word שמים shamayim, here "sky," also means "heaven" or "heavens", but in the context of this chapter seems to refer to where birds fly, not to where angels dwell.
3. (1:2) inchoate. The Hebrew phrase תהו ובהו tohu wavohu expresses a sense of primordial chaos, tohu--- vacuous, emptiness, or incompleteness, vohu--- chaos. Various translations have been proposed. Appearing here were "helter skelter" (too fidgety), "higgledy piggledy" (too silly), chaos and void, unformed and unfirmed (not accurate enough), havoc and waste, chaos and waste, vacuous chaos, chaos and void. The usage of waste in "chaos and waste" is that of "wasteland", and it conflicts with the sense adopted for waste which is more corrupted and decayed for translations of shachat. The term "inchoate chaos" is perfect in both form and meaning.
4. (1:2) abyss. The Hebrew term is tehom, which refers to the primeval waters at the time of creation, and in later passages to a tremendous ocean and/or water beneath the earth.
5. (1:2) levitating. The Hebrew verb merahefet has been translated several ways: "drifting", "brooding," "moving," "fluttering," and "sweeping across" (replacing "upon" with "across"). The precise meaning is floating over, or a not-so-still version of hovering. The verb "levitating" gives a powerful active flavor to the verb, which is perhaps lacking in the Hebrew, which feels more quiet and floaty.
6. (1:6) dome. The word רקיע raqia, here "dome", is given a vaguer translation by other scholars. Robert Young of Young's Literal Translation gives "expanse", while the King James Version gives "firmament". This verse is an object of religious controversy. Secular scholars read Genesis 1 as expressing the flat-earth cosmology typical of Ancient Near Eastern literature. The world is a flat disk, floating an deep sea called the tehom (here translated "abyss"), covered by a water-bearing solid dome called the sky, and the רקיע is the sky-dome. Later texts already acquired round-Earth cosmology from the Greeks, and the raqia' then was reinterpreted as a spherical firmament surrounding the Earth, where various demons and angels dwell and battle, and part of a successive system of solid spheres where the moon and planets are set. This reinterpretation can be dated to between the 5th and 1st centuries BC. Fundamentalist religious readers interpret Genesis 1 as a literal day-by-day description of the creation of the earth as we understand it today, so they give a more vague term which can be used to describe either the atmosphere between the sea and clouds, or a spiritual realm separate from the physical world.
7. In Hebrew, days of the week, other than the Sabbath, don't have names, just numbers. So Monday is called יום שני, literally "second day".
8. (1:21) sea dragons. The Hebrew term is tanninim, which refers to sea creatures of serpentine type, magical and dragonlike to a large degree, as suggested by tradition, and in parallels with other similar ancient texts. "Dragon" gives a lizard-like connotation, which is preserved in modern Hebrew, where "tannin" is just "crocodile".
9. (1:26) all the earth. In the Masoretic Text, the list of things that the human beings are to oversee is entirely composed of animals, except for the phrase "all the earth" (kol haarets), awkwardly placed between two categories of animals, the domestic animals and the small crawling animals. At the same time, noticeably missing from this list is "all the wild animals" (kol hayat haarets) which we might expect to find here. The Genesis account has three categories of animals: domestic animals, (larger) wild animals, and crawling animals. If the word hayat has been dropped by a copying error, the list would originally have contained all three categories of land creatures. The Syriac Old Testament includes "all the wild animals," where the Hebrew has "all the earth," supporting the idea that a copying error has occurred. See Kittel's Biblia Hebraica, which recommends reading kol hayat haarets here. The translation follows Kittel here.
10. This is the start of Chapter 2 in the verse numbering, the verse numbering is correct, but the logical break comes in verse three, so the chapter break has been placed in the correct spot.
11. (2:4, etc.) lineages Heb: תּוֹלְדֹת toldot, introduction of a genealogical narrative. Outside of Genesis, toldot statements appear in Numbers 3:1, Ruth 4:18, and 1 Chronicles 1:29. The term introduces information about a person (or in one case, "the heavens and the earth.") The information is generally genealogical, with two exceptions.
12. (2:4) The name Yahweh, while appearing in the Hebrew text as the four consonantal letters יהוה (Yhwh), is traditionally not pronounced by Orthodox Jews, who verbalize it as "Adonai"(My Lord) or "HaShem"(the Name). Translations vary: some write the name out as "Yahweh," while others use "YHWH," "Lord," "Jehovah," or even leave in the Hebrew letters as יהוה. This text uses Yahweh, the best scholarly reconstruction of how the name was originally pronounced, in order to translate the text as closely as possible to its original intent.
13. (2:6) The Hebrew word ed, here translated as "mist" is claimed to be of uncertain meaning.
14. The Hebrew טוֹב וָרָע could also be translated good and bad, right and wrong, good and evil. Right and wrong is equally idiomatic English.
15. (2:11) Ḥavilah - generally believed to be in South-Arabia
16. (2:12) bdellium. The Hebrew word bedolah, translated here as "bdellium" is of uncertain meaning. If "bdellium" is the correct interpretation, it refers to a type of resin. onyx. The Hebrew term shoham, translated here as "onyx," is of uncertain meaning. "Onyx" is a guess.
17. Kush - in modern-day Ethiopia)
18. In this translation, ch is pronounced as a labial fricative, same as modern German, it represents the Hebrew letter chaf. dotted Ḥ/ḥ is pronounced as a guttural fricative, representing the Hebrew letter Ḥet, in original pronunciation, pronounced farther back in the throat, as some versions of the sound are produced in modern Arabic. A dotted Ẓ/ẓ or Ṣ/ṣ is the letter Ẓadi, which is nowadays pronounced as the consonant cluster ts, but might have been more like a variant of the click found in some African languages originally. A backtick ' represents the guttural click made by flapping the tongue against the back of the throat, the Hebrew letter 'ayin. The goal is to keep the spelling as close to traditional as possible, while still maintaining the distinction between names a Hebrew reader sees.
19. (3:1) devious comes from the same root as "naked" in the previous verse. (2:25).
20. Follows the consonantal text; with the vowels, it's an odd construction of לֹא מוֹת תְּמֻתוּן, a negation followed by a double verb "die". While double verbs are common in the bible, when they are negated the negation goes in the middle; the text would read מוֹת לֹא תְּמֻתוּן.
21. (3:24) Griffins are Cherubim., a creature of some kind, powerful and intimidating, with animal parts. Griffin is suspected to be a cognate, and it is roughly accurate as they are winged, and have different animal parts and no human parts. They are otherworldly beings. For biblical descriptions of the Cherubim and their role in the Bible, see Exodus 25:18-22, 37:7-9; Numbers 7:89; 1 Samuel 4:4; 2 Samuel 22:11; 1 Kings 6:23-29, 7:29; Psalm 18:10; Ezekiel 9:3, 10:1-22, 28:16.
22. (3:24) the flash of the flipping sword. Also "flame", although Heb: lahat and lahav are two different roots, although, then again, lahav could be misinterpreted as meaning "blade" in a sword context. Some interpreters interpret this as a lightning bolt, as Yahweh's own personal sword, as a magical self-moving weapon, or even as a messenger of Yahweh named Flame of the Whirling Sword. See Hendel, Ronald S. “‘The Flame of the Whirling Sword’: A Note on Genesis 3:24.” Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 104, no. 4, 1985, pp. 671–674. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3260679. And see also the Wikipedia article Cherub. For best translation, it is important to note that "hafuch" means upside-down, and lehithapech means to flip upside down, hence flipping.
23. (4:1) This is giving etymology for Ka-in's name. I've owned a man with Yahweh. The grammar here is unique and is so archaic to be incomprehensible. The verb translated as "owned" usually means "acquire by purchase" or "buy", but in instances, it likely means "acquired" or "possess". Interpretations of this sentence include "I have created a man like Yahweh did," "With Yahweh's help I have gotten a man.", or perhaps one of many more absurd personal interpretations, like "I bought a man, I paid in Yahweh", "I haggled Yahweh down to get a man". The "own/created" interpretation is the Occam razor choice, but it is completely conjectural, and perhaps leaves the verse making more sense than it should. For the reason to use "with" for the unusual Heb: et, see Gen 7:9
24. 4:2 Abel. In Hebrew, the name is, after the first time where it is pronounced specially due to being in final position, pronounced Hevel, spelled and pronounced identically to the word hevel which is a major theme of Ecclesiastes. "Hevel" means vapor, nothingness, analogous to Hindu notions of world-illusion or Maya, and Wikisource Ecclesiastes uses "Mirage" for the translation, although the connotations are slightly different.
25. (4.7) "Swell", the word is שְׂאֵת , and, from context, one can deduce that it means here just a general good thing, like "ok" or "hunky dory". It literally means "a swelling", like a swelling up. Due to the ridiculous coincidence of English having an exact parallel term, unfortunately somewhat dated slang, the translation here did not avoid the temptation. God's tone is usually avuncular and light hearted in this narration (unlike, for instance, snake's tone, or many instances of God's voice in the Exodus narration), so one of the translators (RM) suggest "swell" is not so out of line as it might sound at first due to its informality in English.
26. (4:7) חַטָּאת sinstuff. This is a word with ritual meaning, it is an object steeped in sin, like the sinstuff offering of Leviticus.
27. (4:7) stalks crouched the term is like an animal waiting for prey.
28. (4:7) This verse is famous in Hebrew, and relatively completely clear to the ear of a modern Hebrew speaker. But some commentators have claimed that it is unintelligible, and there have likely been one or more copying errors to bring it to its present state, e.g. G. R. Castellino writes, "In general commentators agree in considering [Genesis 4] v. 7 as corrupt." (From his article "Genesis IV 7", published in Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 10, Fasc. 4 (Oct., 1960), p. 442.)
29. (4:8) The Masoretic text deletes what Cain said to Abel leaving an ungrammatical sentence. That the original included the text is attested not only by the Septuagint, but by every parallel extant independent bible tradition. This translation follows the Samaritan.
30. (4:10) blood - the word used here is in the plural; normal use of the plural in this case refers to the guilt for the death, notbthe blood itself.
31. (4:18) Meḥuyael . . . Meḥiyael. This translation reproduces the two alternate spellings found in the Masoretic Text. These are either two historical variants preserved as such in the original text, or an error in copying somewhere.
32. Lotesh sharpen steel using whetstone or grinder
33. "all that can smith iron and copper" the Hebrew can be interpreted as people or things, this English is equally ambiguous. The "sharpener" makes it things, of course, but maybe there is an omission here, like "father of". The phrasing is analogous to Jubal's, where it gives ancestry for musicians.
34. There is a question of whether verse 24 is dialogue, or commentary. RM suggests commentary, so that the quote mark belongs at the end of verse 23. Alephb has given argument for continuing dialogue based on ostensibly poetic structure of the verse. This verse follows alephb.
35. (5:2) mankind. Hebrew, Adam.
36. The Hebrew here has strong rhymes (Ad-AM, Bra-AM, She-MAM, oTAM) and alliteration, none of which are preserved in any other translation. It sounds like an incantation when read aloud.
37. (5:18) 162. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads only, 62.
38. (5:19) 800. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads 785.
39. (5:20) 962. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads, 847.
40. (5:25) 187. A few manuscripts, and the Samaritan Pentateuch, read 67.
41. (5:26) 782. A few manuscripts, and the Samaritan Pentateuch, read 653.
42. (5:27) 969. A few manuscripts, and the Samaritan Pentateuch, read 720.
43. (5:28) 182. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads 53.
44. (5:30) 595. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads 600.
45. (5:28). 777. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads 653.
46. sons of the gods. Or, sons of God, or, divine beings. So also in verse 4.
47. (6:3) contend with, the verb is from a "judge" root, but it seems to mean "deal with" in this context. Traditional translations include "My spirit will not dwell in", "My spirit will not protect," or "My spirit will not put up with," or "My spirit will not quarrel with."
48. (6:3) Furthermore. The word beshagam looks like it is a variant of "beshegam" (in that also, i.e. furthermore). Because the pronunciation is unusual, it has an uncertain meaning. Another possible suggestion is "in their erring.", from "Shaga`" (to err), but there is no ayin.
49. Fallen Titans is nephilim, A Hebrew term which refers, depending on the passage, to either giants or to the spirits of fallen warriors in the netherworld. See Numbers 13:33.
50. looked all right is Matza Chen be'eyney, which is highly idiomatic Hebrew whose literal meaning is "Was a beaut in the eyes of", but which always idiomatically means "looked really nice to".
51. The Septuagint has "Lord God" here. In the Septuagint "Lord" is what the translators wrote for Yahweh, so the Septuagint reads as if the Hebrew documents they used once read "Yahweh God" instead of merely "Yahweh" as in the Masoretic Text. This translation incorporates the correction.
52. decayed the root repeated here is "Shachath", it occurs many times, in various conjugations. In naive reading, it would always mean the same thing, and it generally means "rotten", "corrupted", or "decayed", the translation used four related words to get the range of meaning. It is not at all directly related to the "Shachatt" with a tet, which means slaughter a person, slaughter for food, or ritually slaughter, but the last usage here might be a play on words using the similarity of sound of the two roots.
53. (6:11) violence. Heb ḥamas, is a somewhat broader word in later usage, including not only violence but also oppression, abuse, and wrongful treatment of others more generally. The simple Hebrew of the early texts seem to demand a simple translation.
54. (6:14) Gofer (sometimes "gopher, no relation to English "gopher") is the Hebrew word. The identity of the tree is unknown.
55. animal nests is qinnim, which in every other biblical passage means "nest." It is unclear what it means in this context. One theory is that this is a mispronounced hold-over from an earlier version of the story, in which the word was qanim, "reeds." Compare Moses' ark, the only other ark (Hebrew, teyva) in the Bible, which was made of reeds and caulked with slime in a manner similar to Noah's ark (Exodus 2:3). Compare also the ark of Atra-Hasis, which was made of reeds. See Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17, page 281.
56. (6:15) A cubit is a measure of about 18in/50cm (at least different cubits are attested in the Bible). If it is 18in/50cm, the ark is to be 450ft/150m long, 75ft/25m wide, and 45ft/15m tall.
57. (6:16) storeroom. Hebrew צֹהַר, tsohar, a word of uncertain meaning, 'storeroom (for grain)'/'fill it' is a total guess, with no support at all, aside from the not particularly probable assumption that rest means "fill it to within a cubit from the top". Improbable, because "Yechol" also means "complete in itself", not just "filled up" in this early Hebrew. Others assume it is related to Tsohorayim (noon), and take it to be some sort of window to let light in. This is not well supported either, since a window appears later (in the raven part), and it's not a tsohar. It could be a cubit slope on the roof of the ark, or something else entirely.
58. (6:17) the deluge, water on the earth. Dillmann's commentary on Genesis 1-11 suggests that perhaps the term mabbul (deluge) was unfamiliar to Hebrew readers, and so the author added the phrase water on the earth to explain what the term meant. Alternately, according to a possibility raised by Kittel's Biblia Hebraica, perhaps instead of reading mayim ("water") we should read miyyam (from the sea), thus, "I will bring the deluge from the sea on the earth." This seems unlikely, because the deluge does not come from the separated surface water of the sea, but from the water of the Tehom and the water above the sky.
59. (7:2) pure clean in a ritual sense -- Kosher animals, the ones permitted to eat. see Leviticus 11.
60. (7:2) seven/seven. with confidence this means seven pairs, fourteen animals, seven male and seven female, of each pure animal.
61. "Husband and Wife" is perhaps a pungent and transparent idiom, but it sounds nice, and its meaning is obvious.
62. (7:6) the it was deluge: water on the earth. This is literally what the Masoretic Text reads. It would be unsurprising to some if the verse read, the waters of the flood were on the earth. But some ask why would someone write, the deluge was water? Translator RM, native Hebrew speaker, says it requires no explanation, because it's beautiful normal flowing Hebrew which creates a powerful image of water on the Earth, and whose exact impact has hopefully been preserved in this translation. On the other hand, non-native speaker Ronald Hendel's Critical Edition (1998) of Genesis 1-11 sees the word water as a later addition to this verse by an editor trying to make the wording of this verse more closely match the wording in Genesis 6:17. See the note on 6:17.
63. Year... year the Hebrew repeats.
64. (7:11) abyss. see Gen 1:1
65. (7:14) flier . . bird . . . wing. What does this mean? August Dillmann, in his commentary on Genesis 1-11, raises two possibilities. First, that the text originally read every kind of flier. The Hebrew oph, here translated as flier, is the most common word for "bird" in the Bible, although it technically can include flying insects as well. Therefore, one possibility is that an editor added the words every bird, every wing, meaning every winged bird to clarify that in this case, Noah was only taking in birds, and not insects. On the other hand, perhaps the word wing means winged insect in this context. In that case every flier: every bird, every winged insect is a way to explicitly make it clear that both birds and insects were included on the ark. The wording is too obscure to be certain.
66. בַּעֲדוֹ --- means "for him" not "shut him in"
67. חֲמֵשׁ עֶשְׂרֵה אַמָּה מִלְמַעְלָה, גָּבְרוּ הַמָּיִם "Fifteen cubits from up-above the waters built up", this most naturally means 15 cubits from the top of the dome of the sky, which means the whole universe is reduced to the dimensions of the ark, between the water and the top of the sky-dome. This explains why the ark has the dimensions it does--- it is bang up against the topmost point of the dome. This translation allows this interpretation, as does the Hebrew. Although it is ambiguous. Other interpretations are 15 cubits above the mountains, 15 cubits as measured from above, etc.
68. (8:4) seventeenth: Masoretic. Septuagint reads "twenty-seventh."
69. (8:4) Ararat. The biblical Ararat is the same region as the historical Urartu.
70. "swayed" the Hebrew הָלוֹךְ וְחָסוֹר haloch wechasor sounds like haloch wechazor (back and again), echoing haloch weshuv (back and forth) from before, and creating a visual image in the reader's mind (again) of water going back and forth. To preserve this, the translation inserts a similar image, even though the Hebrew does not explicitly say "sway" anywhere in this verse.
71. (8:5) Masoretic: The tenth month, on the tenth [month], on the first day (1st day of the 10th, 10th being repeated for high drama); Septuagint: until the tenth month; then in the eleventh month, on the first [day] of the month,...
72. The details sound like oral storytelling. This translation tries to preserve this flavor.
73. "Yapht" to "Yephet" is both mysterious, it probably comes from "good" root, but it rhymes too, and provides anachronistic etymology for Japheth's name. To preserve this "God" and "good".
74. (10:4) Dodanim is following the Masoretic Text; the Septuagint reads Rodioi.
75. (10:5) Islands of peoples Robert Alter reads this Hebrew phrase as Peoples of Islands, or Sea Peoples, referring to the Sea Peoples associated with the Late Bronze Age Collapse. This interpretation is impossible in normal Hebrew, as it ignores the grammar: "Ee-yei Ha Amim", not "Amei Ha-ee-yim".
76. (10:6) Phut. Also known as Put
77. (10:6) Canaan. The Canaanites.
78. (10:7) Ḥavilah. See Havilah.
79. (10:7) Sheba. An ancient Yemenite people: the Sabaeans
80. Nimrod. See Nimrod.
81. (10:11) From that land Ashur came - interpreting Ashur as the name of a person (likely Shem's son, see verse 22). Could alternatively mean "From that land he went to Ashur" - that is, the land Assyria.
82. Ṣidon is a city.
83. (10:15) Ḥeth is the Ḥittites (Biblical Hittites)
84. (10:16) The Jebusites were the Canaanites who lived in Jerusalem.
85. (10:16) Amorite. See Amorites.
86. (10:21) or, as following the trop on this verse, the brother of Jepheth, the older [brother]. The latter fits better with the numbers in theis section: According to 5:32, Noach was 500 years old when his sons were born; quite likely this refers to his first son. According to 7:6, the deluge was when Noach was 600, which would be 100 years after the birth of his son. Yet according to 11:10, 2 years after the deluge Shem was 100 years old.
87. (10:22) Elam is the ancient civilization of Elam.
88. (10:22) Aram is the Aramaeans.
89. Presumably, Ever's descendents are the Hebrews (Ivrim), although the Bible never explicitly says so regarding this Ever.
90. Shva Sheba/Yemen repeat as both Joktan and Canaan's sons, but the other repetition is approximate: Ḥawila is different from Ḥavila.
91. Mistranslated to "to the Eastern mountain" in many places.
92. words Heb: דְבָרִים which is ambiguous in meaning, and in later Hebrew can mean "things". In the early Hebrew, considering the root, it probably always means words, and this is the translation choice adopted here.
93. (11:2) eastward. Heb: מִקֶּדֶם miqqedem. From the east, or in the east, without any specific directional information. This English is unique in being ambiguous in exactly the same way.
94. 11:2 Shinar. How large Shinar was, who can say? But {Translation:Genesis#10:10|Genesis 10:10] locates it in Mesopotamia, where it includes Babylon, Uruk, and Akkad. See also Shinar (Wikipedia).
95. (11:3) And brick replaced stone for them, and clay became their mortar - this verse is explaining, to a culture which used stone and mortar, about the standard building materials used by an other culture, which were brick and clay.
96. (11:10) Arpachshad. Spelled Arphaxad in some translations.
97. (11:28) Ur Kasdim is how it reads in Hebrew. It is sometimes translated "Ur of the Chaldeans." See Chaldea.
98. (12:1) household. Hebrew bet av (the plural would be bet avot). Literal translation: "father's house." However, in English "father's house" refers to the physical building, while a bet av in Hebrew is mostly a collection of people owned in some way by the father. "Father's household" is closer, except that a bet av describes more than just the collection of slaves and immediate dependents living with one's father. For example, Number's 17:2 divides about two million Israelites into only twelve bet avot which shows that the phrase can mean "clan". It is either "clan", "dependents", "slaves" or just "house", depending on the context.
99. will be blessed through you is in Hebrew nibreku beka. This translation takes the most straightforward option of translated it as passive in meaning. A claimed other option is to read it as reflexive: all the families of the earth will bless themselves through you, or will bless one another using your name. The reflexive interpretation is Rashi's, and the ostensible meaning is that Abraham will be such a paradigm of a blessed person that his name is used in blessing formulae, such as, "May you be as blessed as Abraham." For more detail, see the note in the NET translation.
100. (12:5) nephew. Literally, his brother's son.
101. "souls" is nephesh, which in context refers to slaves bought, children of slaves, and children born, all taken together.
102. Elon, Oak or Terebinth, a big tree with religious significance.
103. This is an "origin story" for the altar which presumably stood at Moreh Oak. There are many origin stories for various landmarks in Genesis, it is an origin story.
104. (12:8) Beth-El is Hebrew for house of El. The term El is a generic semitic word for God, but was also the proper name of the head Canaanite deity. It is purposefully applied as a common name referring to Yahweh in Genesis. In English the location is more commonly known as Bethel, but writing the name as Beth-El, following the Hebrew convention of treating this name as two words, allows the capitalization of El, which suggests a proper name interpretation as well, without forcing it down the reader's throat.
105. The Negev is the same as the modern Israeli Negev, an arid area toward the south part of Canaan.
106. (12:10) famine. While crops in Canaan would be sensitive to lack of rainfall, as much of the land is on the very edge of what can be cultivated successfully using rain, the farming in the Egypt depended on irrigation, making Egypt's ability to produce food more secure.
107. (12:16) sheep: Hebrew tson, a word which can include both sheep and goats.
108. (12:17) ills Or, calamaties. The Hebrew word can refer either to bad events caused by God or to diseases
109. Heb: בַּמִּקְנֶה this word usually translated "cattle", but in chapter 40 is used to include sheep, with a more specific word for beef cattle.
110. (13:14) south. Literally, Negevward.
111. (13:14) west. Literally, seaward, toward the Mediterranean.
112. (14:1) All the Kings here are fictional. Shin'ar is Babylon. Eylam is the ancient Elamite civilization. Ellasar is uncertain, but may refer to Larsa. Goyim means peoples. Goyim is speculated to refer to Gutium, but this is very unlikely as t's don't drop.
113. (14:2) The kings are fictional, the names are allegorical. The locations are in or around the Dead Sea, depending on how one interprets the story.
114. (14:3) Salt Sea is the Dead Sea.
115. (14:5) Titans (Rephaim) Mod Heb Spirits/Poltergeists, but identified elsewhere in the Bible as giant warriors, so Titans. Later, in Isiah, they are the ghosts of these giants in the underworld. hence the ghost meaning.
116. (14:14) Dan is on the northern edge of the land of Canaan.
117. (14:15) yeḥalek aleyhem often means divided them, but here it means "smoothly went on them" or "snuck in". The root is 'ḥalak' smooth, or 'ḥelek' part.
118. (14:18) Shalem is identified with Jerusalem in Jewish folklore.
119. (15:1) "I myself shield you, your wages are very great." Others understand this to mean, "I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward." That is, Yahweh himself is understood to be Abraham's reward. This is inconsistent with the Hebrew grammar of the sentence, but nevertheless, this opinion is held by the translators of the KJV, ASV, Douay-Rheims Bible, and the Darby translation. Among versions that translate the reward as not being Yahweh himself, this version is joined by Young's Literal Translation and Bible in Basic English.
120. (15:2) financial son The Hebrew term translated here as steward is ben-mesheq, literally, son of mesheq of my house, where the term mesheq occurs only in this passage, and so is claimed to have an uncertain meaning. The name "Damascus" in Hebrew is dammesheq, as found later in this verse, so it has been suggested perhaps a copying error has resulted in the duplication of part of the word "Damascus." This translation takes mesheq to mean "financial market", as it does in modern Hebrew, presuming that the word for "market" has been faithfully preserved throughout the centuries.
121. (15:2) Damascus Eliezer. Hebrew Dammeseq Eliezer. Dammeseq is the Hebrew name for the city of Damascus. As a result, the whole phrase has been traditionally rendered as Eliezer of Damscus. If that is its meaning, then the construction is very unusual: the normal way to write Eliezer of Damscus would be Eliezer Dammeseq.
122. (15:7) Ur Kasdim. Sometimes translated Ur of the Chaldeans.
123. (16:7) The Way of Shur is a route going from the Negev to Egypt.
124. (16:3) For I didn't see you, after you saw me The Hebrew phrase is claimed to be difficult by non-native speakers, and Skinner has suggested that the text has undergone some copying error(s) here. It sounds fine to RM, except with the Aramaic-y flourish of "Ha-lom", and it has the clear meaning given in the translation.
125. (16:14) Beer Lahai Roi "apparently means either 'Well of the Living One who sees me,' or 'Well of "He that sees me lives"'" (Skinner). But no it doesn't. It's just an ungrammatical mish-mash of "to the living the-one-who-sees-me."
126. The Hebrew El Shaddai is a term of uncertain origins. For the breast interpretation, see 49:25, where the universe is equated to a gigantic fertility symbol, with the breasts the sky, and the womb the abyss. Academics have tried to relate it instead to the Akkadian shadu ("mountain"). Traditionally, since the time of the Septuagint "El Shaddai" has often been translated as "God Almighty."
127. (17:14) There has been some debate regarding the penalty of being "cut off", it's probably shunning. That's how it is translated here.
128. (18:3) Lord. The Masoretic Text indicates a pronunciation that would indicate Abraham is addressing God as "Lord." If one vowel is changed, we could read either "My lord," or "My lords," as addressed to one or all three of the men.
129. The seah was an ancient unit of volume. See Seah (Wikipedia).
130. like in the old south, "boy" presumably means slave.
131. (18:10, 14) in nine months. The Hebrew has a phrase: ka-et hayyah, "according to the time of life." This translation follows Skinner's suggestion that the phrase refers to the gestation period. Other suggestions include "springtime," which could be thought of as "the time of life", or "next year."
132. (18:20) This is a literal translation, and it is perfectly grammatical and sounds perfectly good to translator RM's ears. For non-native opinion about it, see Skinner.
133. Abraham still stood before Yahweh. There is a rabbinical tradition (see Tiqqun soferim) that this verse originally read, but Yahweh still stood before Abraham, but that this was "corrected" so that Abraham is the one standing to avoid having the text treat Yahweh as standing like a person.
134. made them a drink is Heb: Ya'as Mashteh, which has connotations of alcohol, just as "made them a drink" does in English. The translation is usually "made a feast", as it sometimes means that, but it literally means "made a (likely alcoholic) drink", and in this case, it seems it should be taken literally, because the food part comes later, it's crackers, inconsistent with feasting.
135. (19:5) use. The Hebrew word is yada, to know, which is used as a euphemism for sexual relations, in this case nonconsensual, and the English word "use" is an identical euphemism, and the meaning is equally clear in this translation.
136. landed him יַּנִּחֻהוּ Heb: wayanichuhu , lit. and they set him down. The imagery is that the angels flew him out of the city. The same connotation is preserved in this English.
137. (19:17) valley i.e. Jordan valley: Hebrew, ha-kikkar.
138. Miẓ'ar is related by root to "sorrow", and is something like "pitiful". The word "derelict" is used because it encompasses run-down, paltry, sorrowful, and most significantly — likely uninhabited. The justification for interpreting it with a connotation of "uninhabited" is that Lot feels the need to ask Yahweh whether it it Miz'ar or not, which makes more sense if the meaning included connotations of "abandoned", or "disused". In addition, Noah becomes a hermit, and Noah's daughters are under the impression that nobody is left alive but their family, requiring them to impregnate themselves with their father. This explains the translation choice "derelict", which only hints in this interpretive direction.
139. Gerar was a town in Philistia, home of the Philistines.
140. (20:9) unspeakable things. Lit: deeds that should not be done.
141. What possessed you - literally "What did you see"
142. (20:11) This place just isn't God-fearing - literally "There is no יראת אלהים in this place; the term יראת אלוהים, generally translated as "fear of God", refers to a moral sense and not to anything religious
143. (20:13)God: could also be "gods". The former is supported by the fact that Abraham wasn't an idol worshiper, the latter by the fact that the word "tempted" has plural agreement.
144. (20:16) veil for the eyes. Literally, covering of eyes. It reads naively like a legal settlement. [https://archive.org/details/criticalexegetic00skinuoft Skinner] explains this as a technical legal term. The idea is that the payment of compensation has the effect of legally "closing eyes" to the fact that a crime has been committed. Once a matter is settled, it is now "unseen" in the sense that it cannot be held against the person who has made restitution.
145. Appointed the Heb: פָּקַד means commanded or appointed, like delegated to an office. In this case, it's the office of being mother to many peoples. Reasonable translations are "delegated", "nominated", "selected", "established", "designated" or "entrusted".
146. The Hebrew is ambiguous as to whether they are laughing at her, or with her. It's ironic laughter either way, but she is genuinely happy.
147. with Isaac her son. This translation follows the Septuagint and Vulgate for this verse; the Masoretic Text omits the words "with Isaac her son."
148. (21:14) and the child. Interpreters vary as to whether the syntax of this verse, which is unusual, imply that the child is placed on Hagar's shoulder, or whether the boy is simply given to Hagar and the pitcher and bread placed on her shoulder. For those who read the verse as requiring that Hagar is physically carrying the boy, there is a contradiction with the notion that the boy is over fourteen years old, as required by the chronology of their births. Compare verse 15, in which she "cast" or "sent" the boy under a bush.
149. sent תַּשְׁלֵךְ it can mean "send off" or "cast away". In this context, the word used for the boy is נַּעַר, or adolescent lad, not an unweaned baby or a taf weaned toddler. So interpreting it as "cast" is rather weird.
150. This is exactly what it says. All awkwardness is in the original.
151. filched Heb: גָּזְלוּ which means "robbed", in this case, probably claim-jumped.
152. (22:2) Moriah. Following the Masoretic Text. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads, Moreh.
153. offering עֹלָה , not "burnt offering", which in modern English has a more specific connotations, captured by the term "calil" in Hebrew. The word olah is just an offering, and this is the right syllable count.
154. This last phrase is not difficult at all, but several proposals have been made anyway. See [https://archive.org/details/criticalexegetic00skinuoft Skinner].
155. נְשִׂיא in mod heb. means "president", it can be ruler or prince, but the root and the meaning here seems to be "emissary", as in "carrying forth from"
156. money. In Hebrew, "silver," the default means of exchange.
157. (24:10) Aram Naharaim. Hebrew for "Aramites' area of the two rivers," that is, Mesopotamia.
158. (25:8) was gathered to his people. can be interpreted as "went to join his ancestors", but this presumes an Asian afterlife. The phrase suggests that in death, Abraham gathered onto his descendents, not his ancestors, imbuing them with his spirit in the future, not looking to the past. It's a subtle but important difference in view, so the phrase should appear as it is in Hebrew.
159. (25:16) villages. According to Gesenius, this word can also refer to a moving "village" of nomads.
160. (18:1) Facing all his brothers, he fell A variety of interpretations of this verse are proposed. 1. He (Ishmael), settled in hostility toward all his brothers. 2. He died (Ishmael) in the presence of all his brothers. 3. He (each tribe) fought against all his brothers (fellow tribes). All three interpretations are plausibly readable in the English of this exact and very literal translation.
161. (25:21) Yahweh (second occurrence). The Septuagint reads, "God" (ho theos). For the first occurrence Septuagint reads kyrios ("Lord") in agreement with the Masoretic Text's Yahweh.
162. (25:22) This sounds fine to RM, but [https://archive.org/details/criticalexegetic00skinuoft Skinner] thinks part of Rebecca's question seems to be missing.
163. petition Heb: lidrosh, it's more an indignant demand, an accounting, accountability, not question. Like The lidrosh right before "Man will spill the blood of any spiller of man's blood".
164. (25:26) The name "Jacob" (Hebrew yaaqob) looks like the Hebrew word "heel" ( 'eqev), and is a verb meaning "to heel", meaning, to trip or to swindle.
165. Homebody, who sat in tents.
166. red redness The Masoretic text here reads haadom haadom. This version does not follow [https://archive.org/details/criticalexegetic00skinuoft Skinner]'s emendation, which reads the phrase as haadom haedom, proposing that Edom be taken to mean "food" or more specifically, the kind of food one might eat alongside bread. It doesn't follow it, because this suggestion is totally wrong.
167. Edom's Esau here is the forefather of the Edomites, a people living in Mt. Se'ir (Hairy) south of Judah. Verses relate the name Edom to the word "red", (adom). The earliest verse describe Esau with a red coat of Hair (Se'ar).
168. (25:34) And he ate, drank, got up, and he left... treated ... with contempt: In the Hebrew, these are 5 consecutive verbs.
169. tickling metzhachek--- making her laugh. Not fondling, intimate, but not sexual.
170. This verse makes as little literal sense in the original, but the intended meaning can be understood equally well from the translation.
171. (26:34) Ḥittite Elon Following the Masoretic text; Septuagint and Vulgate read Ḥivite Elon.
172. (27:36) swindled me The verb is y'qb, which Esau is relating to the name "Jacob" (Hebrew y'qb). It means "trip," "supplant," "cheat," or "take advantage of." It is derived from 'qb, "heel," which features in the birth story of Jacob and Esau. "Tripped me up" is a more literal translation, but the metaphorical meaning in English is not the same as "swindle", but rather "held me back", so the translation omits the tripping imagery.
173. (27:36) The verse is playing with the similar sound of firstborn birthright bchoraty and my blessing birchati.
174. This verse is the last in chapter 27. The verses are numbered by the traditional chapters, but the logical chapter break belongs here.
175. above him - could alternatively be translated as "on it" - the ladder.
176. intimidating the root is the same as for awestruck, and the word should be "awesome", unfortunately, slang usage has removed fear connotations from this word. The meaning is the same as intimidating.
177. Laban Naḥor's son - actually, Laban is Naḥor's grandson, not his son. The word בן, translated as "son", is used elsewhere in the Bible to refer to later generation descendents. For example, according to Numbers 16:1, Eliav the father of Datan and Abiram is the son of Reuben, but according to Numbers 26:9, Eliav is Reuben's grandson.
178. (29:7) it is still midday. Literally, the day is still large. The idea is that there is still a great deal of time left in the work day, so Jacob does not understand why the flocks are being gathered. To his eyes, the workers are gathering the flocks together as though it was night and they were finishing their work.
179. gentle. The Hebrew word rak means generally "soft" or "weak." The exact sense of the term when applied to eyes is unclear. Perhaps it means, in a negative sense, that Leah's eyes were weak, or dull, or had some kind of defect. Most obviously, it can be taken as a positive expression, that her eyes were gentle because they expressed a depth of soulfulness missing in Rachel. The latter interpretation is consistent with the remainder of the story, which sets up the trope ditzy bombshell vs. soulful but plain sister. See James L. Kugel; James L Kugel (30 June 2009). Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible As It Was at the Start of the Common Era. Harvard University Press. p. 381. ISBN 978-0-674-03976-6. 
180. week Wedding week. The Hebrew is ambiguous whether the period referred to is a week or a seven year bond, but the conflict between the sisters shows they were married nearly simultaneously.
181. The Hebrew Reu-ben means "See, a son", but Reu-ven (the proper pronunciation) isn't anything. Nevertheless, this verse is giving etymology for Reuben's name from the hard b pronunciation.
182. (29:35) The verse giving etymology for the name Yehudah, Judah, using the verb "praise" lehodot. It resembles the conjugation "will thank" yehode as a Hebrew verb. Non-native-speaking opinion thinks this is perhaps an abbreviation of Yehudyah, "Praise of Yah(weh).", which has an extra y and so is completely unrelated. See Victor P. Hamilton (26 September 1995). The Book of Genesis, Chapters 18-50. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 268. ISBN 978-0-8028-2309-0. 
183. (30:2) Am I God's agent - literally "am I in stead of God"
184. (30:15) sleep - clearly a euphemism for sex. However, except in this verse, this specific euphemism is never used in the bible stories for proper sex between husband and wife, suggesting that tbis trade isn't proper.
185. (30:18) Issachar (Hebrew Issakhar, perhaps originally pronounced Ish-sakhar., in the latter pronunciation literally wage-man, or day-laborer). This verse connects the name Issachar (Issachar) with sekhari ("he has given me my wages"). Compare another form of the same verb, sacharti, "I have hired" in verse 16.
186. (30:20) endowed . . . dowry. Neither the word translated here as endowed (Hebrew zabad) nor the word translated "dowry" (zebed) appears anywhere else, so the meanings assigned here are guesses.
187. Yizbeleni is giving some sort of tribute offers, like giving gifts. It's obscure, so "endow" was chosen for translation. To understand the arguments for this, see talk page regarding the root ZBL/ZVL
188. (30:27) Yahweh is what is found in the Masoretic Text. The Septuagint reads God, as if its Hebrew text read Elohim (God).
189. (30:38) in the troughs in the waterways. It appears that in Hebrew uses here two different words to denote watering troughs, this is the best reconstruction of the intended meaning. It is also possible that, when one of these words became obscure to readers, a copyists added a synonym for clarity.
190. הָרַע עִמָּדִי 'imadi seems to mean "my standing" here, not of me. This is a unique reading of RM's, it's because 'mda is "standing" and 'emdi is "my standing", and the standard reading "do harm to me" doesn't fit the story or context, and this one does.
191. house-idols. Hebrew teraphim. meaning "forbidden stuff". The exact nature of these sacred objects is uncertain, and "house idols" is a rough estimate of what they might have been.
192. outwitted. Literally, "stolen the heart of," and idiom for deception. To keep this flavor, the translation uses "steal away", an English idiom for leaving furtively.
193. (31:25) planted his kinsmen - or, alternatively, "planted [his own tent] with his kinsmen"
194. (31:35) my monthly ritual - literally "the way of women".
195. (31:47) Jegar Sahadutha also means "Crest Witness" in some crazy language, while Galeed means "Witness Crest" in Hebrew.
196. (32:4) messengers - the same word as "angels" in verse 2.
197. (32:26)(25) The phrase translated here as "hollow of thigh" (kap yarek) is used only in this story, but very commonly in Hebrew speaking. Another far-fetched interpretation is that the phrase refers to the scrotum. That is, the angel struck Jacob in the genitals, sending him away limping. Another interpretation sees this as referring to a hip socket. See Victor P. Hamilton (26 September 1995). The Book of Genesis, Chapters 18-50. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 331. ISBN 978-0-8028-2309-0.  The point of this verse is to explain why Jacob limps, and this translation opts for the standard interpretation of all traditions.
198. (32:29)(28) The verse connects the words "contend", "physically overpower" (sarah) and the name El ("God") with the name Israel.
199. In the early biblical period, angels are always nameless. See Judges 13:18.
200. (32:33)(32) thigh vein sinew is Heb: gid hannasheh. Hebrew takes it to be a sinew or nerve near the thigh. One person believes it refers to the penis (and all who heard the story forgot this memorable fact). On gid hannasheh, see Victor P. Hamilton (26 September 1995). The Book of Genesis, Chapters 18-50. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 338. ISBN 978-0-8028-2309-0. 
201. (33:18) safely Shechem city. Hebrew shalem ir shekhem, which could alternately be read as "to Shalem, a/the city of Shechem."
202. (33:19) qesitah. An ancient monetary unit, value presently unknown.
203. Some interpret "El" not just as a generic word for "God", but as a proper name. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(deity)#Hebrew_Bible El (deity)].
204. (34:2) Slept - literq "lay down", a standard euphemism for sex.
205. (34:2) hurt her cruelly. The Hebrew verb, inah, torture/suffering is usually interpreted in this passage as referring to rape. A minority of scholars hold that it refers to a violation or dishonoring compatible with consensual sex violating rules such as ethnic endogamy and/or sex without the girl's father giving permission. For an overview of the various usages of the term and scholarly opinions on this verse, see Mary Anna Bader (2006). Sexual Violation in the Hebrew Bible: A Multi-methodological Study of Genesis 34 and 2 Samuel 13. Peter Lang. p. 9ff. ISBN 978-0-8204-7873-9. 
206. (34:24) A "city", in the Bible, refers to a group of people who live inside a walled area. The people would live inside the city, and go through its gates each day to work in their fields. Everyone who goes out of the gates, then, means everyone living in the cities.
207. (35:8) Oak of Weeping. Hebrew Allon Bachuth, Allon and Elah seem interchangable. This is Allonbachuth in King James.
208. (35:16) some ways The Hebrew phrase is kirvat-ha-areẓ, "a nearness of earth" which is found only here, in Genesis 48:7 (a reference to this story), and in 2 Kings 5:19. It is not certain whether it represented some specific distance, or was a general term like "some ways", "about as far as a horse can run," or something along those lines.
209. (36:5) Jeush. This frustratingly follows the Ketiv (written down stuff). The Qere (oral reading) reads, "Jeish." which doesn't mean anything. See Ketiv and Qere.
210. (36:24) hot springs. Hebrew, yemim, a plural word which occurs only here. The meaning is not clear. In addition to "hot springs" or "springs," a variety of other proposals have been made, including the traditional Jewish interpretation "mules" and the Targum's "giants" (emim).
211. (37:3) ornate. The word translated here as "ornate" (Hebrew passim) is uncertain. Traditionally, it was translated as "many-colored." In the Bible, the word appears only in two stories. In the story of Joseph, his father makes a passim robe for his favorite son, who is betrayed and sold into the slavery by his brothers. The robe is torn and dipped in blood to fake an animal attack. The other occurrence is in the story of Tamar, who is given a passim robe, "because so were the virgin daughters of the king dressed" (2 Samuel 13:18). After being raped by her brother, she tears the garment in anger or shame (13:19). These two contexts are not enough to establish the precise nature of a passim robe, but they are enough to establish that it was some kind of fancy clothing.
212. chief executioner - Hebrew שר הטבחים, meaning not completely clear. This person is clearly in charge of the guard over the king's prisoners (see verse 40:3), and accordingly the title has been interpreted by some as the captain of the guard. On the other hand, the word טבח generally refers to the slaughter of animals, which would mean that this person is in charge of the meat for Pharaoh; however, it's difficult to see why such a person would have the royal prison in his house. Others interpret this title as chief executioner; however, it would appear from 40:22 that Pharaoh did the executions himself.
213. (38:26) he never ceased translating וְלֹא יָסַף as "didn't cease". This phrase has alternatively been interpreted as "didn't continue", which would mean that he never slept with her again. But this makes less sense in this narrative context.
214. (39:7) literally "lie down", clearly a euphemism for having sex.
215. (41:8)literally "his dream" in singular; this disagrees grammatically with the word "them" later in the verse.
216. (42:13) is no longer - Hebrew "איננו", isn't; the implication being that he (Joseph) is dead. This implication is stated explicitly when Judah summarizes this discussion, in verse 44:20.
217. (42:23) the interpreter had been between them - that is, they had not spoken to him directly. An interpreter heard what each party said, and translated it for the other party. Now that the interpreter was gone, they thought they could speak freely, without this Egyptian ruler understanding them.
218. When one reads the text the first time, one gets the impression that the brothers were lying to their father. However, had that been the case, Judah wouldn't have repeated this statement to the Egyptian ruler, as he did in 44:19.
219. (43:23) lit 'your money has reached me', A legal statement making it clear that no claims will be made about the money.
220. בְּאַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים -- this is usually translated "end of days", but it literally means the afterwards of days, and the descriptions are of what each man's descendants will do in the land of Israel much later, but not at the end of the world, so I used "latter days" which has both connotations, at least if you're a Mormon!
221. פַּחַז כַּמַּיִם אַל-תּוֹתַר, כִּי עָלִיתָ מִשְׁכְּבֵי אָבִיךָ; אָז חִלַּלְתָּ, יְצוּעִי עָלָה. This is impossible to understand without the context of chapter 35, verse 21, and then it is clear. The Rabinnical sources I read about this verse are vague, although the meaning seems obvious in light of 35:21.
222. (49:19) The words "Gad", "gather" and "troop" all use the same consistents.
223. (50:19) Have I replaced God? - literally "am I in stead of God?