2sn Beer Sheba. See Gen 21:31; 28:10.

3tn Heb “in visions of the night.” The plural form has the singular meaning, probably as a plural of intensity.

4tn Heb “the God.”

5tn Heb “and I, I will bring you up, also bringing up.” The independent personal pronoun before the first person imperfect verbal form draws attention to the speaker/subject, while the infinitive absolute after the imperfect strongly emphasizes the statement: “I myself will certainly bring you up.”

6tn Heb “and Joseph will put his hand upon your eyes.” This is a promise of peaceful death in Egypt with Joseph present to close his eyes.

7tn Heb “arose.”

8tn Heb “and they took their livestock and their possessions which they had acquired in the land of Canaan and they went to Egypt, Jacob and all his offspring with him.” The order of the clauses has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.

9tn The Hebrew text adds “with him” here. This is omitted in the translation because it is redundant in English style (note the same phrase earlier in the verse).

10tc The MT reads “Puvah” (cf. Num 26:23); the Samaritan Pentateuch and Syriac read “Puah” (cf. 1 Chr 7:1).

11tc The MT reads “Iob,” but the Samaritan Pentateuch and some LXX mss read “Jashub” (see Num 26:24; 1 Chr 7:1).

12tn Heb “all the lives of his sons and his daughters, thirty-three.”

13tc The MT reads “Ziphion,” but see Num 26:15, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX, all of which read “Zephon.”

14sn On is another name for the city of Heliopolis.

15sn The sons of Benjamin. It is questionable whether youthful Benjamin had ten sons by the time he went into Egypt, but it is not impossible. If Benjamin was born when Joseph was six or seven, he was ten when Joseph was sold into Egypt, and would have been thirty-two at this point. Some suggest that the list originally served another purpose and included the names of all who were in the immediate family of the sons, whether born in Canaan or later in Egypt.

16tn This name appears as “Shuham” in Num 26:42. The LXX reads “Hashum” here.

17tn Heb “All the people who went with Jacob to Egypt, the ones who came out of his body, apart from the wives of the sons of Jacob, all the people were sixty-six.”

sn The number sixty-six includes the seventy-one descendants (including Dinah) listed in vv. 8-25 minus Er and Onan (deceased), and Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim (already in Egypt).

18tn The LXX reads “nine sons,” probably counting the grandsons of Joseph born to Ephraim and Manasseh (cf. 1 Chr 7:14-20).

19tn Heb “And the sons of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt were two people; all the people belonging to the house of Jacob who came to Egypt were seventy.”

sn The number seventy includes Jacob himself and the seventy-one descendants (including Dinah, Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim) listed in vv. 8-25, minus Er and Onan (deceased). The LXX gives the number as “seventy-five” (cf. Acts 7:14).

20tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

21tn Heb “to direct before him to Goshen.”

22tn Heb “and he appeared to him.”

23tn Heb “after my seeing your face that you are still alive.”

24tn Heb “tell Pharaoh and say to him.”

25tn Heb “feeders of sheep.”

26tn Heb “for men of livestock they are.”

27tn Heb “your servants are men of cattle.”

28sn So that you may live in the land of Goshen. Joseph is apparently trying to stress to Pharaoh that his family is self-sufficient, that they will not be a drain on the economy of Egypt. But they will need land for their animals and so Goshen, located on the edge of Egypt, would be a suitable place for them to live. The settled Egyptians were uneasy with nomadic people, but if Jacob and his family settled in Goshen they would represent no threat.

29tn Heb “is an abomination.” The Hebrew word תּוֹעֵבָה (to’evah, “abomination”) describes something that is loathsome or off-limits. For other practices the Egyptians considered disgusting, see Gen 43:32 and Exod 8:22.