Brothers were jealous of him: jealous translates a word that means to become red in the face from intensive emotions. In the context of verse 11, the term expresses something more akin to anger than to jealousy. Anchor Bible says “his brothers were wrought up with him”; New Jerusalem Bible has “held it against him,” and Moffatt “bore him malice.”

Father kept the saying in mind is literally “his father guarded the word [matter].” The idea of “guarded” is that Jacob kept thinking about it. Von Rad suggests that it means that Jacob couldn’t get the thing out of his mind. The saying refers to what Joseph had told about his dreams, or about the second dream in particular. We may translate, for example, “but Jacob kept thinking about these dreams” or “Jacob kept in his heart [did not forget] this matter of Joseph’s dreams.” Two examples from Pacific translations are “All the time his father kept thinking about it all” and “His father was thinking about that dream all the time.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .