Pharaoh will lift up your head: in this second use of the expression lift up your head, the narrator makes a play on words. He uses the same words as in verse 13 and then adds from you, which gives the expression not an idiomatic but a literal meaning. This literal meaning is either “remove your head [behead you]” or “hang you [by your head].” Translators should attempt to keep the wording of the expressions in verses 13 and 19 as similar as possible. If the translation has said in verse 13 “the king will release you,” then in verse 19 it may say “the king will bring you out and then cut off your head.” Since the king will not actually execute the man himself, some translations say “the king will bring you out, and the police will cut off your head” or “… and tell the soldiers to cut your neck.”

And hang you on a tree: according to Anchor Bible hang should be rendered “impale” here and in verse 22. Impale means to run a sharp stake through the body, or to fix the body on a sharp stake. This is followed by New American Bible and New Jerusalem Bible. Most modern versions prefer “hanged”; but in this case you may need to be rendered as “your body,” if hanging follows beheading, as in Good News Translation. Some translations say “And they will hang your body on a post.”

According to Deut 21.23, for an Israelite to be executed by hanging was to be accursed by God. In the Egyptian view a body eaten by birds could not be preserved as a mummy and therefore was prevented from obtaining immortality.

Birds will eat the flesh from you: birds here refers to birds of prey, as not all birds eat flesh. The name of a particular bird such as “vultures” may be used if there is no general term for birds of prey.

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 .