It may be necessary to identify the relationship of the patriarchs to Joseph. This may be done by some marginal help which would refer to the passage in Genesis and indicate that Joseph was himself one of the patriarchs, being a brother of the other eleven. Or it may also be possible to provide an identifier for the name Joseph by saying “the patriarchs were jealous of their brother Joseph.” The term jealous is often expressed in an idiomatic manner, for example, “their hearts were not on him,” “they were sour toward him,” or “they could not listen to his name.”

A literal translation of sold him to be a slave in Egypt may require some expansion in certain languages, for example, “sold him to men who took him as a slave to Egypt” or “sold him to men who then sold him as a slave in Egypt.”

The expression God was with him is rendered in many languages as “God continued to help him” or even “God caused him to succeed.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .