SIL Translator’s Notes on Joshua 24:4

24:4a

and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau: The Berean Standard Bible has placed the indirect object, Isaac, first in the sentence in order to emphasize it. The Hebrew text has normal Hebrew word order: “I gave to Isaac Jacob and Esau.” Translate this sentence using the word order that is natural in your language.

Here is another way to translate this part of the verse:

I gave Isaac two sons: Jacob and Esau.

24:4b

The Hebrew conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible leaves untranslated but other English versions translate as “and” introduces the next event in the storyline.

I gave Esau Mount Seir to possess: The Mount Seir refers to the land that Esau and his descendants lived in. It was south of the Dead Sea. This land is often called “Edom,” and you may wish to translate it that way. See how you translated the term Seir in Joshua 11:17.

Here are some other ways to translate this part of the verse:

I gave his son Esau the mountain country of Seir to live in
-or-
I gave Esau the hilly country of Edom to be his own land

24:4c

but Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt: The Hebrew verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as went down indicates descending to a lower elevation. If the grammar of your language does not keep track of elevation, it may be more natural to translate it as “went.”

Here are some other ways to translate this part of the verse:

but Jacob and his children went downhill to ⌊live in⌋ Egypt
-or-
But Jacob and his family went to ⌊the land of⌋ Egypt

© 2001, 2011, 2020, 2022, 2023 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments