Translation commentary on Genesis 28:10

There is nothing in the Hebrew text to mark a resumption of the story of Jacob’s journey or to make a transition from the statement in verse 5 that “he [Jacob] went to Paddan-aram.” In some languages, however, it will be necessary to indicate the relationship of verse 10 to verse 5 at this point. The transition may be indicated in two ways for the text as we have it:
(1) We may regard verse 5 as the brief statement of Jacob’s journey, and then 28.10–29.14 as telling in more detail what happened on that journey. In this case we may add at the beginning of verse 10 something like “Now this is the story of what happened to Jacob as he traveled to Paddan-aram [Mesopotamia].”
(2) We may regard the verbs “sent” and “went” in verse 5 as referring to the beginning of Jacob’s journey, and verse 10 as continuing the action from Gen 28.5. In this case we may translate in verse 5 “Isaac sent Jacob away; and he set out for Paddan-aram…” or “Isaac sent Jacob away to go to Paddan-aram….” Then, if necessary, we may begin verse 10 by saying “When Jacob left Beersheba he went….”

Jacob left Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran: Beer-sheba is the last mentioned location of Isaac in 26.23.

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 .

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