Jacob does not answer the king’s question directly; rather he calls attention to the nature of his life as a nomad and foreigner.

The days of the years of my sojourning: for the use of the verb and noun sojourning, see 12.10 and 17.8. Translators may find it better to express sojourning as a clause, as does Bible en français courant: “For one hundred and thirty years I have gone as a foreigner from one country to another.” Examples of renderings from two other translations are “I have been walking around the land [earth] for many years, a hundred and thirty” and “I have a hundred and thirty years, in which I have been traveling all the time and going around to many places.”

Few and evil … life: few is used either in the sense of a perspective on life in old age, or more likely in comparison with his father Isaac, who died at age one hundred and eighty (35.28-29), and Abraham, who died at age one hundred and seventy-five (25.7-8). Evil means “hard” or “difficult.” This clause is expressed as, for example, “My life has been short, and I have always had a hard time” and “I haven’t stayed very long, not like my grandfathers, and I’ve had a rough time, poor me.”

And they have not attained … life of my fathers: that is, “my life has not been as long as that of my father and my grandfather.”

In the days of their sojourning: that is, “who also went as foreigners from place to place.”

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 .