Footnotes

1. Genesis 47:1 tn Heb “Look they [are] in the land of Goshen.” Joseph draws attention to the fact of their presence in Goshen.
2. Genesis 47:2 tn Heb “and from the whole of his brothers he took five men and presented them before Pharaoh.”
3. Genesis 47:3 tn Heb “his”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4. Genesis 47:3 tn Heb “both we and our fathers.”
5. Genesis 47:4 tn Heb “to sojourn.”
6. Genesis 47:4 tn Heb “for there is no.” The Hebrew uses a causal particle to connect what follows with what precedes. The translation divides the statement into two sentences for stylistic reasons.
7. Genesis 47:6 tn Heb “men of skill.”
8. Genesis 47:6 tn Heb “make them rulers.”sn Put them in charge of my livestock. Pharaoh is, in effect, offering Joseph’s brothers jobs as royal keepers of livestock, a position mentioned often in Egyptian inscriptions, because the Pharaohs owned huge herds of cattle.
9. Genesis 47:7 tn Heb “caused him to stand.”
10. Genesis 47:7 sn The precise meaning of the Hebrew verb translated “blessed” is difficult in this passage, because the content of Jacob’s blessing is not given. The expression could simply mean that he greeted Pharaoh, but that seems insufficient in this setting. Jacob probably praised Pharaoh, for the verb is used this way for praising God. It is also possible that he pronounced a formal prayer of blessing, asking God to reward Pharaoh for his kindness.
11. Genesis 47:8 tn Heb “How many are the days of the years of your life?”
12. Genesis 47:9 tn Heb “the days of.”
13. Genesis 47:9 tn Heb “sojournings.” Jacob uses a term that depicts him as one who has lived an unsettled life, temporarily residing in many different places.
14. Genesis 47:9 tn Heb “the days of.”
15. Genesis 47:9 tn The Hebrew word רַע (raʿ) can sometimes mean “evil,” but that would give the wrong connotation here, where it refers to pain, difficulty, and sorrow. Jacob is thinking back through all the troubles he had to endure to get to this point.
16. Genesis 47:9 tn Heb “and they have not reached the days of the years of my fathers in the days of their sojournings.”
17. Genesis 47:10 tn Heb “from before Pharaoh.”
18. Genesis 47:11 tn Heb “a possession,” or “a holding.” Joseph gave them a plot of land with rights of ownership in the land of Goshen.
19. Genesis 47:11 sn The land of Rameses is another designation for the region of Goshen. It is named Rameses because of a city in that region (Exod 1:11; 12:37). The use of this name may represent a modernization of the text for the understanding of the intended readers, substituting a later name for an earlier one. Alternatively, there may have been an earlier Rameses for which the region was named.