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The Wife for Isaac

24 Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years,[a] and the Lord had blessed him[b] in everything. Abraham said to his servant, the senior one[c] in his household who was in charge of everything he had, “Put your hand under my thigh[d] so that I may make you solemnly promise[e] by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth: You must not acquire[f] a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living.

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Footnotes

  1. Genesis 24:1 tn Heb “days.”
  2. Genesis 24:1 tn Heb “Abraham.” The proper name has been replaced in the translation by the pronoun (“he”) for stylistic reasons.
  3. Genesis 24:2 tn The Hebrew term זָקֵן (zaqen) may refer to the servant who is oldest in age or senior in authority (or both).
  4. Genesis 24:2 sn Put your hand under my thigh. The taking of this oath had to do with the sanctity of the family and the continuation of the family line. See D. R. Freedman, “Put Your Hand Under My Thigh—the Patriarchal Oath,” BAR 2 (1976): 2-4, 42.
  5. Genesis 24:3 tn Following the imperative, the cohortative with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose.
  6. Genesis 24:3 tn Heb “because you must not take.”