Genesis 13:5-7

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Genesis 13:5 tn Heb “was going.”
2. Genesis 13:5 tn The Hebrew idiom is “to Lot…there was,” the preposition here expressing possession.
3. Genesis 13:6 tn The potential nuance for the perfect tense is necessary here, and supported by the parallel clause that actually uses “to be able.”
4. Genesis 13:6 tn The infinitive construct לָשֶׁבֶת (lashevet, from יָשַׁב, yashav) explains what it was that the land could not support: “the land could not support them to live side by side.” See further J. C. de Moor, “Lexical Remarks Concerning Yahad and Yahdaw,” VT 7 (1957): 350-55.
5. Genesis 13:6 tn The same infinitive occurs here, serving as the object of the verb.
6. Genesis 13:7 tn The Hebrew term רִיב (riv) means “strife, conflict, quarreling.” In later texts it has the meaning of “legal controversy, dispute.” See B. Gemser, “The rîb—or Controversy—Pattern in Hebrew Mentality,” Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East [VTSup], 120-37.
7. Genesis 13:7 sn Since the quarreling was between the herdsmen, the dispute was no doubt over water and vegetation for the animals.
8. Genesis 13:7 tn This parenthetical clause, introduced with the vav (ו) disjunctive (translated “now”), again provides critical information. It tells in part why the land cannot sustain these two bedouins, and it also hints of the danger of weakening the family by inner strife.