Semantic Analysis: Genesis (English → French)

Methodology Note

Genesis is analyzed here in its original Biblical Hebrew (עִבְרִית מִקְרָאִית). Each load-bearing term is presented with: the original Hebrew word (with the Hebrew script), a scholarly transliteration, its literal meaning, its semantic range, common English translation variants, its contextual theological meaning in Genesis, and its French destination-language rendering with a doctrine-risk assessment. Where the Septuagint’s Greek rendering matters for continuity with the Romans baseline (e.g., δικαιοσύνη for Hebrew צְדָקָה), it is noted.

Any term already fixed in the baseline translation_memory.json (Dieu, saint, alliance, péché, justice, justice imputée, foi, providence, Israël, etc.) is reused exactly per the hard rule that established renderings must not be altered. New Genesis-specific terms are assigned risk tiers using the identical Critical/High/Medium/Low framework as the baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json.

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PART A — Core Passage Verse-by-Verse Analysis: Genesis 1:1–2:3

Genesis 1:1 — “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

בְּרֵאשִׁית (bereshit) — “in the beginning”

• Literal meaning: “in [the] head/first-part of,” a construct temporal phrase.
• Semantic range: absolute temporal origin; can also carry a sense of “chief/first-fruits” (same root as rosh, “head”).
• English variants: “In the beginning,” “When God began.”
• Theological meaning: marks the absolute, non-derivative start of created time and space; there is no “before” this except God himself.
• French rendering: “au commencement” — Risk: Low. Stable across Segond, TOB, Jérusalem. No competing cosmology in French culture threatens this rendering, though secular readers may reflexively hear it as a literary opening rather than a metaphysical claim; a brief teaching gloss is advisable, not a translation change.

בָּרָא (bara) — “created”

• Literal meaning: to create, bring into existence; distinct in Hebrew usage from asah (“to make/fashion from existing material”) and yatsar (“to form/shape,” as a potter).
• Semantic range: exclusively used of divine creative acts in the Qal stem in the Hebrew Bible — never of human “creating.” Denotes calling something into being that did not exist.
• English variants: “created,” “made” (imprecise), “brought into being.”
• Theological meaning: the foundational term for Creation Ex Nihilo — God’s originating act has no prior material cause. Genesis 1:1 is the doctrinal anchor verse for this entire curriculum doctrine.
• French rendering: “créer” — Risk: High. “Créer” is used constantly in ordinary and even secular French for human creativity (“créer une entreprise,” “créer une œuvre d’art”), which risks flattening the absolute, materials-free sense of bara into ordinary artisanal or artistic creativity. Teaching material must explicitly gloss “créer” here as “créer à partir de rien” (create from nothing) to preserve the ex nihilo doctrine against a merely “organize/fashion” reading.

אֱלֹהִים (Elohim) — “God”

• Literal meaning: a plural-form noun (“gods/God”) used with singular verbs when referring to the one true God — the “plural of majesty.”
• Semantic range: can refer to the true God, to false gods (plural), or occasionally to judges/rulers in a few idiomatic texts.
• English variants: “God.”
• Theological meaning: the generic divine-nature name, used throughout Genesis 1 to emphasize God’s transcendent power over creation (distinct from the personal covenant name YHWH, introduced in Gen 2:4).
• French rendering: “Dieu” — Risk: Medium. Reuses baseline term exactly (god → “Dieu”). Baseline notes apply: risk of casual interjection use (“Mon Dieu!”) and of deist/abstract-concept flattening in academic French; Genesis’ emphasis on Elohim as sovereign Creator should be reinforced against an impersonal “prime mover” reading.

שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) — “heavens/sky” and אֶרֶץ (eretz) — “earth/land”

• Literal meaning: shamayim, “the heights/skies” (grammatically dual/plural in form); eretz, “land, ground, earth.”
• Semantic range: shamayim ranges from physical sky to the abode of God; eretz ranges from a specific plot of land to the whole planet.
• English variants: “heaven(s),” “sky”; “earth,” “land,” “ground.”
• Theological meaning: together, a totality merism — “the heavens and the earth” = the entirety of the created order, leaving nothing outside God’s creative act.
• French rendering: “les cieux” and “la terre” — Risk: Low. Stable, traditional pairing in all French Bible traditions.

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Genesis 1:2 — “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.”

תֹּהוּ וָבֹהוּ (tohu wa-bohu) — “formless and void” / “without form and empty”

• Literal meaning: “wasteland-and-emptiness,” a hendiadys (paired near-synonyms) with an assonant, almost onomatopoeic rhythm in Hebrew.
• Semantic range: uninhabitable wilderness, chaos, desolation — used elsewhere (e.g., Jeremiah 4:23, Isaiah 34:11) for judgment-desolated land, never for a rival eternal chaos-principle.
• English variants: “formless and empty,” “without form and void,” “a formless wasteland.”
• Theological meaning: describes the raw, not-yet-ordered state of the material God had just called into being (v.1) — not a pre-existing chaotic force independent of God, which matters for Ex Nihilo doctrine (nothing here competes with God’s sovereignty).
• French rendering: “informe et vide” — Risk: Medium. Risk is that French readers, especially those familiar with ancient Near Eastern chaos-combat myths via secular academic study, may import a Babylonian/Ugaritic dueling-chaos-god narrative onto the text. Teaching material should clarify tohu wa-bohu is unformed potential, entirely under God’s sovereign hand, not a competing cosmic force.

חֹשֶׁךְ (choshek) — “darkness”

• Literal meaning: absence of light.
• Semantic range: physical darkness; figuratively, moral evil, judgment, death, ignorance.
• English variants: “darkness.”
• Theological meaning: pre-formation darkness, later ordered by God’s spoken light (v.3–5); not itself evil in this context, but the raw material God will order.
• French rendering: “ténèbres” — Risk: Low.

תְּהוֹם (tehom) — “the deep”

• Literal meaning: deep waters, the primeval ocean/abyss.
• Semantic range: cosmic deep waters; later used poetically for chaos/danger (Psalm 104:6; Jonah 2:5), but in Genesis 1 simply the vast pre-formation waters.
• English variants: “the deep,” “the abyss.”
• Theological meaning: emphasizes the vastness of the unformed creation entirely subject to God, not a mythic sea-deity (as in surrounding ANE religions, e.g., Tiamat).
• French rendering: “l’abîme” — Risk: Medium. Risk of connotation with occult/apocalyptic “abîme” imagery (Revelation’s “abyss,” “puits de l’abîme”); ensure context makes clear this is the primeval waters, not a demonic pit.

רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים (ruach Elohim) — “the Spirit of God” / “the wind/breath of God”

• Literal meaning: ruach = wind, breath, spirit; construct with Elohim = “Spirit/wind of God.”
• Semantic range: wind, breath, life-force, the personal Spirit of God — the same root undergirds “breath of life” in Gen 2:7.
• English variants: “the Spirit of God,” “a wind from God,” “the breath of God.”
• Theological meaning: God’s own personal presence actively superintending creation — the first biblical reference many traditions read as the Holy Spirit’s creative activity, tying Genesis 1 to the Trinitarian doctrine of creation.
• French rendering: “l’Esprit de Dieu” — Risk: High. This is a related but distinct construction from the baseline’s holy_spirit → “Esprit Saint” (πνεῦμα ἅγιον). Genesis 1:2 uses the OT construct “Esprit de Dieu,” not “Esprit Saint.” Do not substitute “Esprit Saint” here — that would import full New Testament Trinitarian precision the Hebrew term does not lexically supply on its own, even though this curriculum should teach the canonical connection. Also flag: some secular/academic French renderings translate ruach here as merely “un vent” (a wind), stripping the personal, active divine agency; this curriculum’s doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo and Providence requires the personal-agency reading (“l’Esprit de Dieu,” not “un vent de Dieu”).

מַיִם (mayim) — “waters” — Risk: Low. French “les eaux,” stable.

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Genesis 1:3–5 — “Let there be light… God saw that the light was good… God called the light ‘day’…”

אוֹר (or) — “light”

• Literal meaning: light, illumination.
• Semantic range: physical light; figuratively, life, joy, God’s presence, revelation.
• English variants: “light.”
• Theological meaning: the first created reality named after the heavens/earth totality — creation by divine speech-act (“Let there be”), establishing the pattern of the whole chapter: God creates by his sovereign word alone.
• French rendering: “lumière” — Risk: Low.

טוֹב (tov) — “good”

• Literal meaning: good, pleasing, functioning as intended.
• Semantic range: morally good; aesthetically pleasing; functionally fit-for-purpose; beneficial.
• English variants: “good.”
• Theological meaning: God’s own evaluative pronouncement over his creation — establishes that the created order, as it left God’s hand, was unmarred, laying the groundwork for later doctrine of the Fall as a corruption of an originally good creation, not evidence of an inherently flawed material world.
• French rendering: “bon” — Risk: Medium. Secular French readers may hear “bon” as merely aesthetically pleasant or useful; the text’s declaration is a theological verdict of unmarred created order. Distinguish from moral achievement vocabulary tied to righteousness/“justice” in the baseline — this is God’s verdict over his work, not a human moral status.

יוֹם (yom) — “day”

• Literal meaning: a day (24-hour or daylight period); also used for an indefinite “time/period” in some Hebrew idioms.
• Semantic range: literal calendar day; daylight portion of a day; a general “time” (as in “in the day that…”).
• English variants: “day,” “time,” “period.”
• Theological meaning: the ordering framework of creation into a patterned sequence culminating in the seventh-day rest (2:2–3) — theologically significant for both the doctrine of an ordered, purposeful creation and the later Sabbath commandment. Debates over yom’s literal-vs-figurative length are a live interpretive question but not primarily a translation risk; render literally and let exposition address the interpretive question.
• French rendering: “jour” — Risk: Low (translation); Medium (interpretive, non-translation issue to flag for teaching notes, not to be resolved by translation choice).

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Genesis 1:6–8 — “Let there be an expanse… God called the expanse ‘heaven’.”

רָקִיע (raqia) — “expanse” / “firmament”

• Literal meaning: something beaten/spread out thin (from a root meaning “to hammer out,” as metal is beaten into a sheet).
• Semantic range: the visible sky-dome separating waters above from waters below in ancient cosmology; by extension, “sky, heavens.”
• English variants: “expanse,” “firmament,” “vault,” “dome,” “sky.”
• Theological meaning: God’s ordering hand structuring the cosmos into habitable zones; not a scientific claim requiring a literal solid dome, but the text’s own phenomenological description of the sky as experienced.
• French rendering: “étendue” — Risk: Medium. The older Segond 1910 “firmament” carries an archaic, almost mythological ring in modern French and risks readers assuming the text teaches a literal solid dome as scientific cosmology, inviting unnecessary science-vs-Bible conflict. TOB/Jérusalem’s “étendue” is preferred for this curriculum’s register; a teaching note should clarify the ancient phenomenological (sky-as-observed) description versus a modern scientific-cosmology claim.

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Genesis 1:9–13 — dry land, seas, vegetation

יַבָּשָׁה (yabbashah) — “dry ground” — French “la terre sèche” — Risk: Low. יָם (yam) — “sea(s)” — French “la mer” — Risk: Low. זֶרַע (zera) — “seed”

• Literal meaning: seed, offspring, progeny.
• Semantic range: botanical seed; human offspring/descendants; figuratively, a lineage or legacy.
• English variants: “seed,” “offspring,” “descendants.”
• Theological meaning: here purely botanical (“seed-bearing plants”), but this same root becomes the load-bearing covenant term in Genesis 3:15 (the woman’s “seed”) and the Abrahamic covenant (Abraham’s “seed/descendants,” Gen 12:7; 15:5; 22:17–18) — establishing an intentional lexical thread from creation to redemption.
• French rendering: “semence” (botanical, Gen 1) but “descendance” (genealogical/covenantal, Gen 3:15; 12:7; 15:5; 22:17). Risk: High for the covenantal sense specifically — see Genesis 3 and 12 entries below. Reuses baseline pattern: baseline seed_of_david rejected the “archaic/clinical” “semence” in favor of “descendance” for the human-lineage sense; this curriculum extends that same principle to Genesis’s covenantal “seed” language, while retaining “semence” only for literal botanical seed in Gen 1:11–12, 29.
• מִין (min) — “kind” — French “espèce” — Risk: Low. Marks created biological order/diversity (“selon leur espèce”), a minor but real support for the doctrine of an ordered, purposeful creation (not raw undifferentiated matter).

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Genesis 1:14–19 — sun, moon, stars, seasons

מָאוֹר (ma’or) — “light-bearer/luminary” — French “luminaire” — Risk: Low. מוֹעֵד (mo’ed) — “appointed time/season” — French “temps fixés” / “saisons” — Risk: Low-Medium. Note: same root later designates Israel’s appointed feasts; in Genesis 1 it is cosmological (marking seasons), not yet cultic — avoid importing festival-calendar connotations prematurely.

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Genesis 1:20–23 — sea creatures and birds

נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה (nefesh chayah) — “living creature” / “living soul”

• Literal meaning: nefesh = soul, self, living being, throat/appetite (root sense); chayah = living.
• Semantic range: any breathing/animate creature, including animals (here) and, in 2:7, specifically humankind.
• English variants: “living creature,” “living soul,” “living being.”
• Theological meaning: establishes that animals as well as humans are “nefesh chayah” — a shared creaturely category — which sharpens by contrast the uniqueness conferred on humanity alone in 1:26–27 (image of God) even though both share animate life.
• French rendering: “être vivant” (for animals, 1:20–21, 24) — Risk: Low. Reserve nuance for Gen 2:7 (see below), where the same phrase applies to Adam.

בָּרַךְ (barak) — “bless”

• Literal meaning: to bless, to speak well-being and fruitfulness over.
• Semantic range: divine blessing conferring favor, fruitfulness, and flourishing; also human blessing (praise) of God, and human-to-human blessing.
• English variants: “bless,” “blessing.”
• Theological meaning: God’s first blessing (1:22, on sea/air creatures; then 1:28 on humanity) establishes flourishing and fruitfulness as God’s good intention for creation — the term becomes the master-term for the entire Abrahamic covenant promise later (“I will bless you… and you will be a blessing,” Gen 12:2–3) and for the doctrine of Common Grace (God’s blessing extended even after the Fall, e.g., Gen 9:1).
• French rendering: “bénir” (verb) / “bénédiction” (noun) — Risk: Medium. Standard, stable term in all French Bible traditions; the risk is register-flattening in casual secular French (“bénir” used loosely, e.g. “béni soit ce jour” as a mild exclamation) diluting the weight of a sovereign divine speech-act that effects, not merely wishes, blessing.

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Genesis 1:24–25 — land animals

בְּהֵמָה (behemah) — “livestock/cattle” — French “bétail” — Risk: Low. רֶמֶשׂ (remes) — “creeping things” — French “bêtes qui rampent” — Risk: Low. No new theologically load-bearing terms beyond the created-order/“good” pattern already noted.

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Genesis 1:26–27 — “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness… God created man in his own image…”

צֶלֶם (tselem) — “image”

• Literal meaning: image, statue, likeness, representative figure (used elsewhere for physical idol-statues, e.g., Numbers 33:52; Ezekiel 16:17).
• Semantic range: a physical replica/representation; by extension in royal ANE ideology, a king’s image erected in a conquered territory represented his rule there — a background sense scholars connect to humanity as God’s representative-rulers on earth.
• English variants: “image,” “likeness.”
• Theological meaning: THE anchor term for the doctrine of the Image of God. Humanity uniquely, as no other creature, bears God’s own image — the ground of inherent human dignity, moral responsibility, and derived royal function (dominion, v.28).
• French rendering: “image” (“à notre image”) — Risk: High. Two distinct risks converge in French: (1) secular humanist culture readily affirms inherent human dignity as a philosophical axiom (droits de l’homme) detached from its Creator-grounding — the doctrine must be taught as grounded specifically in God’s act, not humanism’s self-standing premise; (2) French Catholic visual/devotional culture strongly associates “image” with icônes and religious images (statues, images pieuses) — readers may momentarily hear “à l’image de Dieu” as about physical representational art rather than an ontological, relational, and functional endowment. Teaching material must clarify: this is about the nature and calling of every human being, not devotional imagery.

דְּמוּת (demut) — “likeness”

• Literal meaning: likeness, resemblance, similitude.
• Semantic range: resemblance in form or character; often paired with tselem as a near-synonym reinforcing the image concept (a hendiadys, “image, that is, likeness”).
• English variants: “likeness,” “resemblance.”
• Theological meaning: reinforces tselem — humanity resembles God in a way no other creature does (moral agency, rationality, relationality, capacity for dominion).
• French rendering: “ressemblance” — Risk: Medium (paired with the High risk of “image” above; the pairing “à notre image, selon notre ressemblance” is the fixed traditional French phrasing across Segond/TOB/Jérusalem and should be retained as a unit).

אָדָם (adam) — “man/mankind/humanity” (also the proper name “Adam” from Gen 2:20 onward)

• Literal meaning: humanity, human being; possibly related to adamah (“ground/soil” — a wordplay activated in Gen 2:7, “formed from the dust of the adamah”).
• Semantic range: generic humankind (collective, as in 1:26–27, “let them have dominion,” a collective plural referent); the individual man in the garden narrative; later, the proper name Adam.
• English variants: “man,” “mankind,” “humankind,” “Adam.”
• Theological meaning: in 1:26–27, a collective, generic term encompassing all humanity, male and female alike (explicitly stated in v.27) — foundational for the doctrine that the Image of God belongs equally to every human being, not to males only or to a special class.
• French rendering: “l’homme” / “l’être humain” (generic, 1:26–27) vs. “Adam” (proper name, from 2:20). Risk: Medium. French “l’homme” can (as in English “man”) be misheard as gender-specific rather than the collective-humanity sense the Hebrew clearly intends (confirmed by “mâle et femelle” in the same verse); a clarifying gloss (“l’être humain, homme et femme”) is recommended in Genesis 1:26–27 specifically to avoid a male-only misreading of the Image of God doctrine.

זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה (zakhar u-nekevah) — “male and female”

• French rendering: “mâle et femelle” (Gen 1:27) — Risk: Low. Confirms the Image of God belongs fully and equally to both sexes.

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Genesis 1:28 — “Be fruitful and multiply… have dominion…”

פָּרוּ וּרְבוּ (parah / rabah) — “be fruitful and multiply” — French “soyez féconds, multipliez-vous” — Risk: Low.

רָדָה (radah) and כָּבַשׁ (kabash) — “have dominion” / “subdue”

• Literal meaning: radah = to rule, tread down, have dominion over; kabash = to subdue, bring under control, master.
• Semantic range: royal/governing rule (radah is used of kings ruling subjects); kabash carries a stronger sense of subjugation, sometimes of conquest.
• English variants: “have dominion,” “rule over,” “subdue,” “master.”
• Theological meaning: humanity’s derived royal-stewardship mandate as God’s image-bearing representatives on earth — a delegated, accountable rule, not an autonomous license.
• French rendering: “dominer” / “soumettre” — Risk: High. In contemporary French ecological and theological discourse (influenced in Catholic circles by Laudato Si’ and broader environmental ethics debates), “dominer” and “soumettre” risk being read as license for exploitative domination of nature rather than accountable, caretaking stewardship under God. This is a live, culturally specific risk distinct from the baseline Romans concerns; teaching material should explicitly frame dominion as stewardship exercised as God’s accountable image-bearer, not an autonomous right of exploitation.

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Genesis 1:29–31 — food provision; “very good”

טוֹב מְאֹד (tov me’od) — “very good”

• Theological meaning: God’s final, comprehensive verdict over the completed creation — intensifies the repeated “good” (tov) of vv.4,10,12,18,21,25 into a superlative summary judgment. Establishes the doctrinal baseline that evil and death are not intrinsic to creation as God made it, which grounds the doctrine of the Fall as a subsequent corruption, not an original feature.
• French rendering: “très bon” / “excellent” — Risk: Medium (same considerations as “tov” above, intensified).

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Genesis 2:1–3 — “God finished his work… and rested… blessed the seventh day and made it holy.”

כָּלָה (kalah) — “finished/completed” — French “achever/terminer” — Risk: Low.

שָׁבַת (shabat) — “rested / ceased”

• Literal meaning: to cease, stop, rest from labor (the verbal root behind the noun “Sabbath,” though the noun itself does not yet appear in Genesis 2).
• Semantic range: cessation of activity; rest; (later, cultically) the weekly Sabbath observance.
• English variants: “rested,” “ceased,” “was refreshed” (uncommon).
• Theological meaning: God’s rest is not recovery from exhaustion but the completion-satisfaction of a finished, good work, and it establishes the pattern later codified in the Sabbath commandment (Exodus 20:11 explicitly cites Genesis 2 as its basis) — theologically anticipatory rather than legally binding at this point in the narrative.
• French rendering: “se reposa” — Risk: Medium-High. Risk is twofold: (1) secular French readers may read divine “rest” as anthropomorphic fatigue, undermining God’s transcendence/omnipotence, requiring a clarifying gloss (“un repos de satisfaction et d’achèvement, non de fatigue”); (2) the term’s later doctrinal payload (the Sabbath commandment, and ultimately the “rest” believers have in Christ, cf. Hebrews 4) is easily missed if rendered too thinly as ordinary rest — this curriculum should flag the connection for teaching notes without over-translating the word itself.

בָּרַךְ (barak) and קָדַשׁ (qadash) — “blessed… and made it holy/sanctified it”

• Qadash literal meaning: to be set apart, consecrated, made holy — same root as the baseline’s holy → “saint” and sanctification → “sanctification.”
• Semantic range: ritual/moral set-apartness for God’s purposes.
• Theological meaning: the seventh day is the first thing in Scripture explicitly called “holy” — set apart by God himself, not by human ritual action, establishing that holiness originates in God’s own declaration, not human achievement (a theological thread that runs directly into the baseline’s treatment of saints/sanctification in Romans).
• French rendering: “bénit” / “sanctifia” — Risk: Medium. “Sanctifia” reuses the baseline’s established root (sanctification → “sanctification,” holy → “saint”) — maintain lexical continuity between Genesis 2:3 and the Romans doctrine of sanctification for curriculum-wide vocabulary consistency, per the cross-document consistency mandate.

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PART B — Chapter-by-Chapter Study of the Whole Book (Genesis 1–50)

Chapter 1

Fully treated in the Core Passage analysis above (1:1–31). No terms beyond those already covered.

Chapter 2

Verses 2:1–3 treated in the Core Passage analysis above. Verses 2:4–25 (the second, complementary creation account) introduce the following new load-bearing terms:

יהוה (YHWH) — “the LORD” (the divine covenant name, first appearing at 2:4, “the LORD God”)

• Literal meaning: likely derived from the Hebrew verb “to be” (Exodus 3:14, “I AM WHO I AM”); the personal, revealed covenant name of God, distinct from the generic title Elohim.
• Semantic range: God’s proper, personal, covenant-relational name — never used of any other deity.
• English variants: “the LORD” (small capitals, standard English convention), “Yahweh,” “Jehovah” (older).
• Theological meaning: from Gen 2:4 onward, the narrative shifts from Elohim’s transcendent creative power (ch.1) to YHWH’s intimate, relational, covenant-making character (ch.2 onward) — the personal name under which God will make his covenants with Noah, Abraham, and Israel.
• French rendering: Critical decision point. Recommend “le Seigneur” (or, following ecumenical TOB/Jérusalem typographic convention, “le SEIGNEUR” in small capitals) for this curriculum’s TOB/Jérusalem-register alignment, while flagging for reviewers that the historic Segond 1910 tradition instead renders YHWH as “l’Éternel.” Risk: Critical. Two distinct risks converge: (1) inconsistency between French Bible traditions (Segond’s “l’Éternel” vs. TOB/Jérusalem’s “le SEIGNEUR”) could create confusion for readers moving between this curriculum and other French Bible resources; (2) conflating OT YHWH (“le Seigneur”) with the baseline’s NT lord → “Seigneur” (κύριος, of Christ) risks blurring the distinctness of the divine personal name from the NT title applied to Jesus — though this curriculum should also positively leverage that continuity to teach Christ’s deity (Romans 10:9’s “Jésus est Seigneur” deliberately echoes YHWH-language). This term requires human theologian review at every occurrence, matching the baseline’s Critical-tier review routing.

אֲדָמָה (adamah) — “ground/soil/earth” — French “sol/terre” — Risk: Low. Sets up the wordplay with adam (man) — “the LORD God formed the man [adam] from the dust of the ground [adamah]” (2:7) — worth a teaching note on the etymological connection (untranslatable pun) rather than a translation change.

נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה (nefesh chayah) applied to man (2:7) — “and man became a living being/soul”

• Theological meaning: unlike the animals (1:20–24, same phrase), the man becomes a nefesh chayah specifically by receiving the divine breath directly from God (2:7) — reinforcing (without contradicting the shared-creatureliness point in ch.1) humanity’s distinct, God-breathed origin.
• French rendering: “être vivant” — Risk: Medium (distinct from the low-risk animal usage in ch.1 owing to its heightened theological freight here — flag for teaching note, not a different translation).

עֵזֶר (ezer) — “helper” (2:18, 20 — “a helper corresponding to him”)

• Literal meaning: help, helper — used elsewhere of God himself as Israel’s “helper” (e.g., Psalm 121:1–2), indicating no connotation of subordinate inferiority.
• Semantic range: a strong, capable ally/counterpart, not a servant.
• English variants: “helper,” “helpmate” (archaic/misleading), “companion,” “counterpart.”
• Theological meaning: establishes the woman as man’s essential, dignified counterpart, foundational for the doctrine of shared Image-of-God dignity between the sexes established in 1:27.
• French rendering: “une aide” — Risk: Medium. Risk of “une aide” being heard in French as a subordinate assistant/domestic-helper role (as in “aide ménagère,” “aide de camp”), which would wrongly diminish the term’s true sense of a strong, dignity-bearing counterpart; a qualifying phrase (“une aide qui lui correspond,” matching Hebrew kenegdo, “corresponding to/opposite him, as an equal”) is advisable.

בָּשָׂר אֶחָד (basar echad) — “one flesh” (2:24)

• Literal meaning: one flesh/body.
• Theological meaning: the covenantal, unitive nature of the marriage bond, foundational to later biblical marriage theology (cited by Jesus, Matthew 19:5, and Paul, Ephesians 5:31).
• French rendering: “une seule chair” — Risk: Low. Stable, traditional rendering across French Bible traditions.

עָרוֹם (arom) — “naked” (2:25) — French “nus” — Risk: Low, but sets up the shame-vocabulary contrast activated immediately in Genesis 3.

Chapter 3 — The Fall

נָחָשׁ (nachash) — “serpent”

• Literal meaning: serpent, snake; the root may also relate to “shining/bronze” or “to hiss/divine” in cognate forms, though the primary sense here is the animal.
• Semantic range: the literal animal; later biblical tradition (e.g., Revelation 12:9, echoing Genesis 3) identifies this serpent as Satan/the devil.
• English variants: “serpent,” “snake.”
• Theological meaning: THE anchor term for the doctrine of the Fall and the Origin of Sin — the tempter who introduces doubt about God’s word and goodness.
• French rendering: “serpent” — Risk: Medium. Modern secular French readers may read this reductively as a folkloric talking-animal story; the doctrinal point (a real spiritual adversary, later identified as Satan) should be reinforced in teaching notes rather than by altering the literal, accurate translation.

עֵץ הַחַיִּים (etz ha-chayim) — “tree of life” and עֵץ הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע (etz ha-da’at tov va-ra) — “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” — French “l’arbre de vie” / “l’arbre de la connaissance du bien et du mal” — Risk: Low (translation); Medium (interpretive — avoid a moralistic reading that reduces “knowledge of good and evil” to mere ethical awareness rather than the specific test of trusting God’s word over autonomous self-determination).

אָרוּר (arur) — “cursed” (3:14, 17)

• Literal meaning: cursed, placed under a solemn negative pronouncement, the opposite of barak (blessed).
• Semantic range: covenantal curse-pronouncement with real consequential effect, not a mere wish of ill.
• Theological meaning: anchors the doctrine of Sin’s Consequences — the ground, the serpent, and the relational and vocational order are all marked by real consequence following the Fall.
• French rendering: “maudit” — Risk: Medium. Contrast this deliberately with “béni” (barak) established above; teaching material should keep the blessing/curse pairing visible across the whole book, since it structures Genesis’s entire covenant theology (culminating in the Abrahamic promise, “I will bless those who bless you… and the one who curses you I will curse,” Gen 12:3).

זֶרַע (zera) — “seed/offspring” (3:15, the protoevangelium — “he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel”)

• Theological meaning: the first messianic promise in Scripture — the woman’s offspring who will ultimately defeat the serpent. This is the headwater of the “seed” theme running through Genesis (Abraham’s seed, Gen 12/15/22) into the entire biblical storyline culminating in Christ.
• French rendering: “descendance” — Risk: Critical. Must not be flattened into a merely biological/genealogical footnote; this is the first messianic promise of the Bible and requires the same theological weight given to messiah (Messie) and son_of_god (Fils de Dieu) in the baseline. Flag every occurrence of “seed” language across Genesis for human theologian review given its direct doctrinal load on the Messianic Promise doctrine carried forward into Romans 1:3 (“descendance de David”) and beyond.

כְּתֹנֶת (kutonet) — “garment/tunic” (3:21, God clothing Adam and Eve with animal skins)

• Theological meaning: anchors the doctrine of Common Grace — even under judgment, God graciously provides covering, sparing the guilty pair from the shame of their nakedness before sending them from the garden — an early, non-elect-specific act of divine kindness within judgment.
• French rendering: “vêtements/tuniques” — Risk: Low (translation); Medium (doctrinal significance to flag — do not let this small narrative detail pass without teaching-note emphasis on its Common Grace significance).

Chapter 4 — Cain and Abel

חַטָּאת (chatta’ah) — “sin” (4:7, personified: “sin is crouching at the door”)

• Literal meaning: sin, sin-offering (same root can denote both the act and, later in the Law, the atoning sacrifice for it); root idea “to miss the mark.”
• Semantic range: culpable moral failure before God; later, the specific sacrificial offering for such failure.
• Theological meaning: the first explicit use of the “sin” noun-root in Scripture (distinct from the narrative of the Fall itself in ch.3, which uses different vocabulary), personified here as a crouching predator — illustrating sin’s active, spreading, enslaving power after the Fall, a key data point for the doctrine of the Fall’s ongoing consequences.
• French rendering: “péché” — Risk: Medium. Reuses baseline term exactly (sin → “péché”). Baseline’s noted risk applies directly: colloquial French trivializes “péché” (e.g., “péché mignon” = guilty pleasure); Genesis 4:7’s crouching-predator image should be preserved in teaching material to counteract this trivializing drift.

קָרְבָּן / מִנְחָה (qorban / minchah) — “offering” — French “offrande” — Risk: Low-Medium (distinguish general “gift/offering” sense here from the later, technical Levitical sacrificial system, not yet in view).

אוֹת (oth) — “sign/mark” (4:15, the mark/sign given to Cain for his protection)

• Theological meaning: anchors Common Grace — God restrains full justice and even provides protective mercy to a murderer under judgment, foreshadowing the wider pattern of restrained judgment and preserved common life for all humanity after the Fall (cf. also the rainbow “sign” of Gen 9).
• French rendering: “signe” — Risk: Low-Medium.

Chapter 5 — Genealogy from Adam to Noah

תּוֹלְדוֹת (toledot) — “generations/genealogical record”

• Literal meaning: begettings, generations, genealogical account (from the root “to bear/give birth”).
• Semantic range: a genealogical list; more broadly, the structuring device Genesis uses repeatedly (“This is the account of the generations of…”) to organize the whole book into successive units.
• Theological meaning: anchors Covenant Faithfulness across Generations — God’s promises and purposes are shown moving forward reliably through successive human generations, not abstractly or apart from real historical family lines.
• French rendering: “généalogie” / “les générations de…” — Risk: Low-Medium. Watch for reader fatigue/skipping in genealogical sections; teaching notes should highlight the theological function (covenant continuity), not just the historical/record-keeping function.

מוּת (muth) — “die/died” (the repeated refrain “and he died,” 5:5, 8, 11, etc.) — French “mourut” — Risk: Low (translation); Medium (doctrinal — reinforces Sin’s Consequences: death entering the human race universally following the Fall, per Romans 5:12’s later theological commentary on this very narrative arc).

הָלַךְ (halak) — “walked” (5:22, 24, Enoch “walked with God”) — French “marcha avec Dieu” — Risk: Low. A vivid idiom for covenant faithfulness/intimate fellowship with God; retain literally, as French “marcher avec Dieu” is already an established devotional idiom.

Chapter 6 — Noah, human wickedness, the Flood announced

נִחַם (nacham) — “regretted/was grieved” (6:6, “the LORD was grieved… and his heart was filled with pain”)

• Theological meaning: a striking anthropomorphic expression of God’s genuine grief over human sin — must not be flattened into divine indifference nor overread as divine change-of-mind that contradicts God’s sovereignty/providence (a live tension the doctrine of Providence and Sovereignty of God must hold carefully).
• French rendering: “se repentit / fut affligé” — Risk: High. Risk of two opposite errors in French theological reading: (1) rendering too strongly (“se repentit,” which shares a root with human repentance-from-sin vocabulary) may wrongly suggest God sinned or erred; (2) rendering too weakly flattens the text’s real emotional/relational content. Recommend “eut le cœur peiné” or “fut affligé” over “se repentit” to avoid the sin-repentance conflation, with a teaching note addressing the providence/genuine-grief tension.

חָמָס (chamas) — “violence” — French “violence” — Risk: Low. תֵּבָה (teivah) — “ark” — French “arche” — Risk: Low. (Distinguish from “l’arche de l’alliance,” the ark of the covenant — same French word, different Hebrew referent; a minor false-friend risk worth a teaching footnote.) צַדִּיק (tzaddik) — “righteous” (6:9, Noah described as righteous)

• Theological meaning: introduces righteousness-language applied to a human being for the first time since the Fall — anticipates and connects to the fuller doctrine of imputed righteousness developed at Genesis 15:6 (Abraham) and the baseline’s righteousness/imputed_righteousness terms.
• French rendering: “juste” — Risk: High. Reuses the baseline’s righteousness root (“justice” family). Flag for teaching note: is Noah’s righteousness here a status graciously granted, or a description of observed uprightness distinguishing him within a corrupt generation, or both? This tension mirrors the Trent/Reformation-adjacent risk already documented for righteousness/justification in the baseline and should be handled with equal doctrinal care here.

Chapters 7–8 — The Flood

מַבּוּל (mabbul) — “flood” — French “déluge” — Risk: Low. זָכַר (zakar) — “remembered” (8:1, “God remembered Noah”) — French “se souvint” — Risk: Medium. In Hebrew, God’s “remembering” is not recalling forgotten information but acting on a covenant commitment — a key Providence-doctrine nuance; teaching notes should clarify this is covenantal action-language, not correcting a lapse of divine memory.

Chapter 9 — The Noahic Covenant

בְּרִית (berit) — “covenant”

• Literal meaning: a solemn, binding agreement/relationship, often ratified by a sign or a sacrificial rite (“cutting” a covenant).
• Semantic range: covenants between God and humanity (Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, New); covenants between humans (treaties, marriage).
• Theological meaning: Genesis 9 records the first covenant explicitly named as such — a universal, unconditional covenant with all humanity and even all living creatures (9:9–10), the theological headwater for the doctrine of Common Grace: God’s covenant faithfulness extends, in some real measure, to all creation, not the elect alone.
• French rendering: “alliance” — Risk: High. Reuses baseline term exactly (covenant → “alliance”). This is the first of many covenants in Genesis (Noahic, Abrahamic, and implicitly anticipating Mosaic/Davidic/New); the baseline’s relational-not-merely-contractual sense must be maintained consistently across every covenant occurrence for the doctrine of Covenant Faithfulness across Generations.

קֶשֶׁת (qeshet) — “bow” (the rainbow, 9:13–17) and אוֹת (oth) — “sign” (reused from ch.4)

• Theological meaning: a visible, perpetual, universal sign of God’s covenant commitment not to again destroy all life by flood — reinforcing Common Grace and Providence together.
• French rendering: “arc-en-ciel” and “signe” — Risk: Low.

אָרוּר (arur) — “cursed” (9:25, Canaan) — reused from ch.3; French “maudit” — Risk Medium; flag interpretive sensitivity (historical misuse of this passage to justify racialized subjugation is a documented, serious interpretive-history problem — not primarily a translation risk, but teaching material must not allow a translation choice to inadvertently reinforce this history; render literally and address responsibly in exposition).

צֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים (tselem Elohim) — reused (9:6, “for God made man in his own image”) as the express ground for prohibiting murder and instituting human justice — a direct link between the Image of God doctrine and Common Grace applied to all humanity, believer and unbeliever alike. French rendering as established above (“à l’image de Dieu”) — Risk: High (as above), with the added note that this verse extends the Image of God’s ethical weight to every human being as the basis of universal human dignity and justice, not the church alone — a helpful text for engaging France’s strong secular human-rights discourse from a explicitly God-grounded angle.

Chapter 10 — Table of Nations

גּוֹיִם (goyim) — “nations” — French “nations” — Risk: Medium. Explicitly reject “païens” here (the baseline’s rendering of NT ἔθνη in a Jew/Gentile contrastive context) — Genesis 10’s goyim simply means “nations/peoples” in a purely genealogical-ethnographic sense, before any Jew/Gentile covenant distinction exists in the story; “païens” would wrongly import a pejorative, anachronistic religious contrast. Use “nations” or “peuples.”

Chapter 11 — Babel; genealogy to Abram

שָׂפָה (safah) — “language/lip” — French “langue” — Risk: Low. מִגְדָּל (migdal) — “tower” — French “tour” — Risk: Low. בָּלַל (balal) — “confused” (the Hebrew wordplay behind the name “Babel,” from balal, “to confuse”) — French “brouilla” — Risk: Low (translation); worth a teaching note on the untranslatable Hebrew pun (Babel/balal).

Chapter 12 — The Call of Abram; the Abrahamic Covenant begins

לֶךְ־לְךָ (lech-lecha) — “go forth” (12:1) — French “va” — Risk: Low (translation); Medium (theological — the double-emphatic Hebrew idiom, “go for yourself,” conveys a deeply personal summons; connects thematically to the baseline’s called/calling doctrine, though Genesis uses different vocabulary than the Hebrew qara/Greek kaleō root).

בְּרָכָה (berakhah) — “blessing” (12:2–3, “I will bless you… all the families of the earth will be blessed through you”)

• Theological meaning: THE anchor text for the Abrahamic Covenant and Promise doctrine — establishes the covenant’s universal scope (blessing to “all the families of the earth”), directly anticipating the baseline’s doctrine of the Universal Scope of the Gospel and Unity of Jews and Gentiles (both High risk in the Romans baseline; this Genesis text is their Old Testament root).
• French rendering: “bénédiction” — Risk: High. Must preserve the universal (“toutes les familles de la terre”) scope without qualification, mirroring the baseline’s validation rule for universality claims (“tous,” “quiconque”) — this is the same doctrinal principle applied to its OT source text.

מִשְׁפְּחוֹת הָאֲדָמָה (mishpechot ha-adamah) — “families/clans of the earth” — French “familles de la terre” — Risk: Medium. See “goyim” note above; keep neutral, non-pejorative “familles/peuples,” not “païens.”

Chapter 13 — Abram and Lot separate

No new theologically load-bearing terms; reuses covenant, blessing, and land-promise vocabulary from chapter 12.

Chapter 14 — Melchizedek

מֶלְכִּי־צֶדֶק (Malki-Tsedek) — “Melchizedek” — proper name meaning “king of righteousness” — French “Melchisédek” — Risk: Medium. Proper name transliteration is stable, but the etymological meaning (“roi de justice”) is theologically significant (a king-priest figure later applied typologically to Christ, Psalm 110; Hebrews 7) and should be flagged for teaching notes, not altered in the name-form itself.

אֵל עֶלְיוֹן (El Elyon) — “God Most High” — French “le Dieu Très-Haut” — Risk: Medium. A divine title distinct from both Elohim (generic) and YHWH (covenant-personal); establishes that the one true God is known, even if partially, beyond Abram’s immediate family line — a minor but real support for the doctrine of Common Grace/general revelation.

מַעֲשֵׂר (ma’aser) — “tithe” — French “dîme” — Risk: Low.

Chapter 15 — The Covenant Ceremony; “counted to him as righteousness”

הֶאֱמִין (he’emin) — “believed” (15:6, “Abram believed the LORD”)

• Literal meaning: to trust, to consider firm/reliable (root aman, same root as “amen”).
• Semantic range: personal trust and reliance, not mere intellectual assent or generic religiosity.
• Theological meaning: the foundational OT text for justification by faith, quoted directly in Romans 4:3 — establishes that Abraham’s righteous standing was received by trusting God’s promise, prior to and apart from any law-keeping (circumcision follows in ch.17, after this declaration).
• French rendering: “crut” (past tense of “croire”) — Risk: Critical. Directly related to the baseline’s faith → “foi” (personal trust in a specific person/promise, not generic belief/religiosity). Must be rendered with the same care the baseline gives faith, since this is the OT source text Paul quotes for the doctrine of justification.

חָשַׁב (chashab) — “counted/reckoned/credited” (15:6, “and he counted/credited it to him as righteousness”)

• Literal meaning: to think, calculate, reckon, impute, credit to an account.
• Semantic range: an accounting/legal-reckoning term — to attribute something to someone’s account, whether or not it is intrinsically theirs.
• Theological meaning: THE Hebrew source term underlying the doctrine of imputed righteousness as later developed by Paul in Romans 4:3–5, 22–24. Righteousness is credited to Abraham’s account on the basis of trust, not earned by works — the exact forensic, non-meritorious sense the baseline’s Critical-tier imputed_righteousness entry protects.
• French rendering: “imputa” / “compta” — Risk: Critical. This term must connect directly to the baseline’s imputed_righteousness → “justice imputée” and must never be rendered in a way suggesting Abraham’s faith itself was a meritorious work that earned righteousness (the baseline’s explicitly rejected “justice méritée” applies with full force here, since this is the very verse from which that theological principle is drawn). Flag every occurrence for human theologian review.

צְדָקָה (tzedaqah) — “righteousness” — French “justice” — Risk: Critical. Reuses baseline term exactly (righteousness → “justice”; imputed_righteousness → “justice imputée”). This is the OT root of the entire Romans discussion; render with full awareness that this is forensic, credited righteousness, not human moral achievement, per baseline notes.

בְּרִית (berit) — covenant ceremony (15:9–18, the “cutting” of the covenant) — reused from ch.9; French “alliance” — Risk High, as above, with the added note of the vivid Hebrew idiom “to cut a covenant” (karat berit), which French renders idiomatically as “conclure une alliance” rather than a literal “couper.”

Chapter 16 — Hagar and Ishmael

אֵל רֳאִי (El Roi) — “the God who sees me” — French “le Dieu qui me voit” — Risk: Low-Medium. A minor but pastorally significant divine-name/title given by Hagar, an Egyptian slave-woman — an early, striking witness that God’s providential care (see also ch.21) is not limited to the covenant line alone, supporting Common Grace and Providence doctrine.

Chapter 17 — Covenant of Circumcision; name changes

בְּרִית מִילָה (berit milah) — “covenant of circumcision”

• Theological meaning: the sign/seal of the Abrahamic covenant applied to Abraham’s household — later engaged by Paul in Romans 4:9–12 as evidence that righteousness was credited to Abraham before circumcision, making circumcision a sign/seal of a righteousness already received by faith, not its precondition.
• French rendering: “circoncision” — Risk: High. Distinct cultural-context risk in contemporary France: circumcision is also a live subject of secular medical-ethics and religious-liberty public debate (Jewish and Muslim religious circumcision practice, children’s-rights arguments); teaching material should keep the text’s theological function (covenant sign) clearly distinguished from contemporary medical-ethical debates, without either side-stepping or overloading the passage.

עוֹלָם (olam) — “everlasting/perpetual” (17:7, 13, 19, “an everlasting covenant”) — French “alliance perpétuelle/éternelle” — Risk: Medium. Reinforces Covenant Faithfulness across Generations.

אֵל שַׁדַּי (El Shaddai) — “God Almighty” — French “Dieu Tout-Puissant” — Risk: Medium-High. A significant divine title (etymology debated — possibly “God of the mountain” or “God the all-sufficient/almighty”) introduced at a key covenant-renewal moment; the traditional French rendering “Dieu Tout-Puissant” is stable and should be retained, but flag that this is a distinct title from both “Elohim” and “YHWH,” each carrying its own nuance the curriculum should distinguish in teaching notes.

Name changes: אַבְרָם → אַבְרָהָם (Abram → Abraham) and שָׂרַי → שָׂרָה (Sarai → Sarah) — French “Abram → Abraham,” “Saraï → Sara/Sarah” — Risk: Low (stable proper-name transliteration across French Bible traditions), Medium theological note (name changes signal covenant identity transformation — a minor but real echo of the transformation-of-identity theme later developed in the NT, e.g., Peter, Paul).

Chapter 18 — Three visitors; intercession for Sodom

צְדָקָה וּמִשְׁפָּט (tzedaqah u-mishpat) — “righteousness and justice” (18:19) — French “justice et droit/équité” — Risk: High. Reinforces the righteousness vocabulary established in ch.15, now paired with mishpat (“justice,” in the sense of right judicial/social order) — establishing that Abraham’s covenant calling includes practicing justice, not merely receiving credited righteousness passively; care should be taken not to reintroduce a merit-based reading of the Gen 15:6 declaration by conflating the two here.

Chapter 19 — Destruction of Sodom

No new theologically load-bearing terms beyond judgment/curse vocabulary already established (ch.3, 6, 9).

Chapter 20 — Abimelech

No new theologically load-bearing terms.

Chapter 21 — Birth of Isaac; Ishmael sent away

יִצְחָק (Yitzchaq / Isaac) — proper name from the root tsachaq, “to laugh” (referencing Sarah’s laughter, 18:12; 21:6) — French “Isaac” — Risk: Low (stable name); worth a teaching note on the name’s etymological connection to the promise’s seeming impossibility and God’s faithfulness in fulfilling it despite human doubt — reinforcing both Providence and Covenant Faithfulness.

Chapter 22 — The Binding of Isaac

עוֹלָה (olah) — “burnt offering” — French “holocauste / offrande” — Risk: High. Note: modern French “holocauste” carries an overwhelming, unavoidable association with the Shoah (the Holocaust) in contemporary usage; while “holocauste” is the traditional liturgical/theological French term for a whole burnt offering, this curriculum should prefer “offrande” / “sacrifice” in general teaching prose to avoid painful and confusing anachronistic associations for French readers, reserving “holocauste” (if used at all) only with clear technical framing.

יהוה יִרְאֶה (YHWH Yireh) — “the LORD will provide” (22:14)

• Literal meaning: from ra’ah, “to see,” here in a causative sense, “the LORD will see to it / will provide.”
• Theological meaning: a key textual anchor for the doctrine of Providence and the Sovereignty of God — God’s provision is not generic benevolence but specific, timely, sacrificial provision at the point of testing, directly foreshadowing the substitutionary sacrifice motif fulfilled in Christ.
• French rendering: “l’Éternel y pourvoira” / “le Seigneur pourvoira” — Risk: High. This divine name-compound involves the same Critical YHWH-rendering decision noted at Genesis 2:4 above and must be handled consistently with whichever French convention this curriculum adopts for the divine name throughout.

Chapter 23 — Death and burial of Sarah

No new theologically load-bearing terms.

Chapter 24 — Isaac and Rebekah

חֶסֶד (chesed) — “lovingkindness / covenant faithfulness / steadfast love” (24:12, 14, 27, Abraham’s servant’s prayer)

• Literal meaning: loyal love, covenant faithfulness, kindness rooted in relational commitment rather than obligation alone.
• Semantic range: no single French (or English) word fully captures chesed; it combines loyalty, love, mercy, and faithfulness within a covenant relationship.
• Theological meaning: anchors the doctrine of Covenant Faithfulness across Generations — chesed is the term Scripture most often uses for God’s reliable, relational faithfulness to his covenant promises across successive generations of the patriarchal family.
• French rendering: “bonté” / “fidélité” / “amour fidèle” — Risk: High. No single French word is fully adequate; French Bible traditions vary (Segond often “bonté,” TOB/Jérusalem sometimes “fidélité” or “amour” depending on context). This curriculum should adopt a consistent working rendering — recommend “fidélité bienveillante” or context-sensitive “bonté/fidélité” with a standing teaching-note explaining the term’s untranslatable richness — and flag every occurrence for native-speaker review to maintain the term’s full relational-covenantal weight rather than flattening it into either generic “kindness” or dry “faithfulness” alone.

Chapter 25 — Esau and Jacob; the birthright

בְּכֹרָה (bekhorah) — “birthright” — French “droit d’aînesse” — Risk: Medium. The concept of a firstborn’s special inheritance/blessing rights is culturally recognizable in French (historical primogeniture) but largely obsolete in contemporary practice; a brief cultural/historical gloss aids comprehension without needing a different translation.

Chapter 26 — Isaac; covenant renewed

No new theologically load-bearing terms; reuses covenant/blessing vocabulary from chapters 12, 15, 17.

Chapter 27 — Jacob deceives Isaac for the blessing

בְּרָכָה (berakhah) reused (“blessing,” stolen through deception) — French “bénédiction” — Risk: High (as ch.12), with an added teaching-note flag: the narrative does not endorse Jacob’s deception, yet God’s covenant purposes proceed regardless — a delicate point for the doctrine of Providence and Sovereignty of God (God’s purposes are not thwarted by, nor do they morally endorse, human sin).

Chapter 28 — Jacob’s ladder/stairway at Bethel

סֻלָּם (sullam) — “ladder/stairway” — French “échelle” — Risk: Low. בֵּית־אֵל (Beit-El / Bethel) — “house of God” — French “Béthel” (proper name, with the etymological gloss “maison de Dieu”) — Risk: Low; a good teaching-note opportunity connecting to the doctrine of God’s covenant presence extending to successive generations (Jacob renews the promise first made to Abraham).

Chapters 29–30 — Jacob’s marriages and children

No new theologically load-bearing terms beyond established blessing/covenant/name-etymology patterns.

Chapter 31 — Jacob flees Laban

No new theologically load-bearing terms.

Chapter 32 — Jacob wrestles; renamed Israel

יִשְׂרָאֵל (Yisra’el / Israel) — “he struggles/strives with God” (or “God strives,” the etymology is debated but the text itself glosses it as struggling with God and prevailing, 32:28)

• Theological meaning: the pivotal renaming that gives the covenant nation its enduring name — directly continuous with the baseline’s israel entry.
• French rendering: “Israël” — Risk: Medium. Reuses baseline term exactly (israel → “Israël”), including the baseline’s noted caution about contemporary political sensitivity requiring the theological/historical referent to remain unambiguous, distinct from the modern nation-state.

פְּנִיאֵל (Peniel) — “face of God” — French “Péniel” — Risk: Low (proper name); minor theological note on the remarkable claim of having “seen God face to face and survived” (32:30), a strand later developed in the doctrine of God’s transcendence/immanence, not primarily load-bearing for this curriculum’s eight named doctrines.

Chapter 33 — Reconciliation with Esau

No new theologically load-bearing terms.

Chapter 34 — Dinah

No new theologically load-bearing terms.

Chapter 35 — Bethel; Israel confirmed

Reuses “Israël,” “Béthel,” “berakhah” vocabulary already established; no new terms.

Chapter 36 — Esau’s genealogy

Reuses “toledot” (genealogy) pattern from chapter 5; no new theologically load-bearing terms.

Chapter 37 — Joseph sold into slavery

חָלוֹם (chalom) — “dream”

• Literal meaning: a dream, specifically here a revelatory dream communicating God’s purposes.
• Semantic range: ordinary sleep-dreams; divinely-given revelatory dreams (the specific sense throughout the Joseph narrative, chs. 37, 40–41).
• Theological meaning: anchors the doctrine of Joseph and God’s Providence in Suffering — God’s sovereign plan is revealed and worked out through dreams that the narrative repeatedly shows to be reliable divine communication, not superstition.
• French rendering: “songe” — Risk: Medium. French Bible tradition (Segond, TOB, Jérusalem) reserves the more elevated register word “songe” for revelatory/prophetic dreams, distinct from ordinary “rêve” (an everyday dream); using “songe” consistently throughout the Joseph narrative preserves the distinction between a divinely-significant dream and a merely psychological one, a distinction contemporary secular French readers (who default to “rêve” for all dreams) will not supply on their own without this lexical signal.

Chapter 38 — Judah and Tamar

צָדְקָה (tzadqah) — “she was more righteous” (38:26) — reuses the righteousness root from chapters 15/18 — French “justice” — Risk: High (same considerations as ch.15); note the striking narrative use of righteousness-language applied comparatively within a morally compromised episode — a useful teaching moment on righteousness as right-standing/right-conduct relative to covenant obligation, distinct from sinless perfection.

Chapter 39 — Joseph in Egypt

No new theologically load-bearing terms; reuses Providence-adjacent narrative themes (the text notes repeatedly “the LORD was with Joseph,” reusing YHWH vocabulary established at Gen 2:4).

Chapter 40 — Joseph interprets dreams in prison

פָּתַר / פִּתְרוֹן (patar / pitron) — “interpret / interpretation” — French “interpréter” / “interprétation” — Risk: Low-Medium. Reinforces that dream-interpretation in this narrative is credited explicitly to God (41:16, “It is not I; God will give the answer”), not to Joseph’s innate skill or occult divination — an important distinction for the Providence doctrine, guarding against a magical or fortune-telling misreading (paralleling the baseline’s caution about prophet/“prophète” not being confused with fortune-tellers).

Chapter 41 — Joseph rises to power in Egypt

Reuses “chalom” (dream) and “ruach Elohim” (Spirit of God, 41:38, of Joseph) vocabulary already established; no new theologically load-bearing terms.

Chapters 42–45 — Joseph and his brothers reconcile

שָׁלוֹם (shalom) — “peace/well-being/wholeness”

• Literal meaning: peace, wholeness, completeness, well-being, welfare.
• Semantic range: absence of conflict; holistic flourishing; a greeting/farewell.
• Theological meaning: appears in the reconciliation narrative in a relational, restorative sense; connects to the baseline’s peace → “paix” (εἰρήνη), though shalom’s semantic range is broader than the specifically forensic “peace with God” sense the baseline documents for Romans 5:1.
• French rendering: “paix” — Risk: Low-Medium. Reuses baseline term (peace → “paix”) for the relational/restorative sense here; flag the broader semantic range of shalom versus the baseline’s narrower Romans 5:1 “peace with God” usage so teaching material does not conflate the two without comment.

Chapters 46–47 — Jacob’s family settles in Egypt

No new theologically load-bearing terms; reuses covenant/blessing/toledot vocabulary already established.

Chapter 48 — Jacob blesses Joseph’s sons

Reuses “berakhah” (blessing) vocabulary; no new theologically load-bearing terms.

Chapter 49 — Jacob’s blessing on the twelve sons

שִׁילֹה (Shiloh) — a difficult, much-debated term/name in Judah’s blessing (49:10), traditionally read messianically (“until Shiloh comes” or “until he comes to whom it belongs”)

• Theological meaning: widely read in Jewish and Christian interpretive tradition as an early messianic prophecy concerning the ruler who will come from Judah’s line — continuous with the “seed” (zera) promise-thread from Genesis 3:15 and the Davidic Covenant material the baseline documents extensively for Romans 1:3.
• French rendering: “Shiloh” (transliterated, with interpretive gloss) — Risk: High. The term’s obscurity and interpretive difficulty in Hebrew itself (not merely a translation problem) means French rendering should transliterate and gloss rather than resolve the debate by translation choice; flag for human theologian review given its direct connection to messianic-promise doctrine (the baseline’s messiah and davidic_covenant entries, both High/Critical risk).

שֵׁבֶט (shevet) — “staff/scepter/tribe” — French “sceptre / tribu” (context-dependent) — Risk: Medium; reinforces royal/messianic expectation associated with Judah’s line, later fulfilled in David and ultimately Christ.

Chapter 50 — Joseph’s death; “God meant it for good”

חָשַׁב (chashab) — “meant/planned/reckoned” (50:20, “you meant evil against me, but God meant/planned it for good”)

• Theological meaning: the capstone text for the doctrine of Joseph and God’s Providence in Suffering, and — strikingly — the very same Hebrew root (chashab) used in Genesis 15:6 for God’s “reckoning/crediting” righteousness to Abraham. This lexical connection allows a rich curriculum-level teaching point: the same divine “reckoning” that credits righteousness to the believer in Genesis 15 is the God who sovereignly “reckons”/directs even human evil toward his good purposes in Genesis 50 — one divine mind, purposefully governing both salvation-status and providential circumstance.
• French rendering: “Dieu l’a changé en bien” / “Dieu l’avait décidé/prévu en bien” — Risk: High. Recommend the traditional French idiom (Segond: “Dieu l’a changé en bien”) for readability, while flagging for teaching notes the deeper lexical connection to chashab at Genesis 15:6 — a connection likely lost in any natural French rendering (since French uses different verbs for “changer en bien” versus “imputer/compter” at 15:6) and therefore a case where the doctrinal connection must be supplied by teaching material rather than recoverable from the French translation alone.

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End of semantic analysis. Proceed to 08_core_glossary.md for the consolidated per-term glossary table.