World English Bible · The patriarchs
Genesis 12
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Now said to , "Leave your country, and your relatives, and your house, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation. you and make your name great. You will be a . those who you, and I will him who treats you with contempt. All the families of the earth will be through you." So went, as had told him. went with him. was seventy-five years old when he departed from . took his wife, his brother's son, all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in , and they went to go into the land of . They entered into the land of . passed through the land to the place of , to the oak of Moreh. At that time, were in the land. appeared to and said, "I will give this land to ." He built an there to , who had appeared to him. He left from there to go to the mountain on the east of and pitched his tent, having on the west, and on the east. There he built an to and called on name. traveled, still going on toward the South. There was a in the land. went down into to live as a there, for the was severe in the land. When he had come near to enter , he said to his wife, "See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman to look at. It will happen that when the see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' They will kill me, but they will you alive. Please say that you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that may live because of you." When had come into , some saw that the woman was very beautiful. The princes of saw her, and praised her to ; and the woman was taken into house. He dealt well with for her sake. He had sheep, cattle, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels. afflicted and his house with great plagues because of , wife. called and said, "What is this that you have done to me? Why didn't you tell me that she was your wife? 19Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her to be my wife? Now therefore, see your wife, take her, and go your way." commanded men concerning him, and they escorted him away with his wife and all that he had.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The patriarchs, 2000 BC to 1600 BC ›
Abraham's family as herdsmen among settled Canaanite city-states, in a world where Egypt and Mesopotamia are the great powers and Canaan is the corridor between them.
- Mesopotamia
- Abraham's own century is Hammurabi's. The great empire of Ur has already fallen, and Babylon rises under a king who published a law code on a stone pillar for everyone to see. Reading Genesis alongside Hammurabi's laws is illuminating in both directions: some provisions are strikingly similar, and the places where Israel's later law diverges are the places worth stopping at.
- Egypt
- The Middle Kingdom, wealthy, bureaucratic, and organised around the Nile flood. Egyptian tomb paintings from this period show Semitic traders arriving with donkeys and striped cloaks, which is more or less the picture Genesis gives of a family going down to Egypt in a famine. Toward the end of the era the Hyksos, rulers of Semitic origin, take the delta.
- Anatolia and the Aegean
- Assyrian merchants run a long-distance trading colony at Kanesh in Anatolia, leaving thousands of clay letters about copper, tin, and debt. On Crete the Minoan palaces are at their height, with plumbing, frescoes, and a script nobody has yet read.
- Further afield
- The Indus Valley cities are in decline after centuries of grid-planned streets and drains. In China the Erlitou culture is building the first palace complexes. Stonehenge is standing and already old.
All of Genesis