World English Bible · The patriarchs
Genesis 14
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In the days of , king of ; , king of Ellasar; , king of ; and , king of Goiim, they made war with , king of ; , king of ; Shinab, king of Admah; Shemeber, king of Zeboiim; and the king of (also called ). All these joined together in the valley of Siddim (also called ). They for twelve years, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. In the fourteenth year and the kings who were with him came and struck the in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzim in , the in Shaveh , and the Horites in their Mount , to El , which is by . They returned, and came to En Mishpat (also called ), and struck all the country of , and also the , that lived in Hazazon . The king of , and the king of , the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of (also called ) went out; and they set the battle in array against them in the valley of Siddim 9against king of , king of Goiim, king of , and king of Ellasar; four kings against the five. Now the valley of Siddim was full of tar pits; and the kings of and fled, and some fell there. Those who remained fled to the hills. They took all the goods of and , and all their food, and went their way. They took , brother's son, who lived in , and his goods, and departed. One who had escaped came and told , the . At that time, he lived by the oaks of , the , brother of and brother of . They were allies of . When heard that his relative was taken , he led out his three hundred eighteen trained men, born in his house, and pursued as far as Dan. He divided himself against them by night, he and his servants, and struck them, and pursued them to Hobah, which is on the left hand of . He brought back all the goods, and also brought back his relative and his goods, and the women also, and the other people. The king of went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of and the kings who were with him, at the valley of Shaveh (that is, the King's Valley). king of brought out bread and . He was priest of . He him, and said, " be of , possessor of and earth. be , who has your into your hand." gave him a tenth of all. 21The king of said to , "Give me the people, and take the goods for yourself." said to the king of , "I have lifted up my hand to , , possessor of and earth, that I will not take a thread nor a strap nor anything that is yours, lest you should say, 'I have made rich.' I will accept nothing from you except that which the young men have eaten, and the of the men who went with me: , , and . Let them take their ."
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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.
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