World English Bible · The patriarchs
Genesis 15
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After these things word came to in a , saying, "Don't be afraid, . I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward." said, " , what will you give me, since I go , and he who will my estate is of ?" said, "Behold, you have given to me: and, behold, one born in my house is my ." Behold, word came to him, saying, "This man will not be your , but he who will come out of your own body will be your ." brought him outside, and said, "Look now toward , and count the stars, if you are able to count them." He said to , "So will be." He in , who credited it to him for . He said to , "I am who brought you out of of the Chaldees, to give you this land to it." He said, " , how will I know that I will it?" He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." He brought him all these, and divided them in the middle, and laid each half opposite the other; but he didn't divide the birds. The birds of prey came down on the carcasses, and drove them away. When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on . Now terror and great fell on him. He said to , "Know for sure that will live as in a land that is not theirs, and will them. They will afflict them four hundred years. I will also judge that nation, whom they will . Afterward they will come out with great wealth; but you will go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation they will come here again, for the of the is not yet full." It came to pass that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. In that day made a with , saying, "I have given this land to , from the river of to the great river, the river : the land of the , the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the , the , the , the , , the , and the ."
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