World English Bible · The patriarchs
Genesis 16
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Now , wife, bore him . She had a servant, an , whose name was . said to , "See now, has restrained me from bearing. Please go in to my servant. It may be that I will obtain children by her." listened to the voice of . , wife, took the , her servant, after had lived ten years in the land of , and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He went in to , and she conceived. When she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. said to , "This wrong is your fault. I gave my servant into your , and when she saw that she had conceived, she despised me. May judge between me and you." But said to , "Behold, your maid is in your hand. Do to her whatever is good in your eyes." dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her . found her by a fountain of water in , by the fountain on to . He said, ", servant, where did you come from? Where are you going?" She said, "I am fleeing from the of my mistress ." said to her, "Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hands." said to her, "I will greatly multiply , that they will not be counted for multitude." said to her, "Behold, you are with child, and will bear a son. You shall call his name , because has heard your affliction. He will be like a wild donkey among men. His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him. He will live opposed to all of his brothers." She called the name of who spoke to her, "You are a who sees," for she said, "Have I even stayed alive after seeing him?" Therefore the well was called Beer Lahai Roi. Behold, it is between and . bore a son for . called the name of his son, whom bore, . 16 was eighty-six years old when bore to .
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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.
All of Genesis