King James Version · The patriarchs
Genesis 17
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And when was ninety years old and nine, appeared to , and said unto him, I am ; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And fell on : and talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my is with thee, and thou shalt be a of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called , but thy name shall be ; for a of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my between me and thee and thy after thee in their generations for an , to be a unto thee, and to thy after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy after thee, the land wherein thou art a , all the land of , for an possession; and I will be their . And said unto , Thou shalt keep my therefore, thou, and thy after thee in their generations. This is my , which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy after thee; Every man child among you shall be . And ye shall circumcise of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any , which is not of thy . He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be : and my shall be in your for an . And the man child whose of his foreskin is not , that from his people; he hath broken my . And said unto , As for thy wife, thou shalt not call her name , but shall her name be. And her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. Then fell upon , and laughed, and said in , Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall , that is ninety years old, bear? And said unto , O that might live before thee! And said, thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name : and I will establish my with him for an , and with after him. And as for , I have heard thee: Behold, I have him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my will I establish with , which shall bear unto thee at this in the next year. And he left off talking with him, and went up from . And took his son, and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of ’s house; and of their foreskin in the selfsame day, as had said unto him. And was ninety years old and nine, when he was in of his foreskin. 25And his son was thirteen years old, when he was in of his foreskin. In the selfsame day was , and his son. And all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with money of the , were with him.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. 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