King James Version · The patriarchs
Genesis 18
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And appeared unto him in the plains of : and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, 3And said, My , if now I have found in thy sight, pass not away, I thee, from thy servant: Let a little water, I you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your ; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to . And they said, So do, as thou hast said. And hastened into the tent unto , and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth. And ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat. And they said unto him, Where is thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent. And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, thy wife shall have a son. And heard it in the tent door, which was behind him. Now and were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with after the manner of women. Therefore laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my being old also? And said unto , Wherefore did laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old? Is any thing too hard for ? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and shall have a son. Then denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh. And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward : and went with them to bring them on . And said, Shall I hide from that thing which I do; Seeing that shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep of , to do and ; that may bring upon that which he hath spoken of him. And said, Because the cry of and is great, and because their is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward : but stood yet before . And drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy with ? Peradventure there be fifty within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to with : and that should be as , that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? And said, If I find in fifty within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. And answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto , which am but : Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty : wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it. And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty’s sake. And he said unto him, Oh let not be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto : Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty’s sake. And he said, Oh let not be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake. And went his way, as soon as he had left communing with : and returned unto his place.
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