World English Bible · The patriarchs
Genesis 19
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The two came to at evening. sat in the of . saw them, and rose up to meet them. He bowed himself with to the earth, and he said, "See now, my lords, please come into house, stay all night, wash your feet, and you can rise up early, and go on your way." They said, "No, but we will stay in the street all night." He urged them greatly, and they came in with him, and entered into his house. He made them a feast, and baked , and they ate. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of , surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter. They called to , and said to him, "Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them." went out to them through the door, and shut the door after himself. He said, "Please, my brothers, don't act so wickedly. See now, I have two virgin daughters. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them what seems good to you. Only don't do anything to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof." They said, "Stand back!" Then they said, "This one fellow came in to live as a , and he appoints himself a judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them!" They pressed hard on the man , and came near to break the door. 10But the men reached out their hand, and brought into the house to them, and shut the door. They struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door. The men said to , "Do you have anybody else here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whomever you have in the city, bring them out of the place: for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown so great before that has sent us to destroy it." went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters, and said, "Get up! Get out of this place, for will destroy the city!" But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking. When the morning came, then the hurried , saying, "Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the of the city." But he lingered; and the men grabbed his hand, his wife's hand, and his two daughters' hands, being merciful to him; and they took him out, and set him outside of the city. It came to pass, when they had taken them out, that he said, "Escape for your life! Don't look behind you, and don't stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed!" said to them, "Oh, not so, my . See now, has in your sight, and you have magnified your , which you have shown to me in saving my life. I can't escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I . See now, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape there (isn't it a little one?), and will live." He said to him, "Behold, I have granted your request concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there, for I can't do anything until you get there." Therefore the name of the city was called . 23The sun had on the earth when came to . Then rained on and on sulfur and from out of . He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground. But wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. went up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before . He looked toward and , and toward all the land of the plain, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace. When destroyed the cities of the plain, remembered , and sent out of the middle of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which lived. went up out of , and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in . He lived in a cave with his two daughters. said to the younger, " is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in to us in of all the earth. Come, let's make drink , and we will lie with him, that we may preserve family line." They made their drink that night: and went in, and lay with her . He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she arose. It came to pass on the next day, that said to the younger, "Behold, I lay last night with . Let's make him drink again tonight. You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve family line." They made their drink that night also. The younger went and lay with him. He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she got up. Thus both of daughters were with child by their . bore a son, and named him . He is of the to this day. The younger also bore a son, and called his name Ben Ammi. He is of to this day.
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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