King James Version · The patriarchs
Genesis 23
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1And was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of . And in Kirjath–arba; the same is in the land of : and came to mourn for , and to weep for her. And stood up from before his , and spake unto the sons of , saying, I am a and a with you: give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my out of my sight. 5And the children of answered , saying unto him, Hear us, my : thou art a mighty prince among us: in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy ; none of us shall withhold from thee his , but that thou mayest bury thy . And stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of . And he communed with them, saying, If it be that I should bury my out of my sight; hear me, and intreat for me to the son of , That he may give me the cave of , which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me for a possession of a buryingplace amongst you. And dwelt among the children of : and the answered in the audience of the children of , even of all that went in at the of his city, saying, Nay, my , hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the of the sons of my people give I it thee: bury thy . And himself before the people of the land. And he spake unto in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I thee, hear me: I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my there. 14And answered , saying unto him, My , unto me: the land is worth four hundred of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy . And hearkened unto ; and weighed to the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of , four hundred of silver, current money with the merchant. And the field of , which was in , which was before , the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure Unto for a possession in the of the children of , before all that went in at the of his city. And after this, buried his wife in the cave of the field of before : the same is in the land of . And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto for a possession of a buryingplace by the sons of .
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