World English Bible · The patriarchs
Genesis 26
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There was a in the land, in addition to the first that was in the days of . went to king of the , to . appeared to him, and said, "Don't go down into . Live in the land I will tell you about. Live in this land, and I will be with you, and will you. For I will give to you, and to , all these lands, and I will establish the which I to your . I will multiply as the stars of , and will give all these lands to . In all the nations of the earth will be , because , and kept my requirements, my , , and my laws." lived in . The men of the place asked him about his wife. He said, "She is my sister," for he was afraid to say, "My wife", lest, he thought, "the men of the place might kill me for , because she is beautiful to look at." When he had been there a long time, king of the looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, was caressing , his wife. 9 called , and said, "Behold, surely she is your wife. Why did you say, 'She is my sister'?" said to him, "Because I said, 'Lest I because of her.'" said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought on us!" commanded all the people, saying, "He who touches this man or his wife will surely be put to ." sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year one hundred times what he planted. him. The man grew great, and grew more and more until he became very great. He had possessions of flocks, possessions of herds, and a great household. The envied him. Now all the wells which his servants had dug in the days of his , the had stopped, and filled with earth. said to , "Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we." 17 departed from there, encamped in the valley of , and lived there. dug again the wells of water, which they had dug in the days of his , for the had stopped them after the of . He called their names after the names by which his had called them. servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of flowing water. The herdsmen of argued with herdsmen, saying, "The water is ours." So he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him. They dug another well, and they argued over that, also. So he called its name Sitnah. He left that place, and dug another well. They didn't argue over that one. So he called it Rehoboth. He said, "For now has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land." He went up from there to . appeared to him the same night, and said, "I am the of your . Don't be afraid, for I am with you, and will you, and multiply for my servant sake." He built an there, and called on name, and pitched his tent there. There servants dug a well. Then went to him from with Ahuzzath his friend, and the captain of his army. said to them, "Why have you come to me, since you hate me, and have sent me away from you?" They said, "We saw plainly that was with you. We said, 'Let there now be an between us, even between us and you, and let's make a with you, that you will do us no harm, as we have not touched you, and as we have done to you nothing but good, and have sent you away in peace.' You are now the of ." He made them a feast, and they ate and drank. They rose up some time in the morning, and an to one another. sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. The same day, servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had dug, and said to him, "We have found water." He called it "Shibah". Therefore the name of the city is "" to this day. When was forty years old, he took as wife , the daughter of the , and , the daughter of the . They grieved and spirits.
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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.
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