World English Bible · The patriarchs
Genesis 28
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called , him, and commanded him, "You shall not take a wife of the daughters of . Arise, go to , to the house of your mother's . Take a wife from there from the daughters of , your mother's brother. May you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, that you may be a company of peoples, and give you the of , to you and to with you, that you may the land where you travel, which gave to ." 5 sent away. He went to to , son of the , the brother of , and mother. Now saw that had and sent him away to , to take him a wife from there, and that as he him he gave him a command, saying, "You shall not take a wife of the daughters of ;" and that his and his mother, and was gone to . saw that the daughters of didn't please , his . So went to , and took, in addition to the wives that he had, the daughter of , son, the sister of , to be his wife. went out from , and went toward . He came to a certain place, and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. He took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep. He dreamed and saw a stairway set upon the earth, and its top reached to . Behold, the of were ascending and descending on it. Behold, stood above it, and said, "I am , the of your , and the of . I will give the land you lie on to you and to . will be as of the earth, and you will spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. In you and in , all the families of the earth will be . Behold, I am with you, and will keep you, wherever you go, and will bring you again into this land. For I will not leave you until I have done that which I have spoken of to you." awakened out of his sleep, and he said, "Surely is in this place, and I didn't know it." He was afraid, and said, "How awesome this place is! This is none other than house, and this is the of ." rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on its top. He called the name of that place , but the name of the city was at the first. a , saying, "If will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and clothing to put on, so that I come again to house in peace, and will be my , then this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, will be house. Of all that you will give me I will surely give a tenth to you."
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. 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