World English Bible · The patriarchs
Genesis 33
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, was coming, and with him four hundred men. He divided the children between , , and the two servants. He put the servants and their children in front, and her children after, and and at the rear. He himself passed over in front of them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. ran to meet him, embraced him, fell on his neck, kissed him, and they wept. He lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, "Who are these with you?" He said, "The children whom has graciously given ." 6Then the servants came near with their children, and they bowed themselves. 7 also and her children came near, and bowed themselves. After them, came near with , and they bowed themselves. said, "What do you mean by all this company which I met?" said, "To find in the sight of my ." said, "I have enough, my brother; let that which you have be yours." said, "Please, no, if I have now in your sight, then receive my present at my hand, because I have seen your , as one sees the of , and you were pleased with me. Please take the gift that I brought to you, because has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough." He urged him, and he took it. 12 said, "Let's take our journey, and let's go, and I will go before you." said to him, "My knows that the children are tender, and that the flocks and herds with me have their young, and if they overdrive them one day, all the flocks will . Please let my pass over before his servant, and I will lead on gently, according to the pace of the livestock that are before me and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my to ." said, "Let me now leave with you some of the people who are with me." He said, "Why? Let me find in the sight of my ." 16So returned that day on his way to . traveled to , built himself a house, and made shelters for his livestock. Therefore the name of the place is called . came in peace to the city of , which is in the land of , when he came from ; and encamped before the city. He bought the parcel of ground where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of , , for one hundred pieces of money. He erected an there, and called it El Elohe Israel.
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