World English Bible · The patriarchs
Genesis 34
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, the daughter of , whom she bore to , went out to see the daughters of the land. the , the prince of the land, saw her. He took her, lay with her, and humbled her. His joined to , the daughter of , and he loved the young lady, and spoke kindly to the young lady. spoke to his , , saying, "Get me this young lady as a wife." Now heard that he had defiled , his daughter; and his sons were with his livestock in the field. held his peace until they came. 6 of went out to to talk with him. The sons of came in from the field when they heard it. The men were grieved, and they were very angry, because he had done folly in Israel in lying with daughter, a thing that ought not to be done. talked with them, saying, "The of my son, , longs for your daughter. Please give her to him as a wife. Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves. You shall with us, and the land will be before you. Live and trade in it, and get possessions in it." said to her and to her brothers, "Let me find in your eyes, and whatever you will tell me I will give. Ask me a great amount for a dowry, and I will give whatever you ask of me, but give me the young lady as a wife." The sons of answered and his with deceit when they spoke, because he had defiled their sister, and said to them, "We can't do this thing, to give our sister to one who is ; for that is a to us. Only on this condition will we consent to you. If you will be as we are, that every male of you be , 16then will we give our daughters to you; and we will take your daughters to us, and we will with you, and we will become one people. 17But if you will not listen to us and be , then we will take our sister, and we will be gone." 18Their words pleased and , son. The young man didn't wait to do this thing, because he had delight in daughter, and he was above all the house of his . and , his son, came to the of their city, and talked with the men of their city, saying, 21"These men are peaceful with us. Therefore let them live in the land and trade in it. For behold, the land is large enough for them. Let's take their daughters to us for wives, and let's give them our daughters. 22Only on this condition will the men consent to us to live with us, to become one people, if every male among us is , as they are . Won't their livestock and their possessions and all their animals be ours? Only let's give our consent to them, and they will with us." All who went out of the of his city listened to , and to his son; and every male was , all who went out of the of his city. On the third day, when they were sore, two of sons, and , brothers, each took his , came upon the unsuspecting city, and killed all the males. They killed and , his son, with the edge of , and took out of house, and went away. sons came on , and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister. They took their flocks, their herds, their donkeys, that which was in the city, that which was in the field, 29and all their wealth. They took all their little ones and their wives, and took as plunder everything that was in the house. said to and , "You have troubled me, to make me odious to the inhabitants of the land, among and the . I am few in number. They will gather themselves together against me and strike me, and I will be destroyed, I and my house." They said, "Should he deal with our sister as with a ?"
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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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