World English Bible · The patriarchs
Genesis 35
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said to , "Arise, go up to , and live there. Make there an to , who appeared to you when you fled from the of your brother." Then said to his household, and to all who were with him, " the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments. Let's arise, and go up to . I will make there an to , who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me on which I went." They gave to all the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the rings which were in their ears; and hid them under the oak which was by . They traveled, and a terror of was on the cities that were around them, and they didn't pursue the sons of . So came to (that is, ), which is in the land of , he and all the people who were with him. He built an there, and called the place El Beth El; because there was to him, when he fled from the of his brother. , nurse, , and she was buried below under the oak; and its name was called Allon Bacuth. appeared to again, when he came from , and him. said to him, "Your name is . Your name shall not be any more, but your name will be Israel." He named him Israel. said to him, "I am . Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations will be from you, and kings will come out of your body. The land which I gave to and , I will give it to you, and to after you I will give the land." went up from him in the place where he spoke with him. set up a pillar in the place where he spoke with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink on it, and poured oil on it. called the name of the place where spoke with him "". They traveled from . There was still some distance to come to , and travailed. She had hard labor. When she was in hard labor, the midwife said to her, "Don't be afraid, for now you will have another son." As her was departing (for she ), she named him Benoni, but his named him . , and was buried on to (also called ). set up a pillar on her . The same is of to this day. Israel traveled, and spread his tent beyond the tower of . While Israel lived in that land, went and lay with , his , and Israel heard of it. Now the sons of were twelve. The sons of : ( ), , , Judah, , and . The sons of : and . The sons of ( servant): Dan and . The sons of ( servant): Gad and Asher. These are the sons of , who were born to him in . came to his , to , to (which is ), where and lived as . The days of were one hundred eighty years. gave up and , and was gathered to his people, old and full of days. and , his sons, .
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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.
All of Genesis