World English Bible · The patriarchs
Genesis 39
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was brought down to . , an officer of , the captain of the guard, an , bought him from the hand of the that had brought him down there. was with , and he was a prosperous man. He was in the house of his master the . His master saw that was with him, and that made all that he did prosper in his hand. in his sight. He ministered to him, and made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand. From the time that he made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, the house for sake. was on all that he had, in the house and in the field. He left all that he had in hand. He didn't concern himself with anything, except for the food which he ate. was well-built and handsome. After these things, his master's wife set her eyes on ; and she said, "Lie with me." But he refused, and said to his master's wife, "Behold, my master doesn't know what is with me in the house, and he has put all that he has into my hand. No one is greater in this house than I am, and he has not kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and against ?" As she spoke to day by day, he didn't listen to her, to lie by her, or to be with her. About this time, he went into the house to do his work, and there were none of the men of the house inside. She caught him by his garment, saying, "Lie with me!" He left his garment in her hand, and ran outside. 13When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and had run outside, she called to the men of her house, and spoke to them, saying, "Behold, he has brought a in to us to mock us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice. 15When he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment by me, and ran outside." She laid up his garment by her, until his master came home. She spoke to him according to these words, saying, "The servant, whom you have brought to us, came in to me to mock me, 18and as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment by me, and ran outside." When his master heard the words of his wife, which she spoke to him, saying, "This is what did to me," his was kindled. master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were bound, and he was there in custody. But was with , and showed kindness to him, and gave him in the sight of the keeper of the prison. The keeper of the prison committed to hand all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever they did there, he was responsible for it. The keeper of the prison didn't look after anything that was under his hand, because was with him; and that which he did, made it prosper.
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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