King James Version · The patriarchs
Genesis 46
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And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer–sheba, and offered unto the of his . And spake unto Israel in the of the night, and said, , . And he said, Here am I. And he said, I am , the of thy : fear not to go down into ; for I will there make of thee a great nation: I will go down with thee into ; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and shall put his hand upon thine eyes. And rose up from Beer–sheba: and the carried their , and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which had sent to carry him. And they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of , and came into , , and all with him: 7His sons, and his sons’ sons with him, his daughters, and his sons’ daughters, and all brought he with him into . And these are the names of the , which came into , and his sons: , ’s . 9And the sons of ; , and Phallu, and , and . And the sons of ; Jemuel, and , and Ohad, and , and , and the son of a Canaanitish woman. And the ; , , and . And the sons of Judah; , and , and , and Pharez, and : but and in the land of . And the sons of Pharez were and . And the sons of ; Tola, and Phuvah, and , and . And the sons of ; Sered, and , and Jahleel. These be the sons of , which she unto in Padan–aram, with his daughter : all the of his sons and his daughters were thirty and three. And the sons of Gad; Ziphion, and Haggi, Shuni, and Ezbon, Eri, and Arodi, and Areli. And the sons of Asher; Jimnah, and Ishuah, and Isui, and , and their sister: and the sons of ; , and . These are the sons of , whom gave to his daughter, and these she unto , even sixteen . The sons of ’s wife; , and . And unto in the land of were born and , which the daughter of Poti–pherah unto him. And the sons of were Belah, and , and , , and , Ehi, and , Muppim, and , and Ard. 22These are the sons of , which were born to : all the were fourteen. And the sons of Dan; . And the sons of ; , and , and , and . These are the sons of , which gave unto his daughter, and she these unto : all the were seven. All the that came with into , which came out of his loins, besides ’s sons’ wives, all the were threescore and six; And the , which were born him in , were two : all the of the house of , which came into , were threescore and ten. And he sent Judah before him unto , to direct unto ; and they came into the land of . And made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his , to , and presented himself unto him; and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. And Israel said unto , Now let me , since I have seen thy , because thou art yet alive. And said unto his brethren, and unto his ’s house, I will go up, and shew , and say unto him, My brethren, and ’s house, which were in the land of , are come unto me; And the men are , for their trade hath been to feed cattle; and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have. And it shall come to pass, when shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation? That ye shall say, Thy servants’ trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may in the land of ; for every is an unto the .
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. 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