King James Version · The patriarchs
Genesis 47
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Then came and told , and said, and my brethren, and their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have, are come out of the land of ; and, behold, they are in the land of . And he took some of his brethren, even five men, and presented them unto . And said unto his brethren, What is your occupation? And they said unto , Thy servants are , both we, and also our fathers. They said moreover unto , For to sojourn in the land are we come; for thy servants have no pasture for their flocks; for the is sore in the land of : now therefore, we thee, let thy servants in the land of . 5And spake unto , saying, Thy and thy brethren are come unto thee: The land of is before thee; in the best of the land make thy and brethren to ; in the land of let them : and if thou knowest any men of activity among them, then make them over my cattle. And brought in his , and set him before : and . 8And said unto , How old art thou? And said unto , The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. And , and went out from before . And placed his and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of , in the best of the land, in the land of , as had commanded. And nourished his , and his brethren, and all his ’s household, with bread, according to their families. And there was in all the land; for the was very sore, so that the land of and all the land of fainted by reason of the . And gathered up all the money that was found in the land of , and in the land of , for the corn which they bought: and brought the money into ’s house. And when money failed in the land of , and in the land of , all the came unto , and said, Give us bread: for why should we in thy ? for the money faileth. And said, Give your cattle; and I will give you for your cattle, if money fail. And they brought their cattle unto : and gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and for the asses: and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year. When that year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said unto him, We will not hide it from my , how that our money is spent; my also hath our herds of cattle; there is not ought left in the sight of my , but our bodies, and our lands: Wherefore shall we before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto : and give us , that we may live, and not , that the land be not desolate. 20And bought all the land of for ; for the sold every man his field, because the prevailed over them: so the land became ’s. And as for the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the borders of even to the other end thereof. Only the land of the priests bought he not; for the priests had a assigned them of , and did eat their which gave them: wherefore they sold not their lands. Then said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for : lo, here is for you, and ye shall sow the land. And it shall come to pass in the increase, that ye shall give the fifth part unto , and four parts shall be your own, for of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones. And they said, Thou hast our lives: let us find in the sight of my , and we will be ’s servants. And made it a law over the land of unto this day, that should have the fifth part; except the land of the priests only, which became not ’s. And Israel dwelt in the land of , in the country of ; and they had possessions therein, and grew, and multiplied exceedingly. And lived in the land of seventeen years: so the whole age of was an hundred forty and seven years. And the time drew nigh that Israel must : and he called his son , and said unto him, If now I have found in thy sight, put, I thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I thee, in : But I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of , and bury me in their buryingplace. And he said, I will do as thou hast said. And he said, unto me. And he sware unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s head.
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