World English Bible · The patriarchs
Genesis 49
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called to his sons, and said: "Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which will happen to you in the . Assemble yourselves, and hear, you sons of . Listen to Israel, your . ", you are my , my might, and the beginning of my strength, excelling in dignity, and excelling in . Boiling over like water, you shall not excel, because you went up to your bed, then defiled it. He went up to my couch. " and are brothers. Their are weapons of . , don't come into their council. My , don't be united to their ; for in their they killed men. In their self-will they hamstrung cattle. be their , for it was fierce; and their , for it was cruel. I will divide them in , and scatter them in Israel. "Judah, your brothers will you. Your hand will be on the neck of your . Your sons will before you. Judah is a lion's cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion, as a lioness. Who will rouse him up? The will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs. The of the peoples will be to him. Binding his foal to , his donkey's colt to the choice , he has washed his garments in , his robes in of grapes. 12His eyes will be red with , his teeth white with milk. " will at the haven of the sea. He will be for a haven of ships. His border will be on . " is a strong donkey, lying down between the saddlebags. He saw a , that it was good, the land, that it was pleasant. He bows his shoulder to the burden, and becomes a servant doing forced labor. "Dan will judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan will be a on the trail, an adder in , that bites the horse's heels, so that his rider falls backward. I have waited for your , . "A troop will press on Gad, but he will press on their heel. "Asher's food will be rich. He will produce royal dainties. " is a doe , who bears beautiful fawns. " is a fruitful , a fruitful by a spring. His run over the wall. The archers have severely grieved him, shot at him, and persecuted him: But his bow remained strong. The arms of his hands were made strong, by the hands of the Mighty One of , (from there is the , the stone of Israel), even by the of your , who will help you, by , who will you, with of above, of the deep that lies below, of the breasts, and of the . The of your have prevailed above the of my ancestors, above the boundaries of the ancient hills. They will be on the head of , on the of the head of him who is separated from his brothers. " is a ravenous wolf. In the morning he will devour the prey. At evening he will divide the plunder." All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their spoke to them, and them. He everyone according to his own . He instructed them, and said to them, "I am to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of the , in the cave that is in the field of , which is before , in the land of , which bought with the field from the as a . There they buried and , his wife. There they buried and , his wife, and there I buried : the field and the cave that is therein, which was purchased from the children of ." When finished charging his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, breathed his last breath, and was gathered to his people.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. 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.
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