World English Bible · The patriarchs
Genesis 50
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fell on his , wept on him, and kissed him. commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his ; and the physicians embalmed Israel. Forty days were used for him, for that is how many days it takes to embalm. The wept for Israel for seventy days. When the days of weeping for him were past, spoke to , saying, "If now I have in your eyes, please speak in the ears of , saying, ' made me , saying, "Behold, I am dying. Bury me in my which I have dug for myself in the land of ." Now therefore, please let me go up and bury , and I will come again.'" said, "Go up, and bury your , like he made you ." went up to bury his ; and with him went up all the servants of , the of his house, all the of the land of , all the , his brothers, and his house. Only their little ones, their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of . Both chariots and horsemen went up with him. It was a very great company. They came to the of Atad, which is beyond , and there they with a very great and severe . He mourned for his seven days. When the inhabitants of the land, , saw the in the floor of Atad, they said, "This is a grievous by the ." Therefore its name was called , which is beyond . His sons did to him as he commanded them, for his sons carried him into the land of , and in the cave of the field of , which bought with the field, as a possession for a burial site, from the , near . 14 returned into —he, and his brothers, and all that went up with him to bury his , after he had buried his . When brothers saw that their was , they said, "It may be that will hate us, and will fully pay us back for all the evil which we did to him." They sent a message to , saying, "Your commanded before he , saying, 'You shall tell , "Now please forgive the of your brothers, and their , because they did evil to you."' Now, please forgive the of the servants of the of your ." wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also went and fell down before ; and they said, "Behold, we are your servants." said to them, "Don't be afraid, for am I in the place of ? As for you, you meant evil against me, but meant it for good, to many people alive, as is happening today. Now therefore don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones." He comforted them, and spoke kindly to them. 22 lived in , he, and his house. lived one hundred ten years. saw children to the third generation. The children also of , the son of , were born on knees. said to his brothers, "I am dying, but will surely visit you, and bring you up out of this land to the land which he to , to , and to ." took an from the , saying, " will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here." So , being one hundred ten years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in .
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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