King James Version · The patriarchs
Job 10
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is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of . I will say unto , Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou contendest with me. Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands, and shine upon the of ? Hast thou eyes of ? or seest thou as man seeth? Are thy days as the days of man? are thy years as man’s days, That thou enquirest after mine , and searchest after my ? Thou knowest that I am not ; and there is none that can out of thine hand. Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet thou dost destroy me. Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the ; and wilt thou bring me into again? Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese? Thou hast clothed me with skin and , and hast fenced me with bones and sinews. Thou hast granted me life and , and thy visitation hath preserved . And these things hast thou hid in thine : I know that this is with thee. If I , then thou markest me, and thou wilt not acquit me from mine . If I be , woe unto me; and if I be , yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction; For it increaseth. Thou huntest me as a fierce lion: and again thou shewest thyself marvellous upon me. Thou renewest thy against me, and increasest thine upon me; changes and war are against me. Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the ? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me! I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the to the . Are not my days few? cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little, Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of and the shadow of ; A land of , as itself; and of the shadow of , without any order, and where is as .
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.