World English Bible · The patriarchs
Job 11
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Then , the Naamathite, answered, "Shouldn't of words be answered? Should a man full of talk be ? Should your boastings make men hold their peace? When you mock, will no man make you ? For you say, 'My doctrine is pure. I am clean in your eyes.' But oh that would speak, and open his against you, that he would show you the secrets of ! For true has two sides. Know therefore that exacts of you less than your deserves. "Can you fathom of ? Or can you probe the limits of ? They are high as . What can you do? They are deeper than . What can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. If he passes by, or confines, or convenes a court, then who can oppose him? For he knows false men. He sees also, even though he doesn't consider it. An empty-headed man becomes when a man is born as a wild donkey's colt. "If you set aright, stretch out your hands toward him. If is in your hand, put it far away. Don't let unrighteousness in your tents. Surely then you will lift up your without spot. Yes, you will be steadfast, and will not fear, for you will forget your misery. You will remember it like waters that have passed away. Life will be clearer than the noonday. Though there is , it will be as the morning. You will be secure, because there is . Yes, you will search, and will take your rest in safety. Also you will lie down, and no one will make you afraid. Yes, many will court your . But the eyes of will fail. They will have no way to flee. Their will be the giving up of ."
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.