World English Bible · The patriarchs
Job 1
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There was a man in the land of , whose name was . That man was blameless and upright, and one who feared , and turned away from evil. There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. His possessions also were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the children of the east. His sons went and held a feast in the house of each one on his birthday; and they sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. It was so, when the days of their feasting had run their course, that sent and them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For said, "It may be that my sons have , and renounced in their ." did so continually. Now on the day when came to present themselves before , also came among them. said to , "Where have you come from?" Then answered , and said, "From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." said to , "Have you considered my servant, ? For there is no one like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears , and turns away from evil." Then answered , and said, "Does for nothing? Haven't you made a hedge around him, and around his house, and around all that he has, on every side? You have the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your ." said to , "Behold, all that he has is in your . Only on himself don't stretch out your hand." So went out from the of . It fell on a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking in their oldest brother's house, that a came to , and said, "The oxen were plowing, and the donkeys feeding beside them, and the attacked, and took them away. Yes, they have killed the servants with the edge of , and I alone have escaped to tell you." While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "The of has fallen from , and has burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you." While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "The made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of ; and I alone have escaped to tell you." While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, "Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking in their oldest brother's house, and behold, there came a great wind from , and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young men, and they are . I alone have escaped to tell you." Then arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and . He said, " I came out of my mother's , and will I return there. gave, and has taken away. be name." In all this, didn't , nor charge with wrongdoing.
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.