World English Bible · The patriarchs
Job 20
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Then the Naamathite answered, "Therefore my answer me, even by reason of my haste that is in me. I have heard the which puts me to . of my understanding answers me. Don't you know this from old time, since man was placed on earth, that the triumphing of is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment? Though his height mount up to , and his head reach to the clouds, yet he will like his own dung. Those who have seen him will say, 'Where is he?' He will fly away as a , and will not be found. Yes, he will be chased away like a of the night. The eye which saw him will see him no more, neither will his place see him any more. His children will seek the of . His hands will give back his wealth. His bones are full of his youth, but youth will lie down with him in . "Though wickedness is sweet in his , though he hide it under his , though he spare it, and will not let it go, but keep it still within his , yet his food in his bowels is turned. It is cobra venom within him. He has swallowed down riches, and he will vomit them up again. will cast them out of his belly. He will suck cobra venom. The viper's will kill him. He will not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter. He will restore that for which he labored, and will not swallow it down. He will not rejoice according to the substance that he has gotten. For he has oppressed and forsaken . He has violently taken away a house, and he will not build it up. "Because he knew no quietness within him, he will not anything of that in which he delights. There was nothing left that he didn't devour, therefore his prosperity will not . In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress will overtake him. The hand of everyone who is in misery will come on him. When he is about to fill his belly, will cast the fierceness of his on him. It will on him while he is eating. He will flee from the iron weapon. The bronze arrow will strike him through. He draws it out, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver. Terrors are on him. All is laid up for his . An unfanned will devour him. It will consume that which is left in his tent. will his . The earth will rise up against him. The increase of his house will depart. They will rush away in the day of his . This is the of a man from , the heritage appointed to him by ."
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.