King James Version · The patriarchs
Job 21
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1But answered and said, Hear diligently my speech, and let this be your consolations. Suffer me that I may speak; and after that I have spoken, mock on. As for me, is my complaint to man? and if it were so, why should not be troubled? Mark me, and be astonished, and lay your hand upon your . Even when I remember I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold on my . Wherefore do live, become old, yea, are mighty in ? Their is established in their sight with them, and their before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the of upon them. Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf. They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the . Therefore they say unto , Depart from us; for we not the knowledge of thy ways. What is , that we should him? and what profit should we have, if we unto him? Lo, their good is not in their hand: the of is far from me. How oft is the candle of put out! and how oft cometh their upon them! distributeth sorrows in his . They are as stubble before the wind, and as that the storm carrieth away. layeth up his for his children: he rewardeth him, and he shall know it. His eyes shall see his , and he shall drink of the of . For what pleasure hath he in his house after him, when the number of his months is in the midst? Shall any teach knowledge? seeing he judgeth those that are high. One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet. His breasts are full of milk, and his bones are moistened with marrow. And another dieth in the bitterness of his , and never eateth with pleasure. They shall lie down alike in , and the worms shall cover them. Behold, I know your , and the devices which ye wrongfully imagine against me. For ye say, Where is the house of the prince? and where are the dwelling places of ? Have ye not asked them that go by ? and do ye not know their tokens, That is reserved to the day of ? they shall be brought forth to the . Who shall declare his way to ? and who shall repay him what he hath done? Yet shall he be brought to the , and shall in the . The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him, and every man shall draw after him, as there are innumerable before him. How then comfort ye me in , seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood?
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.