World English Bible · The patriarchs
Job 22
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1Then the Temanite answered, "Can a man be profitable to ? Surely he who is is profitable to himself. Is it any pleasure to that you are ? Or does it benefit him that you make your ways perfect? Is it for your piety that he reproves you, that he enters with you into ? Isn't your wickedness great? Neither is there any end to your . For you have taken pledges from your brother for nothing, and stripped the of their clothing. You haven't given water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from the hungry. But as for the mighty man, he had the earth. The honorable man, he lived in it. You have sent away empty, and the arms of have been broken. Therefore snares are around you. Sudden fear troubles you, or , so that you can not see, and floods of waters cover you. "Isn't in the heights of ? See the height of the stars, how high they are! You say, 'What does know? Can he judge through the thick ? Thick clouds are a covering to him, so that he doesn't see. He walks on the vault of .' Will you keep the old way, which men have trodden, who were snatched away before their time, whose foundation was poured out as a stream, who said to , 'Depart from us!' and, 'What can do for us?' Yet he filled their houses with good things, but the of is far from me. see it, and are glad. The innocent ridicule them, saying, 'Surely those who rose up against us are . The has consumed their .' "Acquaint yourself with him now, and be at peace. By it, good will come to you. Please receive from his , and lay up his words in . If you return to , you will be built up, if you unrighteousness far from your tents. Lay your in , the gold of among the stones of the brooks. will be your , and precious silver to you. For then you will delight yourself in , and will lift up your to . You will make your to him, and he will hear you. You will pay your . You will also a thing, and it will be established to you. will shine on your ways. When they cast down, you will say, 'be lifted up.' He will the humble person. He will even him who is not innocent. Yes, he will be through the cleanness of your hands."
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.