World English Bible · The patriarchs
Job 24
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"Why aren't times laid up by ? Why don't those who know him see his days? There are people who remove the landmarks. They violently take away flocks, and feed them. They drive away the donkey of , and they take the ox for a pledge. They turn out of . of the earth all hide themselves. Behold, as wild donkeys in , they go out to their work, seeking diligently for food. yields them bread for their children. They cut their food in the field. They the of . They lie all night without clothing, and have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the of the mountains, and embrace for lack of a shelter. There are those who pluck from the breast, and take a pledge of , so that they go around without clothing. Being hungry, they carry the sheaves. They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread presses, and suffer thirst. From out of the populous city, men groan. The of the wounded cries out, yet doesn't regard the folly. "These are of those who rebel against . They don't know its ways, nor stay in its . The rises with . He kills and needy. In the night he is like a thief. The eye also of the waits for the twilight, saying, 'No eye will see me.' He disguises . In the dark they dig through houses. They shut themselves up in the daytime. They don't know . For the morning is to all of them like thick , for they know the terrors of the thick . "They are foam on the surface of the waters. Their is in the earth. They don't turn into of the vineyards. and heat consume the snow waters, so does those who have . The will forget him. The worm will feed sweetly on him. He will be no more remembered. Unrighteousness will be broken as a tree. He devours the who don't bear. He shows no kindness to the . Yet preserves the mighty by his . He rises up who has no assurance of life. gives them security, and they rest in it. His eyes are on their ways. They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone. Yes, they are brought low, they are taken out of as all others, and are as the tops of the ears of grain. If it isn't so now, who will prove me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?"
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.