World English Bible · The patriarchs
Job 33
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"However, , please hear my speech, and listen to all my words. See now, I have opened my . My has spoken in my . My words will utter the uprightness of . That which my know they will speak sincerely. of has made me, and the breath of gives me life. If you can, answer me. Set your words in order before me, and stand up. Behold, I am toward even as you are. I am also formed out of the . Behold, my terror will not make you afraid, neither will my pressure be heavy on you. "Surely you have spoken in my hearing, I have heard the voice of your words, saying, 'I am clean, without . I am innocent, neither is there in me. Behold, he finds occasions against me. He counts me for his enemy. He puts my feet in the stocks. He marks all my .' "Behold, I will answer you. In this you are not , for is greater than man. Why do you strive against him, because he doesn't give account of any of his matters? For speaks once, yes twice, though man pays no attention. In a , in a of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, in slumbering on the bed, then he opens the ears of men, and seals their , that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. He keeps back his from , and his life from . "He is chastened also with pain on his bed, with continual strife in his bones, so that his life abhors bread, and his dainty food. His is so consumed away that it can't be seen. His bones that were not seen stick out. Yes, his draws near to , and his life to the destroyers. "If there is beside him , an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show to man what is right for him, then is to him, and says, ' him from going down to , I have found a .' His will be fresher than a child's. He returns to the days of his youth. He prays to , and he is favorable to him, so that he sees with joy. He restores to man his . He sings before men, and says, 'I have , and perverted that which was right, and it didn't profit me. He has from going into . My life will see .' "Behold, does all these things, twice, yes three times, with a man, to bring back his from , that he may be enlightened with of the living. Mark well, , and listen to me. Hold your peace, and I will speak. If you have anything to say, answer me. Speak, for I to you. If not, listen to me. Hold your peace, and I will teach you ."
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.