King James Version · The patriarchs
Job 36
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1 also proceeded, and said, Suffer me a little, and I will shew thee that I have yet to speak on ’s behalf. I will fetch my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe to my Maker. For truly my words shall not be false: he that is perfect in knowledge is with thee. Behold, is mighty, and despiseth not any: he is mighty in strength and . He preserveth not the life of : but giveth right to . He withdraweth not his eyes from : but with kings are they on ; yea, he doth establish them for ever, and they are exalted. And if they be bound in fetters, and be holden in cords of affliction; Then he sheweth them their work, and their that they have exceeded. He openeth also their ear to , and commandeth that they return from . If they and him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. But if they not, they shall , and they shall without knowledge. But the in heap up : they cry not when he bindeth them. They in youth, and their life is among the . He delivereth in his affliction, and openeth their ears in . Even so would he have removed thee out of the strait into a broad place, where there is no straitness; and that which should be set on thy table should be full of fatness. But thou hast fulfilled the of : and justice take hold on thee. Because there is , beware lest he take thee away with his stroke: then a great cannot thee. Will he esteem thy riches? no, not gold, nor all the forces of strength. not the night, when people are in their place. Take heed, regard not : for this hast thou chosen rather than affliction. Behold, exalteth by his : who teacheth like him? Who hath enjoined him his way? or who can say, Thou hast wrought ? Remember that thou magnify his work, which men behold. 25Every man may see it; man may behold it afar off. Behold, is great, and we know him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out. For he maketh small the drops of water: they pour down according to the vapour thereof: Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly. Also can any understand the spreadings of the clouds, or the noise of his ? Behold, he spreadeth his upon it, and covereth the bottom of the sea. For by them judgeth he the people; he giveth meat in abundance. With clouds he covereth ; and commandeth it not to shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt. The noise thereof sheweth concerning it, the cattle also concerning the vapour.
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.