World English Bible · The patriarchs
Job 36
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1 also continued, and said, "Bear with me a little, and I will show you; for I still have something to say on behalf. I will get my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe to my Maker. For truly my words are not false. One who is perfect in knowledge is with you. "Behold, is mighty, and doesn't despise anyone. He is mighty in strength of understanding. He doesn't preserve the life of , but gives justice to . He doesn't withdraw his eyes from , but with kings on , he sets them , and they are exalted. If they are bound in fetters, and are taken in the cords of afflictions, then he shows them their work, and their , that they have behaved themselves proudly. He also opens their ears to , and commands that they return from . If they listen and him, they will spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. But if they don't listen, they will ; they will without knowledge. "But those who are godless in lay up . They don't cry for help when he binds them. They in youth. Their life perishes among the . He delivers by their affliction, and opens their ear in . Yes, he would have allured you out of distress, into a wide place, where there is no restriction. That which is set on your table would be full of fatness. "But you are full of the of . and justice take hold of you. Don't let riches entice you to , neither let the great size of a bribe turn you aside. Would your wealth sustain you in distress, or all the might of your strength? Don't the night, when people are in their place. Take heed, don't regard ; for you have chosen this rather than affliction. Behold, is exalted in his . Who is a teacher like him? Who has prescribed his way for him? Or who can say, 'You have committed unrighteousness'? "Remember that you magnify his work, about which men have sung. 25All men have looked on it. Man sees it afar off. Behold, is great, and we don't know him. The number of his years is unsearchable. For he draws up the drops of water, which distill in from his vapor, which the skies pour down and which drop on man abundantly. Indeed, can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds and the thunderings of his pavilion? Behold, he spreads his around him. He covers the bottom of the sea. For by these he judges the people. He gives food in abundance. He covers his hands with the lightning, and commands it to strike the mark. Its noise tells about him, and the livestock also, concerning the storm that comes up.
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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.