World English Bible · The patriarchs
Job 38
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
Then answered out of the whirlwind, "Who is this who darkens by words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man, for I will question you, then you answer me! "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding. Who determined its measures, if you know? Or who stretched the line on it? What were its foundations fastened on? Or who laid its , when the morning stars sang together, and all shouted for joy? "Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke out of the , when I made clouds its garment, and wrapped it in thick , marked out for it my bound, set bars and doors, and said, 'You may come here, but no further. Your proud waves shall be stopped here'? "Have you commanded the morning in your days, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and shake out of it? It is changed as under the seal, and presented as a garment. From , their is withheld. The high arm is broken. "Have you entered into the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the of been to you? Or have you seen the of the shadow of ? Have you comprehended the earth in its width? Declare, if you know it all. "What is to the dwelling of ? As for , where is its place, that you should take it to its bound, that you should discern the to its house? Surely you know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? By what way is the lightning distributed, or the east wind scattered on the earth? Who has cut a channel for the flood water, or for the thunderstorm, to cause it to on a land where there is no man, on , in which there is no man, to satisfy the waste and desolate ground, to cause the tender grass to grow? Does the have a ? Or who fathers the drops of ? Whose did the ice come out of? Who has given birth to the gray frost of ? The waters become hard like stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen. "Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion? Can you lead the constellations out in their season? Or can you guide the Bear with her cubs? Do you know the laws of ? Can you establish its over the earth? "Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover you? Can you send out lightnings, that they may go? Do they report to you, 'Here we are'? Who has put in the inward parts? Or who has given understanding to ? Who can count the clouds by ? Or who can pour out the containers of , 38when runs into a mass, and the clods of earth stick together? "Can you hunt the prey for the lioness, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens, and lie in wait in the thicket? Who provides for the raven his prey, when his young ones cry to , and wander for lack of food?
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.