World English Bible · The patriarchs
Job 6
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Then answered, "Oh that my anguish were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas, therefore my words have been rash. For the arrows of are within me. drinks up their poison. The terrors of set themselves in array against me. Does the wild donkey bray when he has grass? Or does the ox low over his fodder? Can that which has no flavor be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? refuses to touch them. They are as loathsome food to me. "Oh that I might have my request, that would grant the thing that I long for, even that it would please to crush me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off! Let it still be my consolation, yes, let me exult in pain that doesn't spare, that I have not denied the words of the One. What is my strength, that I should wait? What is my end, that I should be ? Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my of bronze? Isn't it that I have no help in me, that is driven away from me? "To him who is ready to faint, kindness should be shown from his friend; even to him who forsakes the fear of . My brothers have dealt deceitfully as a brook, as the channel of brooks that pass away; 16which are black by reason of the ice, in which the snow hides itself. In the dry season, they vanish. When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place. 18The caravans that travel beside them turn away. They go up into the waste, and . The caravans of looked. The companies of waited for them. They were distressed because they were confident. They came there, and were confounded. For now you are nothing. You see a terror, and are afraid. Did I ever say, 'Give to me'? or, 'Offer a present for me from your substance'? or, ' me from the adversary's hand'? or, ' me from the hand of the oppressors'? "Teach me, and I will hold my peace. Cause me to understand my error. How forcible are words of uprightness! But your , what does it reprove? Do you intend to reprove words, since the speeches of one who is desperate are as wind? Yes, you would even cast lots for , and make merchandise of your friend. Now therefore be pleased to look at me, for surely I will not lie to your . Please return. Let there be no injustice. Yes, return again. My cause is . Is there injustice on my ? Can't my taste discern mischievous things?
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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.