Bible in a Year Thread: 339 days left: Genesis 46-50

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Stark

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Genesis 19

Wow, this is another biggie chapter. There?s so much packed into it that it deserves it?s own cliffs?

Only two of Abraham?s mysterious visitors from the preceding chapter continued on to Sodom. Remember that Abraham haggled down the number of righteous people that would save the town down to just 10? if there were 10 good people in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, everyone would be spared.

Lot meets the two angels at the front gate. He offeres to put them up for the night (following the same sort of Arab/middle eastern hospitality offered by Abe in Chapter 18). ?No, we?d rather sleep out in the open and start kicking butt,? they answered, but Lot was persistent so they go with him. Lot makes them dinner (apparently angels can eat food).

Before the dinner party had gone to bed, EVERY MAN IN THE CITY swarm the streets and surrounded Lot?s house. They chanted (with noticeable lisp), ?Bring out thothe cute men tho that we can HAVE THEX WITH THEM!? Trying to save the two angels from PITA prison-style gang rape by thousands of men, Lot tries to make a deal with the mob. ?Could I interest you in my two virgin daughters?? he offers, officially making him the worst parent in the history of humanity.

[Note: a modern twist on this is that the crowds only crime was acting "inhospitable" to the angels. While that may have been true, homosexual rape is also clearly, 100% implied in this story. They might not have been destroyed for being homosexuals, but brazen, widely practiced homosexuality was a sign of a society about to be destroyed.]

Not interested in two underage girls, then the men ?pushed hard against Lot? which means they either pushed him against the door or raped him (which he probably deserved for the whole ?offering his daughters? part), then the two angels opened the door and pulled Lot inside. Then the angels made the mob blind so that Lot and his family could make a break for it. The angels then broke out their guitars and started wailing?

?Riding through dust clouds and barren wastes,
Galloping hard on the plains.
Chasing the redskins back to their holes,
Fighting them at their own game.
Murder for freedom, a stab in the back.
Women and children and cowards attack.

Run to the hills, run for your lives.
Run to the hills, run for your lives.?

But Lot thought the hills were too far away and started whining? ?Oy, can?t I just run to that little city over there??

The angels looked at each other in disbelief, then agreed, and gave him just one word of warning ?whatever you do, DON?T LOOK BACK!?

God then launched a nuke from heaven, turning Sodom and Gomorrah into the Dead Sea.

Lot?s wife, the dirty Canaanite that she was, disregarded the warning and looked back; that?s why there are salt columns at the Dead Sea today.

Lot, by this time already the most pathetic figure in the Bible (at least to this point), goes all out; afraid to stay in the little city he chose to flee to, he goes up in the hills, gets drunk, and deflowers his two virgin daughters. One gives birth to Moab (father of the evil Moabites) and the other to Ben Ammi (father of the wicked Ammonites).

The Moabites and Ammonites will show up in later as the Israelites are forced to live and deal with these unGodly children of incest.

The historical existence of Sodom and Gomorrah is still in dispute by archaeologists, with some believing they never existed, some believing they are now under the Dead Sea, and others claiming that they have been found (under other names) in the region to the southeast of the Dead Sea. One candidate for Sodom is a site known as Ba'Hadra. Ba'Hadra was located near the Dead Sea and a coating of sulphur has been found on the site. The theory for the sulphur is that an earthquake opened a nearby pocket of natural gas. Natural gas, being lighter than air, drifted up. However, instead of dissipating harmlessly the gas reacted with the fires burning in the city (the smallest flame could have set off the natural gas). As a result the city was devastated. Skeletons from Ba'Hadra do show an abnormally high syphilis rate for a city of that size.

link
 

Stark

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Continued from yesterday...

Chapter 20
1 Abraham moved to the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he was living in Gerar, 2 Abraham told everyone that his wife Sarah was his sister. So King Abimelech of Gerar sent men to take Sarah.

3 God came to Abimelech in a dream one night and said to him, "You're going to die because of the woman that you've taken! She's a married woman!" 4 Abimelech hadn't come near her, so he asked, "Lord, will you destroy a nation even if it's innocent? 5 Didn't he tell me himself, 'She's my sister,' and didn't she even say, 'He's my brother'? I did this in all innocence and with a clear conscience." 6 "Yes, I know that you did this with a clear conscience," God said to him in the dream. "In fact, I kept you from sinning against me. That's why I didn't let you touch her. 7 Give the man's wife back to him now, because he's a prophet. He will pray for you, and you will live. But if you don't give her back, you and all who belong to you are doomed to die."

8 Early in the morning Abimelech called together all his officials. He told them about all of this, and they were terrified. 9 Then Abimelech called for Abraham and asked him, "What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you that you would bring such a serious sin on me and my kingdom? You shouldn't have done this to me." 10 Abimelech also asked Abraham, "What were you thinking when you did this?" 11 Abraham said, "I thought that because there are no God-fearing people in this place, I'd be killed because of my wife. 12 Besides, she is my sister--my father's daughter but not my mother's. She is also my wife. 13 When God had me leave my father's home and travel around, I said to her, 'Do me a favor: Wherever we go, say that I'm your brother.'"

14 Then Abimelech took sheep, cattle, and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham. He also gave his wife Sarah back to him. 15 Abimelech said, "Look, here's my land. Live anywhere you like." 16 He said to Sarah, "Don't forget, I've given your brother 25 pounds of silver. This is to silence any criticism against you from everyone with you. You're completely cleared." 17 Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female slaves so that they could have children. 18 (The LORD had made it impossible for any woman in Abimelech's household to have children because of Abraham's wife Sarah.)

Chapter 21
1 The LORD came to help Sarah and did for her what he had promised. 2 So she became pregnant, and at the exact time God had promised, she gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age. 3 Abraham named his newborn son Isaac. 4 When Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him as God had commanded. 5 Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born. 6 Sarah said, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me. 7 Who would have predicted to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet, I have given him a son in his old age." 8 The child grew and was weaned. On the day Isaac was weaned, Abraham held a big feast.

9 Sarah saw that Abraham's son by Hagar the Egyptian was laughing at Isaac. 10 She said to Abraham, "Get rid of this slave and her son, because this slave's son must never share the inheritance with my son Isaac." 11 Abraham was upset by this because of his son Ishmael. 12 But God said to Abraham, "Don't be upset about the boy and your slave. Listen to what Sarah says because through Isaac your descendants will carry on your name. 13 Besides, I will make the slave's son into a nation also, because he is your child."

14 Early the next morning Abraham took bread and a container of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder. He also gave her the boy and sent her on her way. So she left and wandered around in the desert near Beersheba. 15 When the water in the container was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went about as far away as an arrow can be shot and sat down. She said to herself, "I don't want to watch the boy die." So she sat down and sobbed loudly. 17 God heard the boy crying, and the Messenger of God called to Hagar from heaven. "What's the matter, Hagar?" he asked her. "Don't be afraid! God has heard the boy crying from the bushes. 18 Come on, help the boy up! Take him by the hand, because I'm going to make him into a great nation." 19 God opened her eyes. Then she saw a well. She filled the container with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became a skilled archer. 21 He lived in the desert of Paran, and his mother got him a wife from Egypt.

22 At that time Abimelech, accompanied by Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, "God is with you in everything you do. 23 Now, swear an oath to me here in front of God that you will never cheat me, my children, or my descendants. Show me and the land where you've been living the same kindness that I have shown you." 24 Abraham said, "I so swear." 25 Then Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well which Abimelech's servants had seized. 26 Abimelech replied, "I don't know who did this. You didn't tell me, and I didn't hear about it until today." 27 Abraham took some sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made an agreement. 28 Then Abraham set apart seven female lambs from the flock. 29 Abimelech asked him, "What is the meaning of these seven female lambs you have set apart?" 30 Abraham answered, "Accept these lambs from me so that they may be proof that I dug this well." 31 This is why that place is called Beersheba, because both of them swore an oath there. 32 After they made the treaty at Beersheba, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, left and went back to the land of the Philistines.

33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba and worshiped the LORD, the Everlasting God, there. 34 Abraham lived a long time in the land of the Philistines.
 

Stark

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a little backgound on where Abe is travelling:

For much of history, the narrow strip of land between the Jordan [river] and the Mediterranean has been a curiosity, the foyer to the world, a place to pass through but not to stay. The Egyptians called it "Kharu," the Greeks and Romans "Palestina." The Syrians called it "Canaan." Whatever they called it, everyone coveted it, though none could control it. From its inception, the Fertile Crescent was structured lika a modern American shopping mall, with two anchor stores on either end linked by a string of smaller, more vulnerable stores that were completely dependent on their larger neighbors for their economic well-being. In this case, Egypt and Mesopotamia were the anchors, and as they went so went Canaan.

One reason for this dependency is that even though Canaan contained some of the world's biggest cities, these cities were never able to organize themselves into a coherent political body. Instead they were clients of the great powers, divided and conquered by their own crippling mix of mountains, valleys, coastline, and desert, as well as their lack of water... This reality sets up one of the crueler ironies in the history of the Bible. Geography prevented the development of a great empire in Canaan, but it was that lack of an empire that may have allowed God to promise the land to Abraham. In other words, the Promised Land, a place that for three thousand years has proven notoriously difficult to control, became the Promised Land in large measure because in the preceding three thousand years no one had been able to control it either.

Besides being true to ancient geographic conditions, the biblical story is also remarkably true to current ones... The central hills, excluding Jerusalem, were originally given to the Arabs and have been fought over ever since. Jews have based their claim to the land largely on the major episodes in the... Penteteuch. The Palestinian claim was based largely on the fact that they were living in these areas before Jews began immigrating in large numbers in the nineteenth century. In recent years, some Palestinians have shifted their claim, saying they were also on the land before the patriarchs arrived in the nineteenth century B.C.E. Palestinians, they now say, are direct descendants of the Canaanites.

Walking the Bible, pp 42-43
 

Stark

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continuing on...

Chapter 22

1 Later God tested Abraham and called to him, "Abraham!" "Yes, here I am!" he answered. 2 God said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you."

3 Early the next morning Abraham saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place that God had told him about. 4 Two days later Abraham saw the place in the distance. 5 Then Abraham said to his servants, "You stay here with the donkey while the boy and I go over there. We'll worship. After that we'll come back to you." 6 Then Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and gave it to his son Isaac. Abraham carried the burning coals and the knife. The two of them went on together. 7 Isaac spoke up and said, "Father?" "Yes, Son?" Abraham answered. Isaac asked, "We have the burning coals and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" 8 Abraham answered, "God will provide a lamb for the burnt offering, Son." The two of them went on together. 9 When they came to the place that God had told him about, Abraham built the altar and arranged the wood on it. Then he tied up his son Isaac and laid him on top of the wood on the altar. 10 Next, Abraham picked up the knife and took it in his hand to sacrifice his son.

11 But the Messenger of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Yes?" he answered. 12 "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you did not refuse to give me your son, your only son." 13 When Abraham looked around, he saw a ram behind him caught by its horns in a bush. So Abraham took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. 14 Abraham named that place The LORD Will Provide. It is still said today, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."

15 Then the Messenger of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, "I am taking an oath on my own name, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not refused to give me your son, your only son, 17 I will certainly bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of their enemies' cities. 18 Through your descendant all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." 19 Then Abraham returned to his servants, and together they left for Beersheba. Abraham remained in Beersheba.

20 Later Abraham was told, "Milcah has given birth to these children of your brother Nahor: 21 Uz (the firstborn), Buz (his brother), Kemuel (father of Aram), 22 Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel. 23 Bethuel is the father of Rebekah. Milcah had these eight sons by Abraham's brother Nahor. 24 Nahor's concubine, whose name was Reumah, had the following children: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah."

Genesis 23

1 Sarah lived to be 127 years old. This was the length of her life. 2 She died in Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in Canaan. Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to cry about her death.

3 Then Abraham left the side of his dead wife and spoke to the Hittites, 4 "I'm a stranger with no permanent home. Let me have some of your property for a tomb so that I can bury my dead wife." 5 The Hittites answered Abraham, 6 "Listen to us, sir. You are a mighty leader among us. Bury your dead in one of our best tombs. Not one of us will withhold from you his tomb for burying your dead." 7 Abraham got up in front of the Hittites, the people of that region, and bowed with his face touching the ground. 8 He said to them, "If you are willing to let me bury my wife, listen to me. Encourage Ephron, son of Zohar, 9 to let me have the cave of Machpelah that he owns at the end of his field. He should sell it to me for its full price as my property to be used as a tomb among you." 10 Ephron was sitting among the Hittites. He answered Abraham so that everyone who was entering the city gate could hear him. He said, 11 "No, sir, listen to me. I'm giving you the field together with the cave that is in it. My people are witnesses that I'm giving it to you. Bury your wife!" 12 Abraham bowed down again in front of the people of that region. 13 He spoke to Ephron so that the people of that region could hear him. He said, "If you would only listen to me. I will pay you the price of the field. Take it from me so that I can bury my wife there." 14 Ephron answered Abraham, 15 "Sir, listen to me. The land is worth ten pounds of silver. What is that between us? Bury your wife!"

16 Abraham agreed to Ephron's terms. So he weighed out for Ephron the amount stated in front of the Hittites: ten pounds of silver at the current merchants' exchange rate. 17 So Ephron's field at Machpelah, east of Mamre, was sold 18 to Abraham. His property included the field with the cave in it as well as all the trees inside the boundaries of the field. The Hittites together with all who had entered the city gate were the official witnesses for the agreement. 19 After this, Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of Machpelah, east of Mamre (that is, Hebron). 20 So the field and its cave were sold by the Hittites to Abraham as his property to be used as a tomb.

Geneis 24

1 By now Abraham was old, and the LORD had blessed him in every way. 2 So Abraham said to the senior servant of his household who was in charge of all that he owned, "Take a solemn oath. 3 I want you to swear by the LORD God of heaven and earth that you will not get my son a wife from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I'm living. 4 Instead, you will go to the land of my relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac." 5 The servant asked him, "What if the woman doesn't want to come back to this land with me? Should I take your son all the way back to the land you came from?" 6 "Make sure that you do not take my son back there," Abraham said to him. 7 "The LORD God of heaven took me from my father's home and the land of my family. He spoke to me and swore this oath: 'I will give this land to your descendants.' "God will send his angel ahead of you, and you will get my son a wife from there. 8 If the woman doesn't want to come back with you, then you'll be free from this oath that you swear to me. But don't take my son back there." 9 So the servant did as his master Abraham commanded and swore the oath to him concerning this.

10 Then the servant took ten of his master's camels and left, taking with him all of his master's best things. He traveled to Aram Naharaim, Nahor's city. 11 The servant had the camels kneel down outside the city by the well. It was evening, when the women would go out to draw water. 12 Then he prayed, "LORD, God of my master Abraham, make me successful today. Show your kindness to Abraham. 13 Here I am standing by the spring, and the girls of the city are coming out to draw water. 14 I will ask a girl, 'May I please have a drink from your jar?' If she answers, 'Have a drink, and I'll also water your camels,' let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. This way I'll know that you've shown your kindness to my master." 15 Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel, son of Milcah, who was the wife of Abraham's brother Nahor. 16 The girl was a very attractive virgin. No man had ever had sexual intercourse with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar, and came back. 17 The servant ran to meet her and said, "Please give me a drink of water." 18 "Drink, sir," she said. She quickly lowered her jar to her hand and gave him a drink. 19 When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, "I'll also keep drawing water for your camels until they've had enough to drink." 20 So she quickly emptied her jar into the water trough, ran back to the well to draw more water, and drew enough for all his camels. 21 The man was silently watching her to see whether or not the LORD had made his trip successful. 22 When the camels had finished drinking, the man took out a gold nose ring weighing a fifth of an ounce and two gold bracelets weighing four ounces. 23 He asked, "Whose daughter are you? Please tell me whether there is room in your father's house for us to spend the night." 24 She answered him, "I'm the daughter of Bethuel, son of Milcah and Nahor. 25 We have plenty of straw and feed [for your camels] and room for you to spend the night." 26 The man knelt, bowing to the LORD with his face touching the ground. 27 He said, "Praise the LORD, the God of my master Abraham. The LORD hasn't failed to be kind and faithful to my master. The LORD has led me on this trip to the home of my master's relatives." 28 The girl ran and told her mother's household about these things.

29 Rebekah had a brother whose name was Laban. 30 He saw the nose ring and the bracelets on his sister's wrists and heard her tell what the man had said to her. Immediately, Laban ran out to the man by the spring. He came to the man, who was standing with the camels by the spring. 31 He said, "Come in, you whom the LORD has blessed. Why are you standing out here? I have straightened up the house and made a place for the camels." 32 So the man went into the house. The camels were unloaded and given straw and feed. Then water was brought for him and his men to wash their feet. 33 When the food was put in front of him, he said, "I won't eat until I've said what I have to say." "Speak up," Laban said. 34 "I am Abraham's servant," he said. 35 "The LORD has blessed my master, and he has become wealthy. The LORD has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, male and female slaves, camels and donkeys. 36 My master's wife Sarah gave him a son in her old age, and my master has given that son everything he has. 37 My master made me swear this oath: 'Don't get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I'm living. 38 Instead, go to my father's home and to my relatives, and get my son a wife.' 39 "I asked my master, 'What if the woman won't come back with me?' 40 "He answered me, 'I have been living the way the LORD wants me to. The LORD will send his angel with you to make your trip successful. You will get my son a wife from my relatives and from my father's family. 41 Then you will be free from your oath to me. You will also be free of your oath to me if my relatives are not willing to do this when you go to them.' 42 "When I came to the spring today, I prayed, 'LORD God of my master Abraham, please make my trip successful. 43 I'm standing by the spring. I'll say to the young woman who comes out to draw water, "Please give me a drink of water." 44 If she says to me, "Not only may you have a drink, but I will also draw water for your camels," let her be the woman the LORD has chosen for my master's son.' 45 "Before I had finished praying, Rebekah came with her jar on her shoulder. She went down to the spring and drew water. "So I asked her, 'May I have a drink?' 46 She quickly lowered her jar and said, 'Have a drink, and I'll water your camels too.' So I drank, and she also watered the camels. 47 "Then I asked her, 'Whose daughter are you?' "She answered, 'The daughter of Bethuel, son of Nahor and Milcah.' "I put the ring in her nose and the bracelets on her wrists. 48 I knelt, bowing down to the LORD. I praised the LORD, the God of my master Abraham. The LORD led me in the right direction to get the daughter of my master's relative for his son. 49 Tell me whether or not you're going to show my master true kindness so that I will know what to do." 50 Laban and Bethuel answered, "This is from the LORD. We can't say anything to you one way or another. 51 Here's Rebekah! Take her and go! She will become the wife of your master's son, as the LORD has said." 52 When Abraham's servant heard their answer, he bowed down to the LORD. 53 The servant took out gold and silver jewelry and clothes and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave expensive presents to her brother and mother.

54 Then he and the men who were with him ate and drank and spent the night. When they got up in the morning, he said, "Let me go back to my master." 55 Her brother and mother replied, "Let the girl stay with us ten days or so. After that she may go." 56 He said to them, "Don't delay me now that the LORD has made my trip successful. Let me go back to my master." 57 So they said, "We'll call the girl and ask her." 58 They called for Rebekah and asked her, "Will you go with this man?" She said, "Yes, I'll go." 59 So they let their sister Rebekah and her nurse go with Abraham's servant and his men. 60 They gave Rebekah a blessing: "May you, our sister, become the mother of many thousands of children. May your descendants take possession of their enemies' cities." 61 Then Rebekah and her maids left. Riding on camels, they followed the man. The servant took Rebekah and left.

62 Isaac had just come back from Beer Lahai Roi, since he was living in the Negev. 63 Toward evening Isaac went out into the field to meditate. When he looked up, he saw camels coming. 64 When Rebekah saw Isaac, she got down from her camel. 65 She asked the servant, "Who is that man over there coming through the field to meet us?" "That is my master," the servant answered. Then she took her veil and covered herself. 66 The servant reported to Isaac everything he had done. 67 Isaac took her into his mother Sarah's tent. He married Rebekah. She became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.
 

Stark

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Akedah

Jewish responses

The majority view of Jewish biblical commentators is that God was testing Abraham to see if he would actually kill his own son, as a test of his loyalty. However, a number of Jewish biblical commentators from the medieval era, and many in the modern era, found this theology repugnant. They read the text in another way.

The early rabbinic midrash Genesis Rabbah quotes God as saying "I never considered telling Abraham to slaughter Isaac (using the Hebrew root letters for "slaughter", not "sacrifice".) Rabbi Yona Ibn Janach (Spain, 11th century) wrote that God only demanded a symbolic sacrifice. Rabbi Yosef Ibn Caspi (Spain, early 14th century) wrote that Abraham's imagination led him astray, making him believe that he had been commanded to sacrifice his son. Ibn Caspi writes "How could God command such a revolting thing?" But according to Rabbi J. H. Hertz (Chief Rabbi of the British Empire), child sacrifice was actually "rife among the Semitic peoples," and suggests that "in that age, it was astounding that Abraham's God should have interposed to prevent the sacrifice, not that He should have asked for it." Hertz interprets the Akedah as demonstrating to the Jews that human sacrifice is abbhorent. "Unlike the cruel heathen deities, it was the spiritual surrender alone that God required."

Other rabbinic scholars also note that Abraham was willing to do everything to spare his son, even if it meant going against the divine command: while it was God who ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son, it was an angel, a lesser being in the celestial hierarchy, that commanded him to stop.

In some later Jewish writings, most notably those of the Hassidic masters, the theology of a Divine test is rejected, and the sacrifice of Isaac is interpreted as a punishment for Abraham's earlier mistreatment of Ishmael, his elder son, who he expelled from his household at the request of his wife, Sarah. According to this view, Abraham failed to show compassion for his son, so God punished him by ostensibly failing to show compassion for Abraham's son.

In The Last Trial, Shalom Spiegel argues that these commentators were interpreting the Biblical story as an implicit rebuke against Christianity's claim that God would sacrifice His own son.
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Christian responses

This story is mentioned in the New Testament book of Hebrews among many acts of faith recorded in the Old Testament:

17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, 18of whom it was said, "In Isaac your seed shall be called," 19 concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.

(Hebrews 11:17-19, NKJV)

The majority of Christian biblical commentators hold this episode to be an archetype of the way that God works; this event is seen as foreshadowing God's plan to have his own son, Jesus, die on the cross as a substitute for us, much like the goat God provided for Abraham.
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Muslim responses

Traditionally, Muslims believe that it was Ishmael rather than Isaac whom Abraham was told to sacrifice. In support of this, Muslims note that the text of Genesis as it stands, despite specifying Isaac, appears to state that Abraham was told to sacrifice his only son ("Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac," Genesis 22:2) to God. Since Isaac was Abraham's second son, there was no time at which he would have been Abraham's only son, so they take this to imply that the original text must have named Ishmael rather than Isaac as the intended sacrifice. The Qur'an itself does not specify which son he nearly sacrificed (Quran 37:99-111).

The entire episode of the sacrifice is regarded as a trial that Abraham had to face from God. It is celebrated by Muslims on the day of Eid ul-Adha.

Moriah
Moriah - the chosen of Jehovah. Some contend that Mount Gerizim is meant, but most probably we are to regard this as one of the hills of Jerusalem. Here Solomon's Temple was built, on the spot that had been the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite (2 Sam. 24:24, 25; 2 Chr. 3:1). It is usually included in Zion, to the north-east of which it lay, and from which it was separated by the Tyropoean valley. This was "the land of Moriah" to which Abraham went to offer up his son Isaac (Gen. 22:2). It has been supposed that the highest point of the temple hill, which is now covered by the Islamic Qubbat As-Sakhrah, or "Dome of the Rock", is the actual site of Araunah's threshing-floor. Here also, one thousand years after Abraham, David built an altar and offered sacrifices to God.

Cave of the Patriarchs
Book of Genesis

It is mentioned as having been purchased by the Hebrew patriarch Abraham as a burial plot for his family after his wife Sarah dies (Book of Genesis, 23 [1] (http://bible.ort.org/books/pentd2.asp?ACTION=displaypage&BOOK=1&CHAPTER=23)). He bought a plot of land near Hebron from Ephron the Hittite, the Cave of Mechpelah, for 400 shekels of silver. There he buried his wife Sarah. Later Abraham himself Isaac, Jacob, Rebekah, and Leah were buried there. (Rachel was buried near Bethlehem). This site is now known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs or Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs and is a shrine for both Jews and Muslims.

Judaism considers the spot to be sacred, as well as the first material purchase of real estate by the Hebrew Abraham in the Land of Canaan (the "Promised Land"). According to Jewish tradition, four Biblical and primal patriarchal couples mentioned in the Book of Genesis are buried there:

* Adam and Eve
* Abraham and Sarah
* Isaac and Rebekah
* Jacob and Leah

It is also known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque (Abraham Mosque), and today it is in the Palestinian West Bank city of Hebron. The site has been occupied since the time of Herod the Great by a large structure, since the Arab conquest a mosque under the control of the Muslim Waqf a traditional trust holding land for Islamic religious purposes. During periods such as the Crusades when Christians were in control of the site it has been a church.

Both Judaism and Islam agree that entombed within are the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) as well as three matriarchs (Sarah, Rebeccah, and Leah). Their graves are made inaccessible by the cenotaphs that cover them.

The cave is the second holiest site in Judaism (after the Temple Mount) and holds considerable theological significance to Islam and Christianity as well.

When the city was under the control of the Ottoman Turks, Jews were forbidden to enter and were only permitted to pray outside a few steps up the entering stairway.

When Israel captured the area during the 1967 Six Day War, it is said that then Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was given the keys and shown the actual secret hidden passageways that lead to the below-ground tombs.

In 1994, militant Jewish fundamentalist Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Palestinians at the site. Jews praying there have also been subject to numerous attacks, the most prominent among them being the 1929 Hebron Massacre, a pogrom in which Arab rioters killed 67 Jews throughout the city. The Wye River Accords provided a temporary status agreement for the site and Hebron itself.

Since the eruption of the Intifada, the site has been the subject of many attacks, directed towards Jews in prayer. Subsequently the IDF has surrounded the site with soldiers and forbidden Palestinians from entering the area.
 

Stark

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Back for another week of Fun with the Patriarchs!

Geneis 25
1 Abraham married again, and his wife's name was Keturah. 2 Keturah gave birth to these sons of Abraham: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. 3 Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan. Dedan's descendants were the Assyrians, the Letushites, and the Leummites. 4 The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. These were the descendants of Keturah. 5 Abraham left everything he had to Isaac. 6 But while he was still living, Abraham had given gifts to the sons of his concubines. He sent them away from his son Isaac to a land in the east. 7 Abraham lived 175 years. 8 Then he took his last breath, and died at a very old age. After a long and full life, he joined his ancestors in death. 9 His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah in the field of Ephron, son of Zohar the Hittite. The cave is east of Mamre. 10 This was the field that Abraham had bought from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah.

11 After Abraham died, God blessed his son Isaac, who settled near Beer Lahai Roi. 12 This is the account of the descendants of Abraham's son Ishmael. He was the son of Sarah's Egyptian slave Hagar and Abraham. 13 These are the names of the sons of Ishmael listed in the order of their birth: Nebaioth (Ishmael's firstborn), Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, 14 Mishma, Dumah, Massa, 15 Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. 16 These are the sons of Ishmael and their names listed by their settlements and camps--12 leaders of their tribes. 17 Ishmael lived 137 years. Then he took his last breath and died. He joined his ancestors in death. 18 His descendants lived as nomads from the region of Havilah to Shur, which is near Egypt, in the direction of Assyria. They all fought with each other.

19 This is the account of Abraham's son Isaac and his descendants. Abraham was the father of Isaac. 20 Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean. 21 Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife because she was childless. The LORD answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. 22 When the children inside her were struggling with each other, she said, "If it's like this now, what will become of me?" So she went to ask the LORD. 23 The LORD said to her, "Two countries are in your womb. Two nations will go their separate ways from birth. One nation will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger." 24 When the time came for her to give birth, she had twins. 25 The first one born was red. His whole body was covered with hair, so they named him Esau [Hairy]. 26 Afterwards, his brother was born with his hand holding on to Esau's heel, and so he was named Jacob [Heel]. Isaac was 60 years old when they were born. 27 They grew up. Esau became an expert hunter, an outdoorsman. Jacob remained a quiet man, staying around the tents. 28 Because Isaac liked to eat the meat of wild animals, he loved Esau. However, Rebekah loved Jacob.

29 Once, Jacob was preparing a meal when Esau, exhausted, came in from outdoors. 30 So Esau said to Jacob, "Let me have the whole pot of red stuff to eat--that red stuff--I'm exhausted." This is why he was called Edom. 31 Jacob responded, "First, sell me your rights as firstborn." 32 "I'm about to die." Esau said. "What good is my inheritance to me?" 33 "First, swear an oath," Jacob said. So Esau swore an oath to him and sold him his rights as firstborn. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau a meal of bread and lentils. He ate and drank, and then he got up and left. This is how Esau showed his contempt for his rights as firstborn.

Chapter 26

1 There was a famine in the land in addition to the earlier one during Abraham's time. So Isaac went to King Abimelech of the Philistines in Gerar. 2 The LORD appeared to Isaac and said, "Don't go to Egypt. Stay where I tell you. 3 Live here in this land for a while, and I will be with you and bless you. I will give all these lands to you and your descendants. I will keep the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. 4 I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and give all these lands to your descendants. Through your descendant all the nations of the earth will be blessed. 5 I will bless you because Abraham obeyed me and completed the duties, commands, laws, and instructions I gave him."

6 So Isaac lived in Gerar. 7 When the men of that place asked about his wife, Isaac answered, "She's my sister." He was afraid to say "my wife." He thought that the men of that place would kill him to get Rebekah, because she was an attractive woman. 8 When he had been there a long time, King Abimelech of the Philistines looked out of his window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. 9 Abimelech called for Isaac and said, "So she's really your wife! How could you say, 'She's my sister'?" Isaac answered him, "I thought I would be killed because of her." 10 Then Abimelech said, "What have you done to us! One of the people might have easily gone to bed with your wife, and then you would have made us guilty of sin." 11 So Abimelech ordered his people, "Anyone who touches this man or his wife will be put to death."

12 Isaac planted [crops] in that land. In that same year he harvested a hundred times as much as he had planted because the LORD had blessed him. 13 He continued to be successful, becoming very rich. 14 Because he owned so many flocks, herds, and servants, the Philistines became jealous of him. 15 So the Philistines filled in all the wells that his father's servants had dug during his father Abraham's lifetime. 16 Finally, Abimelech said to Isaac, "Go away from us! You've become more powerful than we are." 17 So Isaac moved away. He set up his tents in the Gerar Valley and lived there. 18 He dug out the wells that had been dug during his father Abraham's lifetime. The Philistines had filled them in after Abraham's death. He gave them the same names that his father had given them. 19 Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found a spring-fed well. 20 The herders from Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herders, claiming, "This water is ours!" So Isaac named the well Esek [Argument], because they had argued with him. 21 Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that one too. So Isaac named it Sitnah [Accusation]. 22 He moved on from there and dug another well. They didn't quarrel over this one. So he named it Rehoboth [Roomy] and said, "Now the LORD has made room for us, and we will prosper in this land." 23 He went from there to Beersheba. 24 That night the LORD appeared to Isaac, and said, "I am the God of your father Abraham. Don't be afraid, because I am with you. I will bless you and increase the number of your descendants for my servant Abraham's sake." 25 So Isaac built an altar there and worshiped the LORD. He also pitched his tent in that place, and his servants dug a well there.

26 Abimelech, his friend Ahuzzath, and Phicol, the commander of his army, came from Gerar to see Isaac. 27 Isaac asked them, "Why have you come to me, since you hate me and sent me away from you?" 28 They answered, "We have seen that the LORD is with you. So we thought, 'There should be a solemn agreement between us.' We'd like to make an agreement with you 29 that you will not harm us, since we have not touched you. We have done only good to you and let you go in peace. Now you are blessed by the LORD." 30 Isaac prepared a special dinner for them, and they ate and drank. 31 Early the next morning they exchanged oaths. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they left peacefully. 32 That same day Isaac's servants came and told him about a well they had dug. They said to him, "We've found water." 33 So he named it Shibah [Oath]. That is why the name of the city is still Beersheba today.

34 When Esau was 40 years old, he married Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite. He also married Basemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite. 35 These women brought Isaac and Rebekah a lot of grief.
 

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Fun Factoids:

Keturah
Classical Torah scholarship teaches that Keturah is actually another name for Hagar, Abraham's former concubine who had borne Ishmael.

Assyria
Location

Assyria was located in a mountainous region lying to the north of Babylonia, extending along the Tigris as far as to the high mountain range of Armenia, the Gordiaean or Carduchian mountains.
[edit]

Early history

Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria little is positively known. It was founded in 1700 BC under Bel-kap-kapu. In the 15th century, Saushtatar, king of Hanilgalbat sacked Assur and made Assyria a vassal. It paid tribute to Hanilgalbat up to the time of Ashur-uballit I. Later, it became an independent and a conquering power, and shook off the yoke of its Babylonian masters. Hanilgalbat was conquered under Adad-nirari. After that, Adad-nirari I described himself as a Great-King (Sharru rabû) in letters to the Hittite rulers. Assyria later subdued most of Western Asia.

The Assyrians established "merchant colonies" in Anatolia, e.g., at Kültepe circa 1920 BC ? 1840 BC and 1798 BC ? 1740 BC. By doing so they supplied the future Hittites with much useful technology.

In 1120 BC, Tiglath-Pileser I, the greatest of the Assyrian kings, "crossed the Euphrates, defeated the kings of the Hittites, captured the city of Carchemish, and advanced as far as the shores of the Mediterranean." He may be regarded as the founder of the first Assyrian empire. After this the Assyrians gradually extended their power, subjugating the states of Northern Syria. In the reign of Ahab, king of Israel, Shalmaneser III marched an army against the Syrian states, whose allied army he encountered and vanquished at Karkar. This led to Ahab's casting off the yoke of Damascus and allying himself with Judah. Some years after this the Assyrian king marched an army against Hazael, king of Damascus. He besieged and took that city. He also brought under tribute Jehu, and the cities of Tyre and Sidon.

Esau
The root of the name in Hebrew is derived from the word asuy denoting "completion", made and complete, since Esau was born hairy and very strong, being "completed" and not infantile. Esau has also been called Edom, which is also the name of the land where his descendents settled (Gen 36:16). The Book of Genesis connects this name with the red stew for which Esau exchanged his birthright (Gen 25:27-34). Edom means 'red'.

Symbolic of struggle

The Biblical narrative describes Jacob and Esau in the womb of their mother Rebekah as being locked in constant struggle and combat. The narrative continues that she could not bear the pain of her pregnancy, yet is told by God that she will give birth to two nations who will always be locked in symbiotic combat each one trying to overpower the other. Later Jacob is described as a dweller of tents and Esau is wild hunter.

According to all midrash, Esau is a very significant character in world history. Inasmuch as Jacob is considered to be the creator of the Children of Israel, it is Esau who is regarded as the forefather of Rome and the Roman Empire. The struggle between the Roman Empire and the Jews stemming from the land of Judah alternated, according to history, between co-operation and outright hate and warfare. The argument is proposed that Esau was born with red coloring in his hair and body, and the ancient rabbis have connected this with the red banner and standard favored by Rome's legions.

After Jacob tricks Esau into eschewing Isaac's blessing as leader, Esau is given the blessing that he shall "live by the sword". Some see this as another sign of Rome, famous for her unique sword made of steel that smashed its way to world hegemony and on the way massacred the descendents of Jacob/Israel.

Jacob in Islam and the Nation of Islam

In Arabic Jacob is known as Yaqub. He is regarded as a prophet in Islam.

In the mythology of the black supremacist movement the Nation of Islam, Jacob's name is spelled Yakub. Instead of being seen as the father of the twelve tribes of Israel he is presented as an evil scientist who created the white race by genetic experimentation on an isolated group of the original black peoples of the world, conducted on the island of Patmos. Breeding this white race took six hundred years. Jacob's progeny are destined by God to be the ruling race of the world for an allotted period of six thousand years, before the original black race regains dominance, a process that is supposed to have begun in 1914. Originating with Wallace Fard Muhammad, the prophet of Nation of Islam, the sources of this idiosycratic theory have yet to be fully traced, but probably derive from anti-Semitic ideas of the time according to which Jews are an "artificial race". This notion is then generalised to white people, of which Jews are perceived as a sub-group.
 

Stark

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I've been busy studying for an MCSE test I'm taking next Tuesday, but enough excuses... here is the next day of reading:

Day 19: Genesis 27-29

1 When Isaac was old and going blind, he called his older son Esau and said to him, "Son!" Esau answered, "Here I am." 2 Isaac said, "I'm old. I don't know when I'm going to die. 3 Now take your hunting equipment, your quiver and bow, and go out into the open country and hunt some wild game for me. 4 Prepare a good-tasting meal for me, just the way I like it. Bring it to me to eat so that I will bless you before I die." 5 Rebekah was listening while Isaac was speaking to his son Esau. When Esau went into the open country to hunt for some wild game to bring back,

6 Rebekah said to her son Jacob, "I've just heard your father speaking to your brother Esau. 7 He said, 'Bring me some wild game, and prepare a good-tasting meal for me to eat so that I will bless you in the presence of the LORD before I die.' 8 Now listen to me, Son, and do what I tell you. 9 Go to the flock, and get me two good young goats. I'll prepare them as a good-tasting meal for your father, just the way he likes it. 10 Then take it to your father to eat so that he will bless you before he dies." 11 Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, "My brother Esau is a hairy man, and my skin is smooth. 12 My father will feel [my skin] and think I'm mocking him. Then I'll bring a curse on myself instead of a blessing." 13 His mother responded, "Let any curse on you fall on me, Son. Just obey me and go! Get me [the young goats]." 14 He went and got them and brought them to his mother. She prepared a good-tasting meal, just the way his father liked it. 15 Then Rebekah took her older son Esau's good clothes, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. 16 She put the skins from the young goats on his hands and on the back of his neck. 17 Then she gave her son Jacob the good-tasting meal and the bread she had prepared.

18 He went to his father and said, "Father?" "Yes?" he answered. "Who are you, Son?" 19 Jacob answered his father, "I'm Esau, your firstborn. I've done what you told me. Sit up and eat this meat I've hunted for you so that you may bless me." 20 Isaac asked his son, "How did you find it so quickly, Son?" "The LORD your God brought it to me," he answered. 21 Then Isaac said to Jacob, "Come over here so that I can feel your skin, Son, [to find out] whether or not you really are my son Esau." 22 So Jacob went over to his father. Isaac felt [his skin]. "The voice is Jacob's," he said, "but the hands are Esau's." 23 He didn't recognize Jacob, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands. So he blessed him. 24 "Are you really my son Esau?" he asked him. "I am," Jacob answered. 25 Isaac said, "Bring me some of the game, and I will eat it, Son, so that I will bless you." Jacob brought it to Isaac, and he ate it. Jacob also brought him wine, and he drank it. 26 Then his father Isaac said to him, "Come here and give me a kiss, Son." 27 He went over and gave him a kiss. When Isaac smelled his clothes, he blessed him and said, "The smell of my son is like the smell of open country that the LORD has blessed. 28 May God give you dew from the sky, fertile fields on the earth, and plenty of fresh grain and new wine. 29 May nations serve you. May people bow down to you. Be the master of your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed. May those who bless you be blessed."

30 Isaac finished blessing Jacob. Jacob had barely left when his brother Esau came in from hunting. 31 He, too, prepared a good-tasting meal and brought it to his father. Then he said to his father, "Please, Father, eat some of the meat I've hunted for you so that you will bless me." 32 "Who are you?" his father Isaac asked him. "I'm your firstborn son Esau," he answered. 33 Trembling violently all over, Isaac asked, "Who hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it before you came in. I blessed him, and he will stay blessed." 34 When Esau heard these words from his father, he shouted out a very loud and bitter cry and said to his father, "Bless me too, Father!" 35 Isaac said, "Your brother came and deceived me and has taken away your blessing." 36 Esau said, "Isn't that why he's named Jacob? He's cheated me twice already: He took my rights as firstborn, and now he's taken my blessing." So he asked, "Haven't you saved a blessing for me?" 37 Isaac answered Esau, "I have made him your master, and I have made all his brothers serve him. I've provided fresh grain and new wine for him. What is left for me to do for you, Son?" 38 Esau asked, "Do you have only one blessing, Father? Bless me too, Father!" And Esau sobbed loudly. 39 His father Isaac answered him, "The place where you live will lack the fertile fields of the earth and the dew from the sky above. 40 You will use your sword to live, and you will serve your brother. But eventually you will gain your freedom and break his yoke off your neck."

41 So Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing that his father had given him. Esau said to himself, "The time to mourn for my father is near. Then I'll kill my brother Jacob." 42 When Rebekah was told what her older son Esau had said, she sent for her younger son Jacob and said to him, "Watch out! Your brother Esau is comforting himself by planning to kill you. 43 So now, Son, obey me. Quick! Run away to my brother Laban in Haran. 44 Stay with him awhile, until your brother's anger cools down. 45 When your brother's anger is gone and he has forgotten what you did to him, I'll send for you and get you back. Why should I lose both of you in one day?" 46 Rebekah said to Isaac, "I can't stand Hittite women! If Jacob marries a Hittite woman like one of those from around here, I might as well die."

Chapter 28

1 Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him, "You are not to marry any of the Canaanite women. 2 Quick! Go to Paddan Aram. Go to the home of Bethuel, your mother's father, and get yourself a wife from there from the daughters of your uncle Laban. 3 May God Almighty bless you, make you fertile, and increase the number of your descendants so that you will become a community of people. 4 May he give to you and your descendants the blessing of Abraham so that you may take possession of the land where you are now living, the land that God gave to Abraham." 5 Isaac sent Jacob to Paddan Aram. Jacob went to live with Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean and brother of Rebekah. She was the mother of Jacob and Esau.

6 Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him away to Paddan Aram to get a wife from there. He learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had commanded him not to marry any of the Canaanite women. 7 He also learned that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had left for Paddan Aram. 8 Esau realized that his father Isaac disapproved of Canaanite women. 9 So he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, daughter of Abraham's son Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth, in addition to the wives he had.

10 Jacob left Beersheba and traveled toward Haran. 11 When he came to a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had gone down. He took one of the stones from that place, put it under his head, and lay down there. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway set up on the earth with its top reaching up to heaven. He saw the angels of God going up and coming down on it. 13 The LORD was standing above it, saying, "I am the LORD, the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give the land on which you are lying to you and your descendants. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust on the earth. You will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. Through you and through your descendant every family on earth will be blessed. 15 Remember, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. I will also bring you back to this land because I will not leave you until I do what I've promised you."

16 Then Jacob woke up from his sleep and exclaimed, "Certainly, the LORD is in this place, and I didn't know it!" 17 Filled with awe, he said, "How awe-inspiring this place is! Certainly, this is the house of God and the gateway to heaven!" 18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had put under his head. He set it up as a marker and poured olive oil on top of it. 19 He named that place Bethel [House of God]. Previously, the name of the city was Luz. 20 Then Jacob made a vow: "If God will be with me and will watch over me on my trip and give me food to eat and clothes to wear, 21 and if I return safely to my father's home, then the LORD will be my God. 22 This stone that I have set up as a marker will be the house of God, and I will surely give you a tenth of everything you give me."

Chapter 29

1 Jacob continued on his trip and came to the land in the east. 2 He looked around, and out in a field he saw a well with a large stone over the opening. Three flocks of sheep were lying down near it, because the flocks were watered from that well. 3 When all the flocks were gathered there, the stone would be rolled off the opening of the well so that the sheep could be watered. Then the stone would be put back in place over the opening of the well. 4 Jacob asked some people, "My friends, where are you from?" "We're from Haran," they replied. 5 He asked them, "Do you know Laban, Nahor's grandson?" They answered, "We do." 6 "How is he doing?" Jacob asked them. "He's fine," they answered. "Here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep." 7 "It's still the middle of the day," he said. "It isn't time yet to gather the livestock. Water the sheep. Then let them graze." 8 They replied, "We can't until all the flocks are gathered. When the stone is rolled off the opening of the well, we can water the sheep."

9 While he was still talking to them, Rachel arrived with her father's sheep, because she was a shepherd. 10 Jacob saw Rachel, daughter of his uncle Laban, with his uncle Laban's sheep. He came forward and rolled the stone off the opening of the well and watered his uncle Laban's sheep. 11 Then Jacob kissed Rachel and sobbed loudly. 12 When Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's nephew and that he was Rebekah's son, she ran and told her father. 13 As soon as Laban heard the news about his sister's son Jacob, he ran to meet him. He hugged and kissed him and brought him into his home. Then Jacob told Laban all that had happened. 14 Laban said to him, "You are my own flesh and blood." Jacob stayed with him for a whole month.

15 Then Laban said to him, "Just because you're my relative doesn't mean that you should work for nothing. Tell me what your wages should be." 16 Laban had two daughters. The name of the older one was Leah, and the name of the younger one was Rachel. 17 Leah had attractive eyes, but Rachel had a beautiful figure and beautiful features. 18 Jacob loved Rachel. So he offered, "I'll work seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel." 19 Laban responded, "It's better that I give her to you than to any other man. Stay with me." 20 Jacob worked seven years in return for Rachel, but the years seemed like only a few days to him because he loved her. 21 [At the end of the seven years] Jacob said to Laban, "The time is up; give me my wife! I want to sleep with her." 22 So Laban invited all the people of that place and gave a wedding feast. 23 In the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob. Jacob slept with her. When morning came, he realized it was Leah. 24 (Laban had given his slave Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her slave.) 25 "What have you done to me?" Jacob asked Laban. "Didn't I work for you in return for Rachel? Why did you cheat me?" 26 Laban answered, "It's not our custom to give the younger daughter [in marriage] before the older one. 27 Finish the week of wedding festivities with this daughter. Then we will give you the other one too. But you'll have to work for me another seven years." 28 That's what Jacob did. He finished the week with Leah. Then Laban gave his daughter Rachel to him as his wife. 29 (Laban had given his slave Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her slave.) 30 Jacob slept with Rachel too. He loved Rachel more than Leah. So he worked for Laban another seven years.

31 When the LORD saw Leah was unloved, he made it possible for her to have children, but Rachel had none. 32 Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben [Here's My Son], because she said, "Certainly, the LORD has seen my misery; now my husband will love me!" 33 She became pregnant again and gave birth to another son. She said, "Certainly, the LORD has heard that I'm unloved, and he also has given me this son." So she named him Simeon [Hearing]. 34 She became pregnant again and gave birth to another son. She said, "Now at last my husband will become attached to me because I've given him three sons." So she named him Levi [Attached]. 35 She became pregnant again and gave birth to another son. She said, "This time I will praise the LORD." So she named him Judah [Praise]. Then she stopped having children.
 

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the entire Bible posted in 1 year (or so)

discussions and contributions are welcome. ;)
 

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Genesis 30

1 Rachel saw that she could not have children for Jacob, and she became jealous of her sister. She said to Jacob, "Give me children, or I'll die!" 2 Jacob became angry with Rachel and asked, "Can I take the place of God, who has kept you from having children?" 3 She said, "Here's my servant Bilhah. Sleep with her. She can have children for me, and I can build a family for myself through her." 4 So she gave him her slave Bilhah as his wife, and Jacob slept with her.;) 5 Bilhah became pregnant, and she gave birth to a son for Jacob. 6 Rachel said, "Now God has judged in my favor. He has heard my prayer and has given me a son." So she named him Dan [He Judges]. 7 Rachel's slave Bilhah became pregnant again ;) and gave birth to a second son for Jacob. 8 Rachel said, "I have had a great struggle with my sister, and I have won!" So she named him Naphtali [My Struggle].

9 When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her slave Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as his wife. ;) 10 Leah's slave Zilpah gave birth to a son for Jacob. 11 Leah said, "I've been lucky!" So she called him Gad [Luck]. 12 Leah's slave Zilpah gave birth to her second son for Jacob. ;) 13 Leah said, "I've been blessed! Women will call me blessed." So she named him Asher [Blessing].

14 During the wheat harvest Reuben went out into the fields and found some mandrakes. He brought them to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, "Please give me some of your son's mandrakes." 15 Leah replied, "Isn't it enough that you took my husband? Are you also going to take my son's mandrakes?" Rachel said, "Very well, Jacob can go to bed with you tonight in return for your son's mandrakes." 16 As Jacob was coming in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. "You are to sleep with me," she said. "You are my reward for my son's mandrakes." So he went to bed with her that night. ;) 17 God answered Leah's prayer. She became pregnant and gave birth to her fifth son for Jacob. 18 Leah said, "God has given me my reward because I gave my slave to my husband." So she named him Issachar [Reward]. 19 She became pregnant again and gave birth to her sixth son for Jacob. 20 Leah said, "God has presented me with a beautiful present. This time my husband will honor me because I have given him six sons." So she named him Zebulun [Honor]. 21 Later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah. 22 Then God remembered Rachel. God answered her prayer and made it possible for her to have children. 23 So she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. ;) Then she said, "God has taken away my disgrace." 24 She named him Joseph [May He Give Another] and said, "May the LORD give me another son."

25 After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, "Let me go home to my own country. 26 Give me my wives and my children for whom I've worked, and let me go. You know how much work I've done for you." 27 Laban replied, "Listen to me. I've learned from the signs I've seen that the LORD has blessed me because of you." 28 So he offered, "Name your wages, and I'll pay them." 29 Jacob responded, "You know how much work I've done for you and what has happened to your livestock under my care. 30 The little that you had before I came has grown to a large amount. The LORD has blessed you wherever I've been. When can I do something for my own family?" 31 Laban asked, "What should I give you?" "Don't give me anything," Jacob answered. "Instead, do something for me, then I'll go back to taking care of and watching your flocks again. 32 Let me go through all of your flocks today and take every speckled or spotted sheep, every black lamb, and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages. 33 My honesty will speak for itself whenever you come to check on my wages. Any goat I have that isn't speckled or spotted or any lamb that isn't black will be considered stolen." 34 Laban answered, "Agreed. We'll do as you've said." 35 However, that same day Laban took out the striped and spotted male goats, all the speckled and spotted female goats (every one with white on it), and every black lamb. He had his sons take charge of them. 36 He traveled three days away from Jacob. Jacob continued to take care of the rest of Laban's flocks.

37 Then Jacob took fresh-cut branches of poplar, almond, and plane trees and peeled the bark on them in strips of white, uncovering the white which was on the branches. 38 He placed the peeled branches in the troughs directly in front of the flocks, at the watering places where the flocks came to drink. When they were in heat and came to drink, 39 they mated in front of the branches. Then they gave birth to young that were striped, speckled, or spotted. 40 Jacob separated the rams from the flock and made the rest of the sheep face any that were striped or black in Laban's flocks. So he made separate herds for himself and did not add them to Laban's flocks. 41 Whenever the stronger of the flocks were in heat, Jacob would lay the branches in the troughs in front of them so that they would mate by the branches. 42 But when the flocks in heat were weak, he didn't lay down the branches. So the weaker ones belonged to Laban and the stronger ones to Jacob. 43 As a result, Jacob became very wealthy. He had large flocks, male and female slaves, camels, and donkeys.

Chapter 30

1 Jacob heard that Laban's sons were saying, "Jacob has taken everything that belonged to our father and has gained all his wealth from him." 2 He also noticed that Laban did not appear as friendly to him as before. 3 Then the LORD said to Jacob, "Go back to the land of your ancestors and to your relatives, and I will be with you." 4 So Jacob sent a message to Rachel and Leah to come out to the open country where his flocks were. 5 He said to them, "I have seen that your father isn't as friendly to me as he was before, but the God of my father has been with me. 6 You know that I have worked as hard as I could for your father. 7 Your father has cheated me. He has changed my wages ten times. But God hasn't let him harm me. 8 Whenever he said, 'The speckled ones will be your wages,' all the flocks gave birth to speckled young. And whenever he said, 'The striped ones will be your wages,' all the flocks gave birth to striped young. 9 So God has taken away your father's livestock and has given them to me. 10 "During the mating season I had a dream: I looked up and saw that the male goats which were mating were striped, speckled, or spotted. 11 In the dream the Messenger of God called to me, 'Jacob!' And I answered, 'Yes, here I am.' 12 He said, 'Look up and see that all the male goats which are mating are striped, speckled, or spotted, because I have seen everything that Laban is doing to you. 13 I am the God who appeared to you at Bethel where you poured olive oil on a stone marker for a holy purpose and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land, and go back to the land of your relatives [Canaan].'" 14 Rachel and Leah answered him, "Is there anything left in our father's household for us to inherit? 15 Doesn't he think of us as foreigners? Not only did he sell us, but he has used up the money that was paid for us. 16 Certainly, all the wealth that God took away from our father belongs to us and our children. Now do whatever God has told you."

17 Then Jacob put his children and his wives on camels. 18 He drove all his livestock ahead of him and took all the possessions that he had accumulated. He took his own livestock that he had accumulated in Paddan Aram and went back to his father Isaac in Canaan. 19 When Laban went to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father's idols. 20 Jacob also tricked Laban the Aramean by not telling him he was leaving. 21 So he left in a hurry with all that belonged to him. He crossed the Euphrates River and went toward the mountains of Gilead. 22 Two days later Laban was told that Jacob had left in a hurry. 23 He and his relatives pursued Jacob for seven days. Laban caught up with him in the mountains of Gilead. 24 God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night and said to him, "Be careful not to say anything at all to Jacob."

25 When Laban finally caught up with Jacob, Jacob had put up his tents in the mountains. So Laban and his relatives put up their tents in the mountains of Gilead. 26 Then Laban asked Jacob, "What have you done by tricking me? You've carried off my daughters like prisoners of war. 27 Why did you leave secretly and trick me? You didn't even tell me you were leaving. I would have sent you on your way rejoicing, with songs accompanied by tambourines and lyres. 28 You didn't even let me kiss my grandchildren and my daughters. You've done a foolish thing. 29 I have the power to harm you. Last night the God of your father said to me, 'Be careful not to say anything at all to Jacob.' 30 Now you have left for your father's home because you were so homesick. But why did you steal my gods?" 31 Jacob answered Laban, "I left because I was afraid. I thought you would take your daughters away from me by force. 32 If you find your gods, the one who has them will not be allowed to live. In the presence of our relatives, search as much as you want through what I have, and take what is yours." (Jacob didn't know that Rachel had stolen the gods.) 33 So Laban went into Jacob's tent, into Leah's tent, and into the tent of the two slaves. But he found nothing. He came out of Leah's tent and went into Rachel's tent. 34 Rachel had taken the idols and had put them in her camel's saddle-bag and was sitting on them. Laban rummaged through the whole tent but found nothing. 35 Rachel said to her father, "Don't be angry, Father, but I can't get up to greet you; I'm having my period :disgust:." So even though Laban had made a thorough search, he didn't find the idols.

36 Then Jacob became angry and confronted Laban. "What is my crime?" Jacob demanded of Laban. "What is my offense that you have come chasing after me? 37 Now that you've rummaged through all my things, did you find anything from your house? Put it here in front of all our relatives. Let them decide which one of us is right. 38 "I've been with you for 20 years. Your sheep and goats never miscarried, and I never ate any rams from your flocks. 39 I never brought you any of the flock that was killed by wild animals. I paid for the loss myself. That's what you demanded of me when any of the flock was stolen during the day or at night. 40 The scorching heat during the day and the cold at night wore me down, and I lost a lot of sleep. 41 I've been with your household 20 years now. I worked for you 14 years for your two daughters and 6 years for your flocks, and you changed my wages ten times. 42 If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would have sent me away empty-handed by now. God has seen my misery and hard work, and last night he made it right."

43 Then Laban answered Jacob, "These are my daughters, my grandchildren, and my flocks. Everything you see is mine! Yet, what can I do today for my daughters or for their children? 44 Now, let's make an agreement and let it stand as a witness between you and me." 45 Jacob took a stone and set it up as a marker. 46 Then Jacob said to his relatives, "Gather some stones." They took stones, put them into a pile, and ate there by the pile of stones. 47 [In his language] Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha [Witness Pile], but Jacob called it Galeed. 48 Laban said, "This pile of stones stands as a witness between you and me today." This is why it was named Galeed 49 and also Mizpah [Watchtower], because he said, "May the LORD watch between you and me when we're unable to see each other. 50 If you mistreat my daughters or marry other women behind my back, remember that God stands as a witness between you and me." 51 Laban said to Jacob, "Here is the pile of stones, and here is the marker that I have set up between you and me. 52 This pile of stones and this marker stand as witnesses that I will not go past the pile of stones to harm you, and that you will not go past the pile of stones or marker to harm me. 53 May the God of Abraham and Nahor--the God of their father--judge between us." So Jacob swore this oath by the Fear of his father Isaac 54 and offered a sacrifice on the mountain. He invited his relatives to eat the meal with him. They ate with him and spent the night on the mountain. 55 Early the next morning Laban kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. Then Laban left and went back home.
 

Stark

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Reading for Monday:

Genesis 32

1 As Jacob went on his way, God's angels met him. 2 When he saw them, Jacob said, "This is God's camp!" He named that place Mahanaim [Two Camps].

3 Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in Seir, the country of Edom. 4 He commanded them to give this message to Esau, "Sir, this is what Jacob has to say, 'I've been living with Laban and have stayed until now. 5 I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, and male and female slaves. I've sent [these messengers] to tell you [this news] in order to win your favor.'" 6 When the messengers came back to Jacob, they said, "We went to your brother Esau. He is coming to meet you with 400 men." 7 Jacob was terrified and distressed. So he divided the people, the sheep and goats, the cattle, and the camels into two camps. 8 He thought, "If Esau attacks the one camp, then the other camp will be able to escape."

9 Then Jacob prayed, "God of my grandfather Abraham and God of my father Isaac! LORD, you said to me, 'Go back to your land and to your relatives, and I will make you prosperous.' 10 I'm not worthy of all the love and faithfulness you have shown me. I only had a shepherd's staff when I crossed the Jordan River, but now I have two camps. 11 Please save me from my brother Esau, because I'm afraid of him. I'm afraid that he'll come and attack me and the mothers and children too. 12 But you did say, 'I will make sure that you are prosperous and that your descendants will be as many as the grains of sand on the seashore. No one will be able to count them because there are so many.'"

13 He stayed there that night. Then he prepared a gift for his brother Esau from what he had brought with him: 14 200 female goats and 20 male goats, 200 female sheep and 20 male sheep, 15 30 female camels with their young, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys and 10 male donkeys. 16 He placed servants in charge of each herd. Then he said to his servants, "Go ahead of me, and keep a distance between the herds." 17 He commanded the first servant, "When my brother Esau meets you and asks you, 'To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and whose animals are these ahead of you?' 18 then say, 'Sir, they belong to your servant Jacob. This is a gift sent to you. Jacob is right behind us.'" 19 He also commanded the second servant, the third, and all the others who followed the herds. He said, "Say the same thing to Esau when you find him. 20 And be sure to add, 'Jacob is right behind us, sir.'" He thought, "I'll make peace with him by giving him this gift that I'm sending ahead of me. After that I will see him, and he'll welcome me back." 21 So Jacob sent the gift ahead of him while he stayed in the camp that night. 22 During that night he got up and gathered his two wives, his two slaves and his eleven children and crossed at the shallow part of the Jabbok River. 23 After he sent them across the stream, he sent everything else across.

24 So Jacob was left alone. Then a man wrestled with him until dawn. 25 When the man saw that he could not win against Jacob, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that it was dislocated as they wrestled. 26 Then the man said, "Let me go; it's almost dawn." But Jacob answered, "I won't let you go until you bless me." 27 So the man asked him, "What's your name?" "Jacob," he answered. 28 The man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob but Israel [He Struggles With God], because you have struggled with God and with men--and you have won." 29 Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." The man answered, "Why do you ask for my name?" Then he blessed Jacob there. 30 So Jacob named that place Peniel [Face of God], because he said, "I have seen God face to face, but my life was saved." 31 The sun rose as he passed Penuel. He was limping because of his hip. 32 (Therefore, even today the people of Israel do not eat the muscle of the thigh attached to the hip socket because God touched the socket of Jacob's hip at the muscle of the thigh.)

Genesis 33

1 Jacob saw Esau coming with 400 men. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two slaves. 2 He put the slaves and their children in front, Leah and her children after them, and Rachel and Joseph last. 3 He went on ahead of them and bowed seven times with his face touching the ground as he came near his brother. 4 Then Esau ran to meet Jacob. Esau hugged him, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. They both cried.

5 When he saw the women and children, Esau asked, "Who are these people here with you?" "The children God has graciously given me, sir," Jacob answered. 6 Then the slaves and their children came forward and bowed down. 7 Likewise, Leah and her children came forward and bowed down. Finally, Joseph and Rachel came forward and bowed down. 8 Then Esau asked, "Why did you send this whole group [of people and animals] I met?" He answered, "To win your favor, sir." 9 Esau said, "I have enough. Keep what you have, Brother." 10 Jacob said, "No, please take the gift I'm giving you, because I've seen your face as if I were seeing the face of God, and yet you welcomed me so warmly. 11 Please take the present I've brought you, because God has been gracious to me and has given me all that I need." So Esau took it because Jacob insisted. 12 Then Esau said, "Let's get ready to go, and I'll go with you." 13 Jacob said to him, "Sir, you know that the children are frail and that I have to take care of the flocks and cattle that are nursing their young. If they're driven too hard for even one day, all the flocks will die. 14 Go ahead of me, sir. I will slowly and gently guide the herds that are in front of me at their pace and at the children's pace until I come to you in Seir." 15 Esau said, "Then let me leave some of my men with you." "Why do that?" Jacob asked. "I only want to win your favor, sir."

16 That day Esau started back to Seir. 17 But Jacob moved on to Succoth, where he built a house for himself and made shelters for his livestock. That is why the place is named Succoth [Shelters]. 18 So having come from Paddan Aram, Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem in Canaan. He camped within sight of the city. 19 Then he bought the piece of land on which he had put up his tents. He bought it from the sons of Hamor, father of Shechem, for 100 pieces of silver. 20 He set up an altar there and named it God Is the God of Israel.

Genesis 34

1 Dinah, daughter of Leah and Jacob, went out to visit some of the Canaanite women. 2 When Shechem, son of the local ruler Hamor the Hivite, saw her, he took her and raped her. 3 He became very fond of Jacob's daughter Dinah. He loved the girl and spoke tenderly to her. 4 So Shechem said to his father Hamor, "Get me this girl for my wife." 5 Jacob heard that Shechem had dishonored his daughter Dinah. His sons were with his livestock out in the open country, so Jacob kept quiet until they came home.

6 So Shechem's father Hamor came to Jacob to speak with him. 7 Jacob's sons came in from the open country as soon as they heard the news. The men felt outraged and very angry because Shechem had committed such a godless act against Israel's family by raping Jacob's daughter. This shouldn't have happened. 8 Hamor told them. "My son Shechem has his heart set on your daughter. Please let her marry him. 9 Intermarry with us; give your daughters to us, and take ours for yourselves. 10 You can live with us, and the land will be yours. Live here, move about freely in this area, and acquire property here." 11 Then Shechem said to Dinah's father and her brothers, "Do me this favor. I'll give you whatever you ask. 12 Set the price I must pay for the bride and the gift I must give her as high as you want. I'll pay exactly what you tell me. Give me the girl as my wife." 13 Then Jacob's sons gave Shechem and his father Hamor a misleading answer because he had dishonored their sister Dinah. 14 They said, "We can't do this. We can't give our sister to a man who is uncircumcised. That would be a disgrace to us! 15 We will give our consent to you only on one condition: Every male must be circumcised as we are. 16 Then we'll give our daughters to you and take yours for ourselves, and we'll live with you and become one people. 17 If you won't agree to be circumcised, we'll take our daughter and go."

18 Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem. 19 The young man didn't waste any time in doing what they said because he took such pleasure in Jacob's daughter. He was the most honored person in all his father's family. 20 So Hamor and his son Shechem went to their city gate to speak to the men of their city. They said, 21 "These people are friendly toward us, so let them live in our land and move about freely in the area. Look, there's plenty of room in this land for them. We can marry their daughters and let them marry ours. 22 These people will consent to live with us and become one nation on one condition: Every male must be circumcised as they are. 23 Won't their livestock, their personal property, and all their animals be ours? We only need to agree to do this for them. Then they'll live with us." 24 All the men who had come out to the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem. So they were all circumcised at the city gate.

25 Two days later, while the men were still in pain, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and boldly attacked the city. They killed every man 26 including Hamor and his son Shechem. They took Dinah from Shechem's home and left. 27 Then Jacob's sons stripped the corpses and looted the city where their sister had been dishonored. 28 They took the sheep and goats, cattle, donkeys, and whatever else was in the city or out in the fields. 29 They carried off all the wealth and all the women and children and looted everything in the houses. 30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have caused me a lot of trouble! You've made the people living in the area, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, hate me. There are only a few of us. If they join forces against me and attack me, my family and I will be wiped out." 31 Simeon and Levi asked, "Should Shechem have been allowed to treat our sister like a prostitute?"
 

Stark

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despite acting like a huge wuss much of the time, Jacob is one of my Biblical heros. Faith only goes so far... sometime you have to wrestle with God before you accept something as real.

;)
 

Stark

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after a brief break... back to the show!

Genesis 35

1 Then God said to Jacob, "Go to Bethel and live there. Make an altar there. I am the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau." 2 So Jacob said to his family and those who were with him, "Get rid of the foreign gods which you have, wash yourselves until you are ritually clean, and change your clothes. 3 Then let's go to Bethel. I will make an altar there to God, who answered me when I was troubled and who has been with me wherever I've gone." 4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods that they had in their possession as well as the earrings that they had on. Jacob buried these things under the oak tree near Shechem. 5 As they moved on, God made the people of the cities that were all around them terrified so that no one pursued them.

6 Jacob and all the people who were with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan. 7 He built an altar there and called that place El Bethel [God of the House of God]. That's where God had revealed himself to Jacob when he was fleeing from his brother. 8 Rebekah's nurse Deborah died and was buried under the oak tree outside Bethel. So Jacob called it the Tree of Crying. 9 Then God appeared once more to Jacob after he came back from Paddan Aram, and he blessed him. 10 God said to him, "Your name is Jacob. You will no longer be called Jacob, but your name will be Israel." So he named him Israel. 11 God also said to him, "I am God Almighty. Be fertile, and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from you. 12 I will give you the land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac. I will also give this land to your descendants." 13 Then God went up from him at the place where he had spoken with him. 14 So Jacob set up a memorial, a stone marker, to mark the place where God had spoken with him. He poured a wine offering and olive oil on it. 15 Jacob named the place where God had spoken with him Bethel [House of God].

16 Then they moved on from Bethel. When they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel went into labor and was having severe labor pains. 17 During one of her pains, the midwife said to her, "Don't be afraid! You're having another son!" 18 Rachel was dying. As she took her last breath, she named her son Benoni [Son of My Sorrow], but his father named him Benjamin [Son of My Right Hand]. 19 Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). 20 Then Jacob set up a stone as a marker for her grave. The same marker is at Rachel's grave today.

21 Israel moved on again and put up his tent beyond Migdal Eder. 22 While Israel was living in that region, Reuben went to bed with his father's concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard about it. Jacob had 12 sons. 23 The sons of Leah were Jacob's firstborn Reuben, then Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. 24 The sons of Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin. 25 The sons of Rachel's slave Bilhah were Dan and Naphtali. 26 The sons of Leah's slave Zilpah were Gad and Asher. These were Jacob's sons, who were born in Paddan Aram. 27 Jacob came home to his father Isaac to Mamre's city, Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron). Abraham and Isaac had lived there for a while. 28 Isaac was 180 years old 29 when he took his last breath and died. He joined his ancestors in death at a very old age. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Genesis 36

1 This is the account of Esau (that is, Edom) and his descendants. 2 Esau chose his wives from the women of Canaan: Adah, daughter of Elon the Hittite; Oholibamah, daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite; 3 also Basemath, daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth. 4 Adah gave birth to Eliphaz for Esau, and Basemath gave birth to Reuel. 5 Oholibamah gave birth to Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. These were the sons of Esau who were born in Canaan. 6 Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, all the members of his household, his possessions, all his cattle, and everything he had accumulated in Canaan and went to another land away from his brother Jacob. 7 He did this because they had too many possessions to live together. There wasn't enough pastureland for all of their livestock. 8 So Esau, who was also known as Edom, lived in the mountains of Seir.

9 This is the account of Esau and his descendants. He was the father of the people of Edom in the mountains of Seir. 10 These were the names of Esau's sons: Eliphaz, son of Esau's wife Adah, and Reuel, son of Esau's wife Basemath. 11 The sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz. 12 Timna was a concubine of Esau's son Eliphaz. She gave birth to Amalek for Eliphaz. These were the grandsons of Esau's wife Adah. 13 These were Reuel's sons: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah. These were the grandsons of Esau's wife Basemath. 14 These were the sons of Esau's wife Oholibamah, daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon. She gave birth to Jeush, Jalam, and Korah for Esau. 15 These were the tribal leaders among Esau's descendants: The sons of Eliphaz, Esau's firstborn, were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz, 16 Korah, Gatam, and Amalek. These were the tribal leaders descended from Eliphaz in Edom. They were the grandsons of Adah. 17 These were the tribal leaders among the descendants of Esau's son Reuel: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah. These were the tribal leaders descended from Reuel in Edom. They were the grandsons of Esau's wife Basemath. 18 These were the tribal leaders among the descendants of Esau's wife Oholibamah: Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. These were the tribal leaders descended from Esau's wife Oholibamah, Anah's daughter. 19 These were the descendants of Esau (that is, Edom), who were tribal leaders.

20 These were the sons of Seir the Horite, the people living in that land: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah, 21 Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan. These Horite tribal leaders were the sons of Seir in Edom. 22 The sons of Lotan were Hori and Hemam. Lotan's sister was Timna. 23 These were the sons of Shobal: Alvan, Manahath, Ebal, Shepho, and Onam. 24 These were the sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah. (Anah found the hot springs in the desert while he was taking care of the donkeys that belonged to his father Zibeon.) 25 These were the children of Anah: Dishon and Oholibamah, daughter of Anah. 26 These were the sons of Dishon: Hemdan, Eshban, Ithran, and Cheran. 27 These were the sons of Ezer: Bilhan, Zaavan, and Akan. 28 These were the sons of Dishan: Uz and Aran. 29 These were the Horite tribal leaders: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah, 30 Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan. These were the Horite tribal leaders in the land of Seir.

31 These were the kings who ruled Edom before any king ruled the people of Israel: 32 Bela, son of Beor, ruled Edom. The name of his [capital] city was Dinhabah. 33 After Bela died, Jobab, son of Zerah from Bozrah, succeeded him as king. 34 After Jobab died, Husham from the land of the Temanites succeeded him as king. 35 After Husham died, Hadad, son of Bedad succeeded him as king. Hadad defeated the Midianites in the country of Moab. The name of his capital city was Avith. 36 After Hadad died, Samlah from Masrekah succeeded him as king. 37 After Samlah died, Shaul from Rehoboth on the river succeeded him as king. 38 After Shaul died, Baal Hanan, son of Achbor, succeeded him as king. 39 After Baal Hanan, son of Achbor, died, Hadar succeeded him as king, and the name of his capital city was Pau. His wife's name was Mehetabel, daughter of Matred and granddaughter of Mezahab. 40 These were the names of the tribal leaders descended from Esau, by family, place, and name: Timna, Alvah, Jetheth, 41 Oholibamah, Elah, Pinon, 42 Kenaz, Teman, Mibzar, 43 Magdiel, and Iram. These were the tribal leaders of Edom listed by the places where they lived and the property they owned. Esau was the father of the people of Edom.

Genesis 37

1 Jacob continued to live in the land of Canaan, where his father had lived. 2 This is the account of Jacob and his descendants. Joseph was a seventeen-year-old young man. He took care of the flocks with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. Joseph told his father about the bad things his brothers were doing. 3 Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because Joseph had been born in Israel's old age. So he made Joseph a special robe with long sleeves. 4 Joseph's brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them. They hated Joseph and couldn't speak to him on friendly terms.

5 Joseph had a dream and when he told his brothers, they hated him even more. 6 He said to them, "Please listen to the dream I had. 7 We were tying grain into bundles out in the field, and suddenly mine stood up. It remained standing while your bundles gathered around my bundle and bowed down to it." 8 Then his brothers asked him, "Are you going to be our king or rule us?" They hated him even more for his dreams and his words. 9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. "Listen," he said, "I had another dream: I saw the sun, the moon, and 11 stars bowing down to me." 10 When he told his father and his brothers, his father criticized him by asking, "What's this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers come and bow down in front of you?" 11 So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept thinking about these things.

12 His brothers had gone to take care of their father's flocks at Shechem. 13 Israel then said to Joseph, "Your brothers are taking care of the flocks at Shechem. I'm going to send you to them." Joseph responded, "I'll go." 14 So Israel said, "See how your brothers and the flocks are doing, and bring some news back to me." Then he sent Joseph away from the Hebron Valley. When Joseph came to Shechem, 15 a man found him wandering around in the open country. "What are you looking for?" the man asked. 16 Joseph replied, "I'm looking for my brothers. Please tell me where they're taking care of their flocks." 17 The man said, "They moved on from here. I heard them say, 'Let's go to Dothan.'" So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan. 18 They saw him from a distance. Before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. 19 They said to each other, "Look, here comes that master dreamer! 20 Let's kill him, throw him into one of the cisterns, and say that a wild animal has eaten him. Then we'll see what happens to his dreams." 21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to save Joseph from their plot. "Let's not kill him," he said. 22 "Let's not have any bloodshed. Put him into that cistern that's out in the desert, but don't hurt him." Reuben wanted to rescue Joseph from them and bring him back to his father.

23 So when Joseph reached his brothers, they stripped him of his special robe with long sleeves. 24 Then they took him and put him into an empty cistern. It had no water in it. 25 As they sat down to eat, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were carrying the materials for cosmetics, medicine, and embalming. They were on their way to take them to Egypt. 26 Judah asked his brothers, "What will we gain by killing our brother and covering up his death? 27 Let's sell him to the Ishmaelites. Let's not hurt him, because he is our brother, our own flesh and blood." His brothers agreed. 28 As the Midianite merchants were passing by, the brothers pulled Joseph out of the cistern. They sold him to the Ishmaelites for eight ounces of silver. The Ishmaelites took him to Egypt. 29 When Reuben came back to the cistern and saw that Joseph was no longer there, he tore his clothes in grief. 30 He went back to his brothers and said, "The boy isn't there! What am I going to do?"

31 So they took Joseph's robe, killed a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. 32 Then they brought the special robe with long sleeves to their father and said, "We found this. You better examine it to see whether it's your son's robe or not." 33 He recognized it and said, "It is my son's robe! A wild animal has eaten him! Joseph must have been torn to pieces!" 34 Then, to show his grief, Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth around his waist, and mourned for his son a long time. 35 All his other sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, "No, I will mourn for my son until I die." This is how Joseph's father cried over him. 36 Meanwhile, in Egypt the Midianites sold Joseph to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials and captain of the guard.

Genesis 38

1 About that time Judah left his brothers and went to stay with a man from Adullam whose name was Hirah. 2 There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man whose name was Shua. He married her and slept with her. 3 She became pregnant and gave birth to a son named Er. 4 She became pregnant again and gave birth to another son, whom she named Onan. 5 Then she became pregnant again and gave birth to another son, whom she named Shelah. He was born at Kezib. 6 Judah chose a wife for his firstborn son Er. Her name was Tamar. 7 Er angered the LORD. So the LORD took away his life. :confused: 8 Then Judah said to Onan, "Go sleep with your brother's widow. Do your duty for her as a brother-in-law, and produce a descendant for your brother." 9 But Onan knew that the descendant wouldn't belong to him, so whenever he slept with his brother's widow, he wasted his semen on the ground to avoid giving his brother a descendant. 10 What Onan did angered the LORD so much that the LORD took away Onan's life too. 11 Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Return to your father's home. Live as a widow until my son Shelah grows up." He thought that this son, too, might die like his brothers. So Tamar went to live in her father's home.

12 After a long time Judah's wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had finished mourning, he and his friend Hirah from Adullam went to Timnah where the men were shearing Judah's sheep. 13 As soon as Tamar was told that her father-in-law was on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep, 14 she took off her widow's clothes, covered her face with a veil, and disguised herself. Then she sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. (She did this because she realized that Shelah was grown up now, and she hadn't been given to him in marriage.) 15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute because she had covered her face. 16 Since he didn't know she was his daughter-in-law, he approached her by the roadside and said, "Come on, let's sleep together!" She asked, "What will you pay to sleep with me?" 17 "I'll send you a young goat from the flock," he answered. She said, "First give me something as a deposit until you send it." 18 "What should I give you as a deposit?" he asked. "Your signet ring, its cord, and the shepherd's staff that's in your hand," she answered. So he gave them to her. Then he slept with her, and she became pregnant. 19 After she got up and left, she took off her veil and put her widow's clothes back on. 20 Judah sent his friend Hirah to deliver the young goat so that he could get back his deposit from the woman, but his friend couldn't find her. 21 He asked the men of that area, "Where's that prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?" "There's no prostitute here," they answered. 22 So he went back to Judah and said, "I couldn't find her. Even the men of that area said, 'There's no prostitute here.'" 23 Then Judah said, "Let her keep what I gave her, or we'll become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you couldn't find her."

24 About three months later Judah was told, "Your daughter-in-law Tamar has been acting like a prostitute. What's more, because of it she's pregnant." Judah ordered, "Bring her out to be burned." 25 As she was brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law, "I'm pregnant by the man who owns these things. See if you recognize whose signet ring, cord, and shepherd's staff these are." 26 Judah recognized them and said, "She's not guilty. I am! She did this because I haven't given her my son Shelah." Judah never made love to her again. 27 The time came for Tamar to give birth, and she had twin boys. 28 When she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand. The midwife took a piece of red yarn, tied it on his wrist, and said, "This one came out first." 29 As he pulled back his hand, his brother was born. So she said, "Is this how you burst into the world!" He was named Perez [Bursting Into]. 30 After that his brother was born with the red yarn on his hand. He was named Zerah [Sunrise].

Genesis 39

1 Joseph had been taken to Egypt. Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's Egyptian officials and captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. 2 The LORD was with Joseph, so he became a successful man. He worked in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 Joseph's master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD made everything he did successful. 4 Potiphar liked Joseph so much that he made him his trusted servant. He put him in charge of his household and everything he owned. 5 From that time on the LORD blessed the Egyptian's household because of Joseph. Therefore, the LORD's blessing was on everything Potiphar owned in his house and in his fields. 6 So he left all that he owned in Joseph's care. He wasn't concerned about anything except the food he ate. Joseph was well-built and handsome.

7 After a while his master's wife began to desire Joseph, so she said, "Come to bed with me." 8 But Joseph refused and said to her, "My master doesn't concern himself with anything in the house. He trusts me with everything he owns. 9 No one in this house is greater than I. He's kept nothing back from me except you, because you're his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?" 10 Although she kept asking Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or be with her. 11 One day he went into the house to do his work, and none of the household servants were there. 12 She grabbed him by his clothes and said, "Come to bed with me!" But he ran outside and left his clothes in her hand.

13 When she realized that he had gone but had left his clothes behind, 14 she called her household servants and said to them, "Look! My husband brought this Hebrew here to fool around with us. He came in and tried to go to bed with me, but I screamed as loud as I could. 15 As soon as he heard me scream, he ran outside and left his clothes with me." 16 She kept Joseph's clothes with her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him the same story: "The Hebrew slave you brought here came in and tried to fool around with me. 18 But when I screamed, he ran outside and left his clothes with me."

19 When Potiphar heard his wife's story, especially when she said, "This is what your slave did to me," he became very angry. 20 So Joseph's master arrested him and put him in the same prison where the king's prisoners were kept. While Joseph was in prison, 21 the LORD was with him. The LORD reached out to him with his unchanging love and gave him protection. The LORD also put Joseph on good terms with the warden. 22 So the warden placed Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in that prison. Joseph became responsible for everything that they were doing. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care because the LORD was with Joseph and made whatever he did successful.

Genesis 40

1 Later the king's cupbearer and his baker offended their master, the king of Egypt. 2 Pharaoh was angry with his chief cupbearer and his chief baker. 3 He put them in the prison of the captain of the guard, the same place where Joseph was a prisoner. 4 The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he took care of them. After they had been confined for some time,

5 both prisoners--the cupbearer and the baker for the king of Egypt--had dreams one night. Each man had a dream with its own special meaning. 6 When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were upset. 7 So he asked these officials of Pharaoh who were with him in his master's prison, "Why do you look so unhappy today?" 8 "We both had dreams," they answered him, "but there's no one to tell us what they mean." "Isn't God the only one who can tell what they mean?" Joseph asked them. "Why don't you tell me all about them." 9 So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. He said "In my dream a grapevine with three branches appeared in front of me. 10 Soon after it sprouted it blossomed. Then its clusters ripened into grapes. 11 Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, so I took the grapes and squeezed them into it. I put the cup in Pharaoh's hand." 12 "This is what it means," Joseph said to him. "The three branches are three days. 13 In the next three days Pharaoh will release you and restore you to your position. You will put Pharaoh's cup in his hand as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. 14 Remember me when things go well for you, and please do me a favor. Mention me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this prison. 15 I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I've done nothing to deserve being put in this prison." 16 The chief baker saw that the meaning Joseph had given to the cupbearer's dream was good. So he said to Joseph, "I had a dream too. In my dream three baskets of white baked goods were on my head. 17 The top basket contained all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head." 18 "This is what it means," Joseph replied. "The three baskets are three days. 19 In the next three days Pharaoh will cut off your head and hang your dead body on a pole. The birds will eat the flesh from your bones." :eek:

20 Two days later, on his birthday, Pharaoh had a special dinner prepared for all his servants. Of all his servants he gave special attention to the chief cupbearer and the chief baker. 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position. So the cupbearer put the cup in Pharaoh's hand. 22 But he hung the chief baker just as Joseph had said in his interpretation. 23 Nevertheless, the chief cupbearer didn't remember Joseph. He forgot all about him.
 

Stark

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Jun 16, 2000
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Here's another take on ths Joseph story from the Koran:

Yusuf

"12.1": Alif Lam Ra. These are the verses of the Book that makes (things) manifest.

"12.2": Surely We have revealed it -- an Arabic Quran -- that you may understand.

"12.3": We narrate to you the best of narratives, by Our revealing to you this Quran, though before this you were certainly one of those who did not know.

"12.4": When Yusuf said to his father: O my father! surely I saw eleven stars and the sun and the moon -- I saw them making obeisance to me.

"12.5": He said: O my son! do not relate your vision to your brothers, lest they devise a plan against you; surely the Shaitan is an open enemy to man.

"12.6": And thus will your Lord choose you and teach you the interpretation of sayings and make His favor complete to you and to the children of Yaqoub, as He made it complete before to your fathers, Ibrahim and Ishaq; surely your Lord is Knowing, Wise.

"12.7": Certainly in Yusuf and his brothers there are signs for the inquirers.

"12.8": When they said: Certainly Yusuf and his brother are dearer to our father than we, though we are a (stronger) company; most surely our father is in manifest error:

"12.9": Slay Yusuf or cast him (forth) into some land, so that your father's regard may be exclusively for you, and after that you may be a righteous people.

"12.10": A speaker from among them said: Do not slay Yusuf, and cast him down into the bottom of the pit if you must do (it), (so that) some of the travellers may pick him up.

"12.11": They said: O our father! what reason have you that you do not trust in us with respect to Yusuf? And most surely we are his sincere well-wishers:

"12.12": Send him with us tomorrow that he may enjoy himself and sport, and surely we will guard him well.

"12.13": He said: Surely it grieves me that you should take him off, and I fear lest the wolf devour him while you are heedless of him.

"12.14": They said: Surely if the wolf should devour him notwithstanding that we are a (strong) company, we should then certainly be losers.

"12.15": So when they had gone off with him and agreed that they should put him down at the bottom of the pit, and We revealed to him: You will most certainly inform them of this their affair while they do not perceive.

"12.16": And they came to their father at nightfall, weeping.

"12.17": They said: O our father! surely we went off racing and left Yusuf by our goods, so the wolf devoured him, and you will not believe us though we are truthful.

"12.18": And they brought his shirt with false blood upon it. He said: Nay, your souls have made the matter light for you, but patience is good and Allah is He Whose help is sought for against what you describe.

"12.19": And there came travellers and they sent their water-drawer and he let down his bucket. He said: O good news! this is a youth; and they concealed him as an article of merchandise, and Allah knew what they did.

"12.20": And they sold him for a small price, a few pieces of silver, and they showed no desire for him.

"12.21": And the Egyptian who bought him said to his wife: Give him an honorable abode, maybe he will be useful to us, or we may adopt him as a son. And thus did We establish Yusuf in the land and that We might teach him the interpretation of sayings; and Allah is the master of His affair, but most people do not know.

"12.22": And when he had attained his maturity, We gave him wisdom and knowledge: and thus do We reward those who do good.

"12.23": And she in whose house he was sought to make himself yield (to her), and she made fast the doors and said: Come forward. He said: I seek Allah's refuge, surely my Lord made good my abode: Surely the unjust do not prosper.

"12.24": And certainly she made for him, and he would have made for her, were it not that he had seen the manifest evidence of his Lord; thus (it was) that We might turn away from him evil and indecency, surely he was one of Our sincere servants.

"12.25": And they both hastened to the door, and she rent his shirt from behind and they met her husband at the door. She said: What is the punishment of him who intends evil to your wife except imprisonment or a painful chastisement?

"12.26": He said: She sought to make me yield (to her); and a witness of her own family bore witness: If his shirt is rent from front, she speaks the truth and he is one of the liars:

"12.27": And if his shirt is rent from behind, she tells a lie and he is one of the truthful.

"12.28": So when he saw his shirt rent from behind, he said: Surely it is a guile of you women; surely your guile is great:

"12.29": O Yusuf! turn aside from this; and (O my wife)! ask forgiveness for your fault, surely you are one of the wrong-doers.

"12.30": And women in the city said: The chiefs wife seeks her slave to yield himself (to her), surely he has affected her deeply with (his) love; most surely we see her in manifest error.

"12.31": So when she heard of their sly talk she sent for them and prepared for them a repast, and gave each of them a knife, and said (to Yusuf): Come forth to them. So when they saw him, they deemed him great, and cut their hands (in amazement), and said: Remote is Allah (from imperfection); this is not a mortal; this is but a noble angel.

"12.32": She said: This is he with respect to whom you blamed me, and certainly I sought his yielding himself (to me), but he abstained, and if he does not do what I bid him, he shall certainly be imprisoned, and he shall certainly be of those who are in a state of ignominy.

"12.33": He said: My Lord! the prison house is dearer to me than that to which they invite me; and if Thou turn not away their device from me, I will yearn towards them and become (one) of the ignorant.

"12.34": Thereupon his Lord accepted his prayer and turned away their guile from him; surely He is the Hearing, the Knowing.

"12.35": Then it occurred to them after they had seen the signs that they should imprison him till a time.

"12.36": And two youths entered the prison with him. One of them said: I saw myself pressing wine. And the other said: I saw myself carrying bread on my head, of which birds ate. Inform us of its interpretation; surely we see you to be of the doers of good.

"12.37": He said: There shall not come to you the food with which you are fed, but I will inform you both of its interpretation before it comes to you; this is of what my Lord has taught me; surely I have forsaken the religion of a people who do not believe in Allah, and they are deniers of the hereafter:

"12.38": And I follow the religion of my fathers, Ibrahim and Ishaq and Yaqoub; it beseems us not that we should associate aught with Allah; this is by Allah's grace upon us and on mankind, but most people do not give thanks:

"12.39": O my two mates of the prison! are sundry lords better or Allah the One, the Supreme?

"12.40": You do not serve besides Him but names which you have named, you and your fathers; Allah has not sent down any authority for them; judgment is only Allah's; He has commanded that you shall not serve aught but Him; this is the right religion but most people do not know:

"12.41": O my two mates of the prison! as for one of you, he shall give his lord to drink wine; and as for the other, he shall be crucified, so that the birds shall eat from his head, the matter is decreed concerning which you inquired.

"12.42": And he said to him whom he knew would be delivered of the two: Remember me with your lord; but the Shaitan caused him to forget mentioning (it) to his lord, so he remained in the prison a few years.

"12.43": And the king said: Surely I see seven fat kine which seven lean ones devoured; and seven green ears and (seven) others dry: O chiefs! explain to me my dream, if you can interpret the dream.

"12.44": They said: Confused dreams, and we do not know the interpretation of dreams.

"12.45": And of the two (prisoners) he who had found deliverance and remembered after a long time said: I will inform you of its interpretation, so let me go:

"12.46": Yusuf! O truthful one! explain to us seven fat kine which seven lean ones devoured, and seven green ears and (seven) others dry, that I may go back to the people so that they may know.

"12.47": He said: You shall sow for seven years continuously, then what you reap leave it in its ear except a little of which you eat.

"12.48": Then there shall come after that seven years of hardship which shall eat away all that you have beforehand laid up in store for them, except a little of what you shall have preserved:

"12.49": Then there will come after that a year in which people shall have rain and in which they shall press (grapes).

"12.50": And the king said: Bring him to me. So when the messenger came to him, he said: Go back to your lord and ask him, what is the case of the women who cut their hands; surely my Lord knows their guile.

"12.51": He said: How was your affair when you sought Yusuf to yield himself (to you)? They said: Remote is Allah (from imperfection), we knew of no evil on his part. The chief's wife said: Now has the truth become established: I sought him to yield himself (to me), and he is most surely of the truthful ones.

"12.52": This is that he might know that I have not been unfaithful to him in secret and that Allah does not guide the device of the unfaithful.

"12.53": And I do not declare myself free, most surely (man's) self is wont to command (him to do) evil, except such as my Lord has had mercy on, surely my Lord is Forgiving, Merciful.

"12.54": And the king said: Bring him to me, I will choose him for myself. So when he had spoken with him, he said: Surely you are in our presence today an honorable, a faithful one.

"12.55": He said: Place me (in authority) over the treasures of the land, surely I am a good keeper, knowing well.

"12.56": And thus did We give to Yusuf power in the land -- he had mastery in it wherever he liked; We send down Our mercy on whom We please, and We do not waste the reward of those who do good.

"12.57": And certainly the reward of the hereafter is much better for those who believe and guard (against evil).

"12.58": And Yusuf's brothers came and went in to him, and he knew them, while they did not recognize him.

"12.59": And when he furnished them with their provision, he said: Bring to me a brother of yours from your father; do you not see that I give full measure and that I am the best of hosts?

"12.60": But if you do not bring him to me, you shall have no measure (of corn) from me, nor shall you come near me.

"12.61": They said: We will strive to make his father yield in respect of him, and we are sure to do (it).

"12.62": And he said to his servants: Put their money into their bags that they may recognize it when they go back to their family, so that they may come back.

"12.63": So when they returned to their father, they said: O our father, the measure is withheld from us, therefore send with us our brother, (so that) we may get the measure, and we will most surely guard him.

"12.64": He said: I cannot trust in you with respect to him, except as I trusted in you with respect to his brother before; but Allah is the best Keeper, and He is the most Merciful of the merciful ones.

"12.65": And when they opened their goods, they found their money returned to them. They said: O our father! what (more) can we desire? This is our property returned to us, and we will bring corn for our family and guard our brother, and will have in addition the measure of a camel (load); this is an easy measure.

"12.66": He said: I will by no means send him with you until you give me a firm covenant in Allah's name that you will most certainly bring him back to me, unless you are completely surrounded. And when they gave him their covenant, he said: Allah is the One in Whom trust is placed as regards what we say.

"12.67": And he said: O my sons ! do not (all) enter by one gate and enter by different gates and I cannot avail you aught against Allah; judgment is only Allah's; on Him do I rely, and on Him let those who are reliant rely.

"12.68": And when they had entered as their father had bidden them, it did not avail them aught against Allah, but (it was only) a desire in the soul of Yaqoub which he satisfied; and surely he was possessed of knowledge because We had given him knowledge, but most people do not know.

"12.69": And when they went in to Yusuf. he lodged his brother with himself, saying: I am your brother, therefore grieve not at what they do.

"12.70": So when he furnished them with their provisions, (someone) placed the drinking cup in his brother's bag. Then a crier cried out: O caravan! you are most surely thieves.

"12.71": They said while they were facing them: What is it that you miss?

"12.72": They said: We miss the king's drinking cup, and he who shall bring it shall have a camel-load and I am responsible for it.

"12.73": They said: By Allah! you know for certain that we have not come to make mischief in the land, and we are not thieves.

"12.74": They said: But what shall be the requital of this, if you are liars?

"12.75": They said: The requital of this is that the person in whose bag it is found shall himself be (held for) the satisfaction thereof; thus do we punish the wrongdoers.

"12.76": So he began with their sacks before the sack of his brother, then he brought it out from his brother's sack. Thus did We plan for the sake of Yusuf; it was not (lawful) that he should take his brother under the king's law unless Allah pleased; We raise the degrees of whomsoever We please, and above every one possessed of knowledge is the All-knowing one.

"12.77": They said: If he steal, a brother of his did indeed steal before; but Yusuf kept it secret in his heart and did not disclose it to them. He said: You are in an evil condition and Allah knows best what you state.

"12.78": They said: O chief! he has a father, a very old man, therefore retain one of us in his stead; surely we see you to be of the doers of good.

"12.79": He said: Allah protect us that we should seize other than him with whom we found our property, for then most surely we would be unjust.

"12.80": Then when they despaired of him, they retired, conferring privately together. The eldest of them said: Do you not know that your father took from you a covenant in Allah's name, and how you fell short of your duty with respect to Yusuf before? Therefore I will by no means depart from this land until my father permits me or Allah decides for me, and He is the best of the judges:

"12.81": Go back to your father and say: O our father! surely your son committed theft, and we do not bear witness except to what we have known, and we could not keep watch over the unseen:

"12.82": And inquire in the town in which we were and the caravan with which we proceeded, and most surely we are truthful.

"12.83": He (Yaqoub) said: Nay, your souls have made a matter light for you, so patience is good; maybe Allah will bring them all together to me; surely He is the Knowing, the Wise.

"12.84": And he turned away from them, and said: O my sorrow for Yusuf! and his eyes became white on account of the grief, and he was a repressor (of grief).

"12.85": They said: By Allah! you will not cease to remember Yusuf until you are a prey to constant disease or (until) you are of those who perish.

"12.86": He said: I only complain of my grief and sorrow to Allah, and I know from Allah what you do not know.

"12.87": O my sons! Go and inquire respecting Yusuf and his brother, and despair not of Allah's mercy; surely none despairs of Allah's mercy except the unbelieving people.

"12.88": So when they came in to him, they said: O chief! distress has afflicted us and our family and we have brought scanty money, so give us full measure and be charitable to us; surely Allah rewards the charitable.

"12.89": He said: Do you know how you treated Yusuf and his brother when you were ignorant?

"12.90": They said: Are you indeed Yusuf? He said: I am Yusuf and this is my brother; Allah has indeed been gracious to us; surely he who guards (against evil) and is patient (is rewarded) for surely Allah does not waste the reward of those who do good.

"12.91": They said: By Allah! now has Allah certainly chosen you over us, and we were certainly sinners.

"12.92": He said: (There shall be) no reproof against you this day; Allah may forgive you, and He is the most Merciful of the merciful.

"12.93": Take this my shirt and cast it on my father's face, he will (again) be able to see, and come to me with all your families.

"12.94": And when the caravan had departed, their father said: Most surely I perceive the greatness of Yusuf, unless you pronounce me to be weak in judgment.

"12.95": They said: By Allah, you are most surely in your old error.

"12.96": So when the bearer of good news came he cast it on his face, so forthwith he regained his sight. He said: Did I not say to you that I know from Allah what you do not know?

"12.97": They said: O our father! ask forgiveness of our faults for us, surely we were sinners.

"12.98": He said: I will ask for you forgiveness from my Lord; surely He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.

"12.99": Then when they came in to Yusuf, he took his parents to lodge with him and said: Enter safe into Egypt, if Allah please.

"12.100": And he raised his parents upon the throne and they fell down in prostration before him, and he said: O my father! this is the significance of my vision of old; my Lord has indeed made it to be true; and He was indeed kind to me when He brought me forth from the prison and brought you from the desert after the Shaitan had sown dissensions between me and my brothers, surely my Lord is benignant to whom He pleases; surely He is the Knowing, the Wise.

"12.101": My Lord! Thou hast given me of the kingdom and taught me of the interpretation of sayings: Originator of the heavens and the earth! Thou art my guardian in this world and the hereafter; make me die a muslim and join me with the good.

"12.102": This is of the announcements relating to the unseen (which) We reveal to you, and you were not with them when they resolved upon their affair, and they were devising plans.

"12.103": And most men will not believe though you desire it eagerly.

"12.104": And you do not ask them for a reward for this; it is nothing but a reminder for all mankind.

"12.105": And how many a sign in the heavens and the earth which they pass by, yet they turn aside from it.

"12.106": And most of them do not believe in Allah without associating others (with Him).

"12.107": Do they then feel secure that there may come to them an extensive chastisement from Allah or (that) the hour may come to them suddenly while they do not perceive?

"12.108": Say: This is my way: I call to Allah, I and those who follow me being certain, and glory be to Allah, and I am not one of the polytheists.

"12.109": And We have not sent before you but men from (among) the people of the towns, to whom We sent revelations. Have they not then travelled in the land and seen what was the end of those before them? And certainly the abode of the hereafter is best for those who guard (against evil); do you not then understand?

"12.110": Until when the apostles despaired and the people became sure that they were indeed told a lie, Our help came to them and whom We pleased was delivered; and Our punishment is not averted from the guilty people.

"12.111": In their histories there is certainly a lesson for men of understanding. It is not a narrative which could be forged, but a verification of what is before it and a distinct explanation of all things and a guide and a mercy to a people who believe.
 

Horus

Platinum Member
Dec 27, 2003
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And thus God spake, saying:

"Let all things evolve naturally in their own way, for it is my will. Oh, and I love the gays! They're so cute! I mean...why, hello there, fella...what's your name? *doing* *doing*"
 

Stark

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Jun 16, 2000
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However, I did inquire of one of the sect of feeble-minded Christians hereabouts (poor fellow--a Jehovah's Witless, I believe he is called) who often goes door to door peddling religious tracts, and while this fellow did not have any copies of Pray Boy, he did agree to visit you and sell you his entire stock of tracts no sooner did I give him your address. He should arrive upon your doorstep quite soon. (It is so good of you to religiously prepare yourself for your judging experience. I do recall that my late husband, Lord Cecil, was often heard to call upon the lord prior to and often during the race. "Lord be praised!" or "My God! Look at that!" he often remarked as the racers fast approached him.)

:p
 

Stark

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Jun 16, 2000
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Genesis 41 - 45

Chapter 41

1 After two full years Pharaoh had a dream. He dreamed he was standing by the Nile River. 2 Suddenly, seven nice-looking, well-fed cows came up from the river and began to graze among the reeds. 3 Seven other cows came up from the river behind them. These cows were sickly and skinny. They stood behind the first seven cows on the riverbank. 4 The cows that were sickly and skinny ate the seven nice-looking, well-fed cows. Then Pharaoh woke up. 5 He fell asleep again and had a second dream. Seven good, healthy heads of grain were growing on a single stalk. 6 Seven other heads of grain, thin and scorched by the east wind, sprouted behind them. 7 The thin heads of grain swallowed the seven full, healthy heads. Then Pharaoh woke up. It was only a dream. 8 In the morning he was so upset that he sent for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but no one could tell him what they meant.

9 Then the chief cupbearer spoke to Pharaoh, "I remember a promise I failed to keep. 10 Some time ago when Pharaoh was angry with his servants, he confined me and the chief baker to the captain of the guard's prison. 11 We both had dreams the same night. Each dream had its own meaning. 12 A young Hebrew, a slave of the captain of the guard, was with us. We told him our dreams, and he told each of us what they meant. 13 What he told us happened: Pharaoh restored me to my position, but he hung the baker on a pole." 14 Then Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and immediately he was brought from the prison. After he had shaved and changed his clothes, he came in front of Pharaoh. 15 Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I had a dream, and no one can tell me what it means. I heard that when you are told a dream, you can say what it means." 16 Joseph answered Pharaoh, "I can't, but God can give Pharaoh the answer that he needs."

17 Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, "In my dream I was standing on the bank of the Nile. 18 Suddenly, seven nice-looking, well-fed cows came up from the river and began to graze among the reeds. 19 Seven other cows came up behind them. These cows were scrawny, very sick, and thin. I've never seen such sickly cows in all of Egypt! 20 The thin, sickly cows ate up the seven well-fed ones. 21 Even though they had eaten them, no one could tell they had eaten them. They looked just as sick as before. Then I woke up. 22 "In my second dream I saw seven good, full heads of grain growing on a single stalk. 23 Seven other heads of grain, withered, thin, and scorched by the east wind, sprouted behind them. 24 The thin heads of grain swallowed the seven good heads. I told this to the magicians, but no one could tell me what it meant." 25 Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, "Pharaoh had the same dream twice. God has told Pharaoh what he's going to do. 26 The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good heads of grain are seven years. It's all the same dream. 27 The seven thin, sickly cows that came up behind them are seven years. The seven empty heads of grain scorched by the east wind are also seven years. Seven years of famine are coming. 28 "It's just as I said to Pharaoh. God has shown Pharaoh what he's going to do. 29 Seven years are coming when there will be plenty of food in Egypt. 30 After them will come seven years of famine. People will forget that there was plenty of food in Egypt, and the famine will ruin the land. 31 People won't remember that there once was plenty of food in the land, because the coming famine will be so severe. 32 The reason Pharaoh has had a recurring dream is because the matter has been definitely decided by God, and he will do it very soon.

33 "Pharaoh should look for a wise and intelligent man and put him in charge of Egypt. 34 Make arrangements to appoint supervisors over the land to take a fifth of Egypt's harvest during the seven good years. 35 Have them collect all the food during these good years and store up grain under Pharaoh's control, to be kept for food in the cities. 36 This food will be a reserve supply for our country during the seven years of famine that will happen in Egypt. Then the land will not be ruined by the famine." 37 Pharaoh and all his servants liked the idea. 38 So Pharaoh asked his servants, "Can we find anyone like this--a man who has God's Spirit in him?" 39 Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Because God has let you know all this, there is no one as wise and intelligent as you. 40 You will be in charge of my palace, and all my people will do what you say. I will be more important than you, only because I'm Pharaoh." 41 Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I now put you in charge of Egypt." 42 Then Pharaoh took off his signet ring and put it on Joseph's finger. He had Joseph dressed in robes of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck. 43 He had him ride in the chariot of the second-in-command. Men ran ahead of him and shouted, "Make way!" Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of Egypt. 44 He also said to Joseph, "Even though I am Pharaoh, no one anywhere in Egypt will do anything without your permission." 45 Pharaoh named Joseph Zaphenathpaneah and gave him Asenath as his wife. She was the daughter of Potiphera, priest from the city of On. Joseph traveled around Egypt.

46 Joseph was 30 years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh (the king of Egypt). He left Pharaoh and traveled all around Egypt. 47 During the seven good years the land produced large harvests. 48 Joseph collected all the food grown in Egypt during those seven years and put this food in the cities. In each city he put the food from the fields around it. 49 Joseph stored up grain in huge quantities like the sand on the seashore. He had so much that he finally gave up keeping any records because he couldn't measure it all. 50 Before the years of famine came, Joseph had two sons by Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest from the city of On. 51 Joseph named his firstborn son Manasseh [He Helps Me Forget], because God helped him forget all his troubles and all about his father's family. 52 He named the second son Ephraim [Blessed Twice With Children], because God gave him children in the land where he had suffered. 53 The seven years when there was plenty of food in Egypt came to an end. 54 Then the seven years of famine began as Joseph had said they would. All the other countries were experiencing famine. Yet, there was food in Egypt. 55 When everyone in Egypt began to feel the effects of the famine, the people cried to Pharaoh for food. But Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph! Do what he tells you!" 56 When the famine had spread all over the country, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians. He did this because the famine was severe in Egypt. 57 The whole world came to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain, since the famine was so severe all over the world.

Genesis 42

1 When Jacob found out that grain was for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, "Why do you keep looking at each other? 2 I've heard there's grain for sale in Egypt. Go there and buy some for us so that we won't starve to death." 3 Ten of Joseph's brothers went to buy grain in Egypt. 4 Jacob wouldn't send Joseph's brother Benjamin with the other brothers, because he was afraid that something would happen to him. 5 Israel's sons left with the others who were going to buy grain, because there was also famine in Canaan. 6 As governor of the country, Joseph was selling grain to everyone. So when Joseph's brothers arrived, they bowed in front of him with their faces touching the ground.

7 As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them. But he acted as if he didn't know them and spoke harshly to them. "Where did you come from?" he asked them. "From Canaan, to buy food," they answered. 8 Even though Joseph recognized his brothers, they didn't recognize him. 9 Then he remembered the dreams he once had about them. "You're spies!" he said to them, "And you've come to find out where our country is unprotected." 10 "No, sir!" they answered him. "We've come to buy food. 11 We're all sons of one man. We're honest men, not spies." 12 He said to them, "No! You've come to find out where our country is unprotected." 13 They answered him, "We were 12 brothers, sons of one man in Canaan. The youngest brother stayed with our father, and the other one is no longer with us." 14 "It's just as I told you," Joseph said to them. "You're spies! 15 This is how you'll be tested: I solemnly swear, as surely as Pharaoh lives, that you won't leave this place unless your youngest brother comes here. 16 One of you must be sent to get your brother while the rest of you stay in prison. We'll see if you're telling the truth. If not, I solemnly swear, as surely as Pharaoh lives, you are spies!" 17 Then he put them in jail for three days. 18 On the third day Joseph said to them, "Do this, and you will live. I, too, fear God. 19 If you are honest men, you will let one of your brothers stay here in prison. The rest of you will go and take grain back to your starving families. 20 But you must bring me your youngest brother. This will show that you've been telling the truth. Then you won't die." So they agreed.

21 They said to each other, "We're surely being punished for what we did to our brother. We saw how troubled he was when he pleaded with us for mercy, but we wouldn't listen. That's why we're in trouble now." 22 Reuben said to them, "Didn't I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn't listen. Now we must pay for this bloodshed." 23 They didn't know that Joseph could understand them, because he was speaking through an interpreter. 24 He stepped away from them to cry. When he could speak to them again, he came back. Then he picked Simeon and had him arrested right in front of their eyes. 25 Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain. He put each man's money back into his sack and gave them supplies for their trip. After their bags were filled, 26 they loaded their grain on their donkeys and left. 27 At the place where they stopped for the night, one of them opened his sack to feed his donkey. His money was right inside his sack. 28 He said to his brothers, "My money has been put back! It's right here in my sack!" They wanted to die. They trembled and turned to each other and asked, "What has God done to us?"

29 When they came to their father Jacob in Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them. They said, 30 "The governor of that land spoke harshly to us and treated us like spies. 31 But we said to him, 'We're honest men, not spies. 32 We were 12 brothers, sons of the same father. One is no longer with us. The youngest brother stayed with our father in Canaan.' 33 "Then the governor of that land said to us, 'This is how I'll know that you're honest men: Leave one of your brothers with me. Take food for your starving families and go. 34 But bring me your youngest brother. Then I'll know that you're not spies but honest men. I'll give your brother back to you, and you'll be able to move about freely in this country.'" 35 As they were emptying their sacks, each man found his bag of money in his sack. When they and their father saw the bags of money, they were frightened. 36 Their father Jacob said to them, "You're going to make me lose all my children! Joseph is no longer with us, Simeon is no longer with us, and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything's against me!" 37 So Reuben said to his father, "You may put my two sons to death if I don't bring him back to you. Let me take care of him, and I'll bring him back to you." 38 Jacob replied, "My son will not go with you. His brother is dead, and he's the only one left. If any harm comes to him on the trip you're taking, the grief would drive this gray-haired old man to his grave!"

Genesis 43

1 The famine was severe in the land. 2 When they finished eating the grain they had brought from Egypt, Israel said to his sons, "Go back and buy us a little more food." 3 Judah said to him, "The man gave us a severe warning: 'You won't be allowed to see me again unless your brother is with you.' 4 If you let our brother go with us, we'll go and buy food for you. 5 If you won't let him go, we won't go. The man said to us, 'You won't be allowed to see me again unless your brother is with you.'" 6 Israel asked, "Why have you made trouble for me by telling the man you had another brother?" 7 They answered, "The man kept asking about us and our family: 'Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?' We simply answered his questions. How could we possibly know he would say, 'Bring your brother here'?" 8 Then Judah said to his father Israel, "Send the boy along with me. Let's get going so that we won't starve to death. 9 I guarantee that he will come back. You can hold me responsible for him. If I don't bring him back to you and place him here in front of you, you can blame me the rest of my life. 10 If we hadn't waited so long, we could have made this trip twice by now."

11 Then their father Israel said to them, "If that's the way it has to be, then take the man a gift. Put some of the best products of the land in your bags. Take a little balm, a little honey, gum, myrrh, pistachio nuts, and almonds. 12 Take twice as much money with you. You must return the money that was put back in your sacks. Maybe it was a mistake. 13 Take your brother, and go back to the man. 14 May God Almighty make him merciful to you so that he will send your other brother and Benjamin [home] with you. If I lose my children, I lose my children."

15 The men took the gifts, twice as much money, and Benjamin. They went to Egypt, where they presented themselves to Joseph. 16 When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the man in charge of his house, "Take these men to my house. Butcher an animal, and prepare a meal, because they are going to eat with me at noon." 17 So the man did as Joseph said and took them to Joseph's house. 18 The men were frightened, because they had been brought to Joseph's house. They thought, "We've been brought here because of the money that was put back into our sacks the first time. They're going to attack us, overpower us, take our donkeys, and make us slaves." 19 So they came to the man in charge of Joseph's house and spoke to him at the door. 20 "Please, sir," they said, "we came here to buy food once before. 21 When we stopped for the night, we opened our sacks, and each man found all of his money inside. So we brought it back with us. 22 We also brought more money to buy food. We have no idea who put our money back in our sacks." 23 "It's alright," he said. "Don't be afraid! Your God, the God of your father, must have given you treasure in your sacks. I received your money." Then he brought Simeon out to them. 24 The man took the brothers into Joseph's house. He gave them water to wash their feet and feed for their donkeys. 25 They got their gifts ready for Joseph's return at noon, because they had heard they were going to eat there.

26 When Joseph came home, they gave him the gifts they had brought to the house. Then they bowed to him with their faces touching the ground. 27 He asked them how they were. Then he said, "You told me about your elderly father. How is he? Is he still alive?" 28 They answered, "Yes, sir. Our father is alive and well." Then they knelt, bowing down. 29 As Joseph looked around, he saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son. "Is this your youngest brother, the one you told me about?" he asked. "God be gracious to you, my son," he said. 30 Deeply moved at the sight of his brother, he hurried away, looking for a place to cry. He went into his private room and cried there. 31 Then he washed his face and came out. He was in control of his emotions when he said, "Serve the food." 32 He was served separately from his brothers. The Egyptians who were there with him were also served separately, because they found it offensive to eat with Hebrews. 33 The brothers were seated facing him according to their ages--from the oldest to the youngest. They looked at each other in amazement. 34 Joseph had portions of food brought to them from his table, but Benjamin's portion was five times more than any of the others. So they ate and drank with Joseph until they were drunk.

Genesis 44

1 Joseph commanded the man in charge of his house, "Fill the men's sacks with as much food as they can carry. Put each man's money in his sack. 2 Then put my silver cup in the youngest brother's sack along with the money for his grain." He did what Joseph told him. 3 At dawn the men were sent on their way with their donkeys. 4 They had not gone far from the city when Joseph said to the man in charge of his house, "Go after those men at once, and when you catch up with them, say to them, 'Why have you paid me back with evil when I was good to you? 5 Isn't this the cup that my master drinks from and that he uses for telling the future? What you have done is evil!'" 6 When he caught up with them, he repeated these words to them. 7 They answered him, "Sir, how can you say such things? We would never think of doing anything like that! 8 We brought the money we found in our sacks back from Canaan. So why would we steal any silver or gold from your master's house? 9 If one of us has it, he will die, and the rest of us will become your slaves." 10 "I agree," he said. "We'll do what you've said. The man who has the cup will be my slave, and the rest of you can go free." 11 Each one quickly lowered his sack to the ground and opened it. 12 Then the man made a thorough search. He began with the oldest and ended with the youngest. The cup was found in Benjamin's sack. 13 When they saw this, they tore their clothes in grief. Then each one loaded his donkey and went back into the city. 14 Judah and his brothers arrived at Joseph's house while Joseph was still there. Immediately, they bowed with their faces touching the ground. 15 Joseph asked them, "What have you done? Don't you know that a man like me can find things out because he knows the future?" 16 "Sir, what can we say to you?" Judah asked. "How else can we explain it? How can we prove we're innocent? God has uncovered our guilt. Now all of us are your slaves, including the one who had the cup." 17 But Joseph said, "I would never think of doing that! Only the man who had the cup will be my slave. The rest of you can go back to your father in peace."

18 Then Judah went up to Joseph and said, "Please, sir, let me speak openly with you. Don't be angry with me, although you are equal to Pharaoh. 19 Sir, you asked us, 'Do you have a father or a brother?' 20 We answered, 'We have a father who is old and a younger brother born to him when he was already old. The boy's brother is dead, so he's the only one of his mother's sons left, and his father loves him.' 21 "Then you said to us, 'Bring him here to me so that I can see him myself.' 22 We replied, 'The boy can't leave his father. If the boy leaves him, his father will die.' 23 Then you told us, 'If your youngest brother doesn't come here with you, you will never be allowed to see me again.' 24 When we went back to our father, we told him what you had said. 25 "Then our father said, 'Go back and buy us a little more food.' 26 We answered, 'We can't go back. We can only go back if our youngest brother is with us. The man won't see us unless our youngest brother is with us.' 27 "Then our father said to us, 'You know that my wife [Rachel] gave me two sons. 28 One is gone, and I said, "He must have been torn to pieces!" I haven't seen him since. 29 If you take this one away from me too and anything happens to him, you'll drive this gray-haired old man to his grave.' 30 "Our father's life is wrapped up with the boy's life. If I come [home] without the boy 31 and he sees that the boy isn't [with me], he'll die. The grief would drive our gray-haired old father to his grave. 32 "I guaranteed my father that the boy would come back. I said, 'If I don't bring him back to you, then you can blame me the rest of my life, Father.' 33 Sir, please let me stay and be your slave in the boy's place, and let the boy go back with his brothers. 34 How could I go back to my father if the boy isn't with me? I couldn't bear to see my father's misery!"

Genesis 45

1 Joseph could no longer control his emotions in front of everyone who was standing around him, so he cried out, "Have everyone leave me!" No one else was there when Joseph told his brothers who he was. 2 He cried so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh's household heard about it. 3 Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?" His brothers could not answer him because they were afraid of him. 4 "Please come closer to me," Joseph said to his brothers. When they did so, he said, "I am Joseph, the brother you sold into slavery in Egypt! 5 Now, don't be sad or angry with yourselves that you sold me. God sent me ahead of you to save lives. 6 The famine has been in the land for two years. There will be five more years without plowing or harvesting. 7 God sent me ahead of you to make sure that you would have descendants on the earth and to save your lives in an amazing way. 8 It wasn't you who sent me here, but God. He has made me [like] a father to Pharaoh, lord over his entire household, and ruler of Egypt. 9 "Hurry back to my father, and say to him, 'This is what your son Joseph says, "God has made me lord of Egypt. Come here to me right away! 10 Live in the land of Goshen, where you will be near me. Live there with your children and your grandchildren, as well as your flocks, your herds, and everything you have. 11 I will provide for you in Egypt, since there will be five more years of famine. Then you, your family, and all who belong to you won't lose everything."' 12 "You and my brother Benjamin can see for yourselves that I am the one who is speaking to you. 13 Tell my father how greatly honored I am in Egypt and about everything you have seen. Hurry and bring my father here!" 14 He threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and cried with Benjamin, who was crying on his shoulder. 15 He kissed all his brothers and cried with them. After that his brothers talked with him.

16 When Pharaoh's household heard the news that Joseph's brothers had come, Pharaoh and his officials were pleased. 17 So Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Say to your brothers, 'Load up your animals, and go back to Canaan. 18 Take your father and your families, and come to me. I will give you the best land in Egypt. Then you can enjoy the best food in the land.' 19 "Give them this order: 'Take wagons with you from Egypt for your children and your wives. Bring your father, and come back. 20 Don't worry about your belongings because the best of everything in Egypt is yours.'" 21 Israel's sons did as they were told. Joseph gave them wagons and supplies for their trip as Pharaoh had ordered. 22 He gave each of them a change of clothes, but he gave Benjamin three hundred pieces of silver and five changes of clothes. 23 He sent his father ten male donkeys carrying Egypt's best products and ten female donkeys carrying grain, bread, and food for his father's trip. 24 So Joseph sent his brothers on their way. As they were leaving, he said to them, "Don't quarrel on your way back!"

25 So they left Egypt and came to their father Jacob in Canaan. 26 They told him, "Joseph is still alive! Yes, he is ruler of Egypt." Jacob was stunned and didn't believe them. 27 Yet, when they told their father everything Joseph had said to them and he saw the wagons Joseph had sent to bring him back, his spirits were lifted. 28 "You have convinced me!" Israel said. "My son Joseph is still alive. I will go and see him before I die."
 

Stark

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Jun 16, 2000
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Ask and ye shall recieve! I actually started typing this up yesterday...

I had to take some time off from the BIAY quest for some studying. Plus, I'm not interested in blowing through the good stuff like Genesis just for the sake of making progress. In an attempt to expand a little on the Joseph story, here's more from "Walking the Bible."

By all accounts, the tale of Joseph, which picks up after the rape of Dinah and occupies the last thirteen chapters of Genesis, is the most unified story in the Hebrew Bible, a novella of perfect proportions. As scholar Nahum Sarna has written: ?There is an unparalleled continuity of narrative set forth with the consummate skill of a master story-teller who employs to the full the novelistic techniques of character delineation, psychological treatment, the play upon the emotions and the cultivation of suspense.? By equal consensus, the story owes a clear debt to the darker dimensions of Egyptian life.

Joseph is the eleventh of Jacob?s twelve sons, and the first by his favorite wife, Rachel. At seventeen, Joseph tends flocks in central Canaan with his brothers, and brings bad reports of them to his father. Because Joseph is the child of his father?s old age, the text says, Jacob favors Joseph and gives what some translators call an ?ornamented tunic,? and others a ?coat of many colors? (the exact meaning is unclear). This gesture infuriates his brothers. Joseph then riles them further by relating two dreams in which his brothers, represented first by wheat, then by stars, bow down to them. ?Do you mean to reign over us?? they ask. In retaliation, the brothers decide to slay him.

One day Joseph follows his brothers to the town of Dothan, north of Shechem in the Galilee, and they announce, ?Here comes that dreamer! Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits, and we can say, ? A savage beast devoured him.? We shall see what comes of his dreams.? At the last minute, Reuben, Leah?s oldest son, intervenes. ?Shed no blood!? Reuben declares. ?Cast Joseph into the pit out in the wilderness, but do not touch him yourselves.? At that moment, a caravan of Ishmaelites, or Midianites, a people fro across the Jordan descended from the brothers? great-uncle Ishmael, pass by bearing goods for Egypt. Judah, another of Leah?s sons, announces: ?What do we gain by killing our brother and covering up his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites.? After all, Joseph is our brother, Judah says, ?our own flesh.? The brothers agree, and when they sell Joseph to the tribe for twenty shekels, an amount consistent with contemporaneous accounts of foreigners being sold to Egypt. The brothers then take Joseph?s coat, dip in into blood from a slaughtered kid, and have it carried to the father. ?Please examine this,? they say. Jacob recognizes the coat and wails, ?My son?s tunic! A savage beast devoured him!? He rends his clothes, puts sackcloth on his loins, an mourns for many days. His children try to comfort him, but Jacob refuses?

[Joseph goes to Egypt, is jailed by Potiphor, and successfully interprets a dream for the pharaoh.]

Removing the signet from his hand, the pharaoh puts it on Joseph?s hand, and dresses him in linen robes, yet another important coat in Joseph?s life.

According to scholars, foreigners did, on occasion, become prime minister of Egypt. Also, the swearing-in ceremony, during which Joseph receives the ring and robes, is well known from art during the New Kingdom. As for interpreting dreams, it was a highly coveted skill, usually performed by priests. As Basem explained, ?They might have been magicians; we don?t know. What we do know is they used books of interpretations. If you looked into a mirror, this meant you?d have a second wife. If you looked out a window, this meant you?d prosper in the after life. If you went to a certain city, this meant you were going to die.? In a further sign of accuracy, the word the Bible uses for interpreters is Egyptian in origin, as are other details, like the use of cows, which were not common in Palestine. Ultimately, these uncannily accurate details of daily life--perhaps unknowable to later scribes?suggest that the story of Joseph, like those of his forefathers, began as an oral tradition, with deep roots in the Nile.

As if to reinforce that connection, the story soon brings Jacob?s brothers into Egypt. The famine that Joseph predicted forces ten of his brothers to seek relief in Egypt, where they unknowingly appear before their brother. Joseph recognizes them and in a gesture that seems part a retaliation and part a test, accuses them of being spies. He insists they leave one brother behind and return with Jacob?s missing eleventh brother, Benjamin, whose mother is also Rachel. They do so and Joseph appears to honor them with a banquet, at which point he falsely accuses Benjamin of stealing a goblet. Judah begins to apologize until Joseph cuts him off, reveals himself at last to his brothers, and forgives them. ?Do not be distressed or reproach yourselves because you sold me hither,? Joseph says. ?It was to save life that God cent me ahead of you.? The brothers then bring their father, Jacob, to Egypt and the pharaoh invites them to live oh his best land, in Goshen part of the fertile Nile Delta north of Cairo. As further proof of the good relations the Israelites enjoy with Egypt, Jacob is mummified when he dies. The task takes forty days, as it would for a nobleman, but his is mourned for seventy days, as if he were a king.

?So what do you think?? I said to Basem. We had been in half a dozen tombs by now and seen countless images that could have illustrated Genesis itself. ?Do you think the story is true??
?Do you want me to speak from the point of view of religion, or the point of view of history?? he said.
?Neither. I want you to speak from the point of view of yourself.?
?Myself? I think religion is more powerful than history. I think Joseph existed.?

End of Genesis later today...
 

Stark

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Jun 16, 2000
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Genesis 46

1 Israel moved with all he had. When he came to Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. 2 God spoke to Israel in a vision that night and said, "Jacob, Jacob!" "Here I am," he answered. 3 "I am God, the God of your father," he said. "Don't be afraid to go to Egypt, because I will make you a great nation there. 4 I will go with you to Egypt, and I will make sure you come back again. Joseph will close your eyes [when you die]."

5 So Jacob left Beersheba. Israel's sons put their father Jacob, their children, and their wives in the wagons Pharaoh had sent to bring him back. 6 They also took their livestock and the possessions they had accumulated in Canaan. Jacob and all his family arrived in Egypt. 7 He had brought his sons, his grandsons, his daughters, and his granddaughters--his entire family. 8 These are the names of Israel's descendants (Jacob and his descendants) who arrived in Egypt. Reuben was Jacob's firstborn. 9 The sons of Reuben were Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. 10 The sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman. 11 The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. 12 The sons of Judah were Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah. (Er and Onan had died in Canaan.) The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul. 13 The sons of Issachar were Tola, Puvah, Iob, and Shimron. 14 The sons of Zebulun were Sered, Elon, and Jahleel. 15 These were the descendants of the sons Leah gave to Jacob in Paddan Aram, in addition to his daughter Dinah. The total number of these sons and daughters was 33. 16 The sons of Gad were Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli. 17 The sons of Asher were Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, and Beriah. Their sister was Serah. The sons of Beriah were Heber and Malchiel. 18 These were the descendants of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah. She gave birth to these children for Jacob. The total was 16. 19 The sons of Jacob's wife Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin. 20 In Egypt, Manasseh and Ephraim were born to Joseph by Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest from the city of On. 21 The sons of Benjamin were Bela, Beker, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard. 22 These were the descendants of Rachel who were born to Jacob. The total was 14. 23 The son of Dan was Hushim. 24 The sons of Naphtali were Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem. 25 These were the descendants of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Rachel. She gave birth to these sons for Jacob. The total was 7. 26 The total number of Jacob's direct descendants who went with him to Egypt was 66. This didn't include the wives of Jacob's sons. 27 Joseph had two sons who were born in Egypt. The grand total of people in Jacob's household who went to Egypt was 70. :eek:

28 Israel sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to get directions to Goshen. When Israel's family arrived in the region of Goshen, 29 Joseph prepared his chariot and went to meet his father Israel. As soon as he saw his father, he threw his arms around him and cried on his shoulder a long time. 30 Israel said to Joseph, "Now that I've seen for myself that you're still alive, I'm ready to die." 31 Then Joseph said to his brothers and his father's family, "I'm going to Pharaoh to tell him, 'My brothers and my father's family, who were in Canaan, have come to me. 32 The men are shepherds. They take care of livestock. They've brought their flocks and herds and everything they own.' 33 Now, when Pharaoh calls for you and asks, 'What kind of work do you do?' 34 you must answer, 'We have taken care of herds all our lives, as our ancestors have done.' [You must say this] so that you may live in the region of Goshen, because all shepherds are disgusting to Egyptians."

Genesis 47

1 Joseph went and told Pharaoh, "My father and my brothers have arrived from Canaan with their flocks, herds, and everything they have. Now they are in Goshen." 2 Since he had taken five of his brothers with him, he presented them to Pharaoh. 3 Pharaoh asked the brothers, "What kind of work do you do?" They answered Pharaoh, "We are shepherds, as were our ancestors. 4 We have come to live in this land for a while. The famine is so severe in Canaan that there's no pasture for our flocks. So please let us live in Goshen." 5 Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Your father and your brothers have come to you. 6 All of Egypt is available to you. Have your father and your brothers live in the best part of the land. Let them live in Goshen. If they are qualified, put them in charge of my livestock." 7 Then Joseph brought his father Jacob and had him stand in front of Pharaoh. Jacob blessed Pharaoh. 8 Pharaoh asked him, "How old are you?" 9 Jacob answered Pharaoh, "The length of my stay on earth has been 130 years. :eek: The years of my life have been few and difficult, fewer than my ancestors' years." 10 Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh and left. 11 As Pharaoh had ordered, Joseph had his father and his brothers live in the best part of Egypt, the region of Rameses. He gave them property there. 12 Joseph also provided his father, his brothers, and all his father's family with food based on the number of children they had.

13 The famine was so severe that there was no food anywhere. Neither Egypt nor Canaan were producing crops because of the famine. 14 Joseph collected all the money that could be found in Egypt and in Canaan as payment for the grain people bought. Then he took it to Pharaoh's palace. 15 When the money in Egypt and Canaan was gone, all the Egyptians came to Joseph. "Give us food," they said. "Do you want us to die right in front of you? We don't have any more money!" 16 Joseph replied, "If you don't have any more money, give me your livestock, and I'll give you food in exchange." 17 So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and he gave them food in exchange for their horses, sheep, goats, cattle, and donkeys. During that year he supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock. 18 When that year was over, they came to him the next year. "Sir," they said to him, "you know that our money is gone, and you have all our livestock. There's nothing left to bring you except our bodies and our land. 19 Do you want us to die right in front of you? Do you want the land to be ruined? Take us and our land in exchange for food. Then we will be Pharaoh's slaves and our land will be his property. But give us seed so that we won't starve to death and the ground won't become a desert." 20 Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. Every Egyptian sold his fields because the famine was so severe. The land became Pharaoh's. 21 All over Egypt Joseph moved the people to the cities. 22 But he didn't buy the priests' land because the priests received an income from Pharaoh, and they lived on that income. That's why they didn't sell their land. 23 Joseph said to the people, "Now that I have bought you and your land for Pharaoh, here is seed for you. Plant crops in the land. 24 Every time you harvest, give one-fifth of the produce to Pharaoh. Four-fifths will be yours to use as seed for your fields and as food for your households." 25 "You have saved our lives," they said. "Please, sir, we are willing to be Pharaoh's slaves." 26 Joseph made a law concerning the land in Egypt which is still in force today: One-fifth [of the produce] belongs to Pharaoh. Only the land of the priests didn't belong to Pharaoh.

27 So the Israelites settled in Egypt in the region of Goshen. They acquired property there and had many children. 28 Jacob lived in Egypt 17 years, so he lived a total of 147 years. 29 Israel was about to die. He called for his son Joseph and said to him, "I want you to swear that you love me and are faithful to me. Please don't bury me here. 30 I want to rest with my ancestors. Take me out of Egypt, and bury me in their tomb." "I will do as you say," Joseph answered. 31 "Swear to me," he said. So Joseph swore to him. Then Israel bowed down in prayer with his face at the head of his bed.

Genesis 48

1 Later Joseph was told, "Your father is ill." So he took his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim [to see Jacob]. 2 When Jacob was told, "Your son Joseph is here to see you," Israel gathered his strength and sat up in bed. 3 Jacob said to Joseph, "God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in Canaan and blessed me. 4 He said to me, 'I will make you fertile and increase the number of your descendants so that you will become a community of people. I will give this land to your descendants as a permanent possession.' 5 "So your two sons, who were born in Egypt before I came here, are my sons. Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine just as Reuben and Simeon are. 6 Any other children you have after them will be yours. They will inherit the land listed under their brothers' names. 7 As I was coming back from Paddan, Rachel died in Canaan when we were still some distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there on the way to Ephrath" (that is, Bethlehem).

8 When Israel saw Joseph's sons, he asked, "Who are they?" 9 "They are my sons, whom God has given me here in Egypt," Joseph answered his father. Then Israel said, "Please bring them to me so that I may bless them." 10 Israel's eyesight was failing because of old age, and he could hardly see. So Joseph brought his sons close to his father, and Israel hugged them and kissed them. 11 Israel said to Joseph, "I never expected to see you again, and now God has even let me see your sons." 12 Joseph took them off his father's lap and bowed with his face touching the ground. 13 Then Joseph took both of them, Ephraim on his right, facing Israel's left, and Manasseh on his left, facing Israel's right, and brought them close to him. 14 But Israel crossed his hands and reached out. He put his right hand on Ephraim's head, although Ephraim was the younger son. He put his left hand on Manasseh's head, although Manasseh was older. 15 Then Jacob blessed Joseph, "May God, in whose presence my grandfather Abraham and my father Isaac walked, may God, who has been my shepherd all my life to this very day, 16 may the Messenger, who has rescued me from all evil, bless these boys. May they be called by my name and by the names of my grandfather Abraham and my father Isaac. May they have many children on the earth." 17 When Joseph saw that his father had put his right hand on Ephraim's head, he didn't like it. So he took his father's hand in order to move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's. 18 Then he said to his father, "That's not right, Father! This is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head." 19 His father refused and said, "I know, Son, I know! Manasseh, too, will become a nation, and he, too, will be important. Nevertheless, his younger brother will be more important than he, and his descendants will become many nations." 20 That day he blessed them. He said, "Because of you, Israel will speak this blessing, 'May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh!'" In this way Israel put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh. 21 Then Israel said to Joseph, "Now I'm about to die, but God will be with you. He will bring you back to the land of your fathers. 22 I'm giving you one more mountain ridge than your brothers. I took it from the Amorites with my own sword and bow."

Genesis 49
[The Twelve Tribes of Israel]
I.
1 Jacob called for his sons and said, "Come here, and let me tell you what will happen to you in the days to come. 2 "Gather around and listen, sons of Jacob. Listen to your father Israel. 3 "Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength, the very first son I had, first in majesty and first in power. 4 You will no longer be first because you were out of control like a flood and you climbed into your father's bed. Then you dishonored it. He climbed up on my couch. [Remember when Reuben screwed Bilhah, his dad's concubine? Payback's a b---!]
II. & III.
5 "Simeon and Levi are brothers. Their swords are weapons of violence. 6 Do not let me attend their secret meetings. Do not let me join their assembly. In their anger they murdered men. At their whim they crippled cattle. 7 May their anger be cursed because it's so fierce. May their fury be cursed because it's so cruel. I will divide them among [the sons of] Jacob and scatter them among [the tribes of] Israel.
IV.
8 "Judah, your brothers will praise you. Your hand will be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's sons will bow down to you. 9 Judah, you are a lion cub. You have come back from the kill, my son. He lies down and rests like a lion. He is like a lioness. Who dares to disturb him? 10 A scepter will never depart from Judah nor a ruler's staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes and the people obey him. 11 He will tie his donkey to a grapevine, his colt to the best vine. He will wash his clothes in wine, his garments in the blood of grapes. 12 His eyes are darker than wine. His teeth are whiter than milk.
V.
13 "Zebulun will live by the coast. He will have ships by the coast. His border will go as far as Sidon.
VI.
14 "IssacharIssachar is a strong donkey, lying down between the saddlebags. 15 When he sees that his resting place is good and that the land is pleasant, he will bend his back to the burden and will become a slave laborer.
VII.
16 "Dan will hand down decisions for his people as one of the tribes of Israel. 17 Dan will be a snake on a road, a viper on a path, that bites a horse's heels so that its rider falls off backwards. 18 "I wait with hope for you to rescue me, O LORD.
VIII.
19 "Gad will be attacked by a band of raiders, but he will strike back at their heels.
IX.
20 "Asher's food will be rich. He will provide delicacies fit for a king.
X.
21 "Naphtali is a doe set free that has beautiful fawns.
XI.
22 "Joseph is a fruitful tree, a fruitful tree by a spring, with branches climbing over a wall. 23 Archers provoked him, shot at him, and attacked him. 24 But his bow stayed steady, and his arms remained limber because of the help of the Mighty One of Jacob, because of the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel, 25 because of the God of your father who helps you, because of the Almighty who gives you blessings from the heavens above, blessings from the deep springs below the ground, blessings from breasts and womb. 26 The blessings of your father are greater than the blessings of the oldest mountains and the riches of the ancient hills. May these blessings rest on the head of Joseph, on the crown of the prince among his brothers.
XII.
27 "Benjamin is a ravenous wolf. In the morning he devours his prey. In the evening he divides the plunder."

28 These are the 12 tribes of Israel and what their father said to them when he gave each of them his special blessing. 29 Then he gave them these instructions, "I am about to join my ancestors in death. Bury me with my ancestors in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite. 30 Abraham bought the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, east of Mamre in Canaan, from Ephron the Hittite to use as a tomb. 31 Abraham and his wife Sarah are buried there. Isaac and his wife Rebekah are buried there. I also buried Leah there. 32 The field and the cave in it were bought from the Hittites." 33 When Jacob finished giving these instructions to his sons, he pulled his feet into his bed. He took his last breath and joined his ancestors in death.

Genesis 50

1 Joseph threw himself on his father, cried over him, and kissed him. 2 Then Joseph ordered the doctors in his service to embalm his father. So the doctors embalmed Israel. 3 The embalming was completed in the usual time--40 days. The Egyptians mourned for him 70 days. 4 When the time of mourning for Jacob was over, Joseph spoke to the Pharaoh's palace staff. He said, "Please speak directly to Pharaoh. Tell him, 5 'My father made me swear an oath. He said, "I'm about to die. Bury me in the tomb I bought for myself in Canaan." Please let me go there and bury my father; then I'll come back.'" 6 Pharaoh replied, "Go and bury your father, as you have promised him."

7 So Joseph left to bury his father. All Pharaoh's officials, the leaders in his palace staff, and all the leaders of Egypt went with him. 8 Joseph's household, his brothers, and his father's household also went with him. (Only their children, their flocks, and their cattle were left in Goshen.) 9 Chariots and horsemen went with him. It was a very large group. 10 When they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is on the east side of the Jordan River, they began a great and solemn ceremony to mourn Jacob's death. Joseph took seven days to mourn his father's death. 11 When the Canaanites living there saw the funeral ceremonies at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, "These funeral ceremonies are taken very seriously by the Egyptians." That's why that place on the east side of the Jordan was named Abel Mizraim [Egyptian Funeral Ceremonies]. 12 Jacob's sons did for him what he had told them to do. 13 They carried him back to Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah, east of Mamre. Abraham had bought this tomb from Ephron the Hittite. 14 After Joseph had buried his father, he went back to Egypt along with his brothers and everyone who had gone there with him to bury his father.

15 Joseph's brothers realized what their father's death could mean. So they thought, "What if Joseph holds a grudge against us? What if he decides to pay us back for all the evil we did to him?" 16 They sent a messenger to Joseph to say, "Before your father died, he commanded us, 17 'This is what you should say to Joseph, "I'm begging you to forgive the crime and the sin your brothers committed against you. What they did to you was very evil."' So now, please forgive our crime, because we are servants of your father's God." Joseph cried when he got their message. 18 Then his brothers also came and immediately bowed down in front of him. "We are your slaves!" they said. 19 Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid! I can't take God's place. 20 Even though you planned evil against me, God planned good to come out of it. This was to keep many people alive, as he is doing now. 21 Don't be afraid! I will provide for you and your children." In this way he reassured them, setting their minds at ease.

22 Joseph and his father's family stayed in Egypt. Joseph lived to be 110 years old. 23 He saw his grandchildren, Ephraim's children. Even the children of Machir, son of Manasseh, were adopted by Joseph at birth. 24 At last Joseph said to his brothers, "I'm about to die. God will definitely take care of you and take you out of this land to the land he swore with an oath to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." 25 Joseph made Israel's sons swear an oath. He said, "God will definitely take care of you. So be sure to carry my bones back with you." 26 Joseph died when he was 110 years old. His body was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.

[One book down! :D]