Study Desk

When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him,

he said, "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers."

He also said, "Blessed be the Lord , the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant.

May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant."

From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations.

The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth,

To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan.

Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there.

And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan,

From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord .

When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, "I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance,

and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.' Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.

But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife.

And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.

So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb.

And he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,

And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord , like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)

Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom.