Genesis 1
Genesis 1
A liturgical hymn in which God speaks the cosmos into existence over six days and rests on the seventh, declaring all of it good.
Genesis — chapter by chapter
All 50 chapters, from the first day to a coffin in Egypt.
Genesis falls into four broad movements. Chapters 1–11 are the primeval history — universal in scope, moving from creation through flood to the scattering of the nations. Chapter 12 opens the patriarchal history with the call of Abraham, which narrows the story to one family and one promise. The Abraham cycle runs through chapter 25, the Isaac and Jacob cycle through chapter 36, and the Joseph novella carries chapters 37–50 with the sustained pace of a short novel. Fifty chapters total.
Primeval history · Ch 1–11
Creation, Eden, Cain and Abel, the flood, Babel.
Genesis 2
Genesis 2
The Yahwist creation account: God forms man from dust, plants Eden, creates woman from the sleeping man's rib, and the two live without shame.
Genesis 3
Genesis 3
The serpent, the fruit, the opened eyes, and the expulsion: the chapter on which more theology has been built than any other in the Hebrew Bible.
Genesis 4
Genesis 4
Cain murders Abel in a field, is cursed but protected by God, and goes east of Eden. The chapter traces violence from the first family forward through six generations.
Genesis 5
Genesis 5
Ten generations from Adam to Noah, each measured in centuries, with Enoch as the anomaly who walked with God and bypassed death entirely.
Genesis 6
Genesis 6
The world's corruption moves God to resolve destruction; Noah alone finds favor. The chapter delivers the ark's specifications and the terms of the impending judgment.
Genesis 7
Genesis 7
The flood arrives in all its force: rains, fountains of the deep, rising waters that cover the mountains. Everything dies except the inhabitants of the ark.
Genesis 8
Genesis 8
The waters recede over months of careful waiting; the dove's three missions test the land's readiness; Noah emerges and sacrifices, and God resolves not to flood the earth again.
Genesis 9
Genesis 9
God establishes the rainbow covenant with all flesh; then Noah's drunkenness and the curse of Canaan immediately complicate the portrait of the flood's righteous survivor.
Genesis 10
Genesis 10
Seventy nations spread across the earth from Noah's three sons: a genealogical atlas of the ancient world, preparing for the story of Babel.
Genesis 11
Genesis 11
The Tower of Babel explains the world's many languages; a genealogy from Shem leads to Abram, poised at the threshold of his calling.
Abraham · Ch 12–25
The call, the covenant, the binding of Isaac, the death of Abraham.
Genesis 12
Genesis 12
God's call to Abram — leave everything, go to the land I will show you, and I will make you a blessing — opens the patriarchal era and all the promises that follow.
Genesis 13
Genesis 13
Abram generously offers Lot first choice of land; Lot chooses the Jordan plain near Sodom; God reaffirms the land promise to Abram at Hebron.
Genesis 14
Genesis 14
Abram the warrior rescues Lot from four Mesopotamian kings; Melchizedek of Salem blesses him; Abram refuses any share of the spoils from the king of Sodom.
Genesis 15
Genesis 15
God counts Abram's belief as righteousness, then seals the land promise in a covenant ceremony: only God passes between the divided animals while Abram sleeps.
Genesis 16
Genesis 16
Hagar, Sarai's Egyptian servant, flees into the wilderness and receives from the angel of the LORD a promise for her son Ishmael — and names the God who saw her.
Genesis 17
Genesis 17
God renames Abram to Abraham and Sarai to Sarah, institutes circumcision as the covenant sign, and specifically promises that the covenant line runs through the yet-to-be-born Isaac.
Genesis 18
Genesis 18
Three visitors promise Abraham a son within the year; Sarah laughs in disbelief; Abraham argues with God to spare Sodom if even ten righteous people can be found there.
Genesis 19
Genesis 19
The angels reach Sodom; Lot shows hospitality as the men of the city demand the visitors; God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah at dawn; Lot's wife looks back.
Genesis 20
Genesis 20
Abraham again passes Sarah as his sister to a foreign king; God warns Abimelech in a dream; Abimelech, who has acted in integrity, rebukes Abraham and restores Sarah.
Genesis 21
Genesis 21
Isaac is born, Sarah laughs for joy; then Hagar and Ishmael are expelled into the wilderness, where God provides water and repeats the promise of a great nation.
Genesis 22
Genesis 22
God tests Abraham by commanding the sacrifice of Isaac; Abraham obeys to the point of the knife; an angel stops him and a ram substitutes; the covenant is reaffirmed.
Genesis 23
Genesis 23
Sarah dies at one hundred and twenty-seven; Abraham negotiates and pays full price for the cave of Machpelah at Hebron — the first property in the promised land the patriarchs ever own.
Genesis 24
Genesis 24
Abraham's servant travels to Haran, prays for a sign at the well, and Rebekah's immediate answer to his prayer leads him to negotiate and return with Isaac's future wife.
Genesis 25
Genesis 25
Abraham dies at one hundred and seventy-five; Ishmael's line closes; Isaac's twin sons Esau and Jacob are born to a prophecy that the elder will serve the younger.
Isaac and Jacob · Ch 26–36
Jacob steals the blessing, flees, wrestles by the Jabbok, and is renamed Israel.
Genesis 26
Genesis 26
Isaac sojourns at Gerar, deceives Abimelech about Rebekah, prospers despite Philistine hostility, and receives the patriarchal promise in his own right.
Genesis 27
Genesis 27
Jacob, coached by Rebekah, deceives the blind Isaac into giving him the blessing meant for Esau, who vows revenge and drives Jacob into exile.
Genesis 28
Genesis 28
Fleeing to Haran, Jacob sleeps at Bethel, dreams of a ladder crowded with angels, receives the Abrahamic promise, and makes a conditional vow to God.
Genesis 29
Genesis 29
Jacob works seven years for Rachel, is given Leah on the wedding night, marries Rachel a week later, and watches Leah bear four sons while Rachel remains barren.
Genesis 30
Genesis 30
Rachel and Leah compete through servants, mandrakes, and negotiated conjugal rights; between them they bear ten sons and a daughter before Rachel finally conceives Joseph.
Genesis 31
Genesis 31
Jacob flees Haran with his family and flocks; Laban pursues and confronts him; the encounter ends with a boundary covenant at Mizpah and Jacob's release from his uncle's household.
Genesis 32
Genesis 32
Jacob's night alone at the Jabbok ford becomes a wrestling match with a divine stranger who renames him Israel and leaves him with a limp and a blessing.
Genesis 33
Genesis 33
Jacob and Esau meet after twenty years, exchange weeping and gifts, and part peacefully; Jacob settles near Shechem and builds his first altar.
Genesis 34
Genesis 34
Shechem rapes Dinah and seeks her in marriage; Simeon and Levi deceive the Shechemites into circumcision and massacre the city while the men are incapacitated.
Genesis 35
Genesis 35
Jacob fulfills his Bethel vow, receives the full covenant again, buries Rachel near Bethlehem after she dies in childbirth with Benjamin, and helps Esau bury Isaac at Hebron.
Genesis 36
Genesis 36
An extended genealogy records Esau's wives, sons, grandsons, chiefs, and the eight kings who ruled Edom before Israel had a monarchy — a formal settling of Esau's account.
Joseph novella · Ch 37–50
Sold into Egypt, risen to vizier, the family saved and reunited.
Genesis 37
Genesis 37
Joseph's dreams and his father's favoritism provoke his brothers' hatred; they sell him to Ishmaelite traders heading to Egypt and present Jacob with a blood-soaked robe.
Genesis 38
Genesis 38
Judah's daughter-in-law Tamar, denied her levirate rights, disguises herself as a prostitute to conceive by Judah himself; he acknowledges her righteousness and she bears the twins Perez and Zerah.
Genesis 39
Genesis 39
Joseph rises to run Potiphar's household, resists his master's wife's advances, is falsely accused and imprisoned, and rises again to manage the prison — the Lord present at every stage.
Genesis 40
Genesis 40
Joseph interprets the dreams of two fellow prisoners — one promises the cupbearer's restoration, one the baker's execution — both come true, but the cupbearer forgets Joseph for two years.
Genesis 41
Genesis 41
Pharaoh's twin dreams of fat and lean cattle and grain are interpreted by Joseph as seven years of plenty then famine; Pharaoh installs Joseph as vizier of Egypt at the age of thirty.
Genesis 42
Genesis 42
Ten brothers travel to Egypt to buy grain, bow before Joseph without recognizing him, and are accused of espionage; Joseph demands Benjamin as proof of their honesty and holds Simeon hostage.
Genesis 43
Genesis 43
Famine forces Jacob to send Benjamin to Egypt; Judah guarantees his safety; the brothers are invited to dine with Joseph, who seats them in birth order and gives Benjamin five times the food.
Genesis 44
Genesis 44
Joseph frames Benjamin for cup-theft and declares he will be his slave; Judah's passionate speech offering himself in Benjamin's place demonstrates his transformation from the man who sold Joseph.
Genesis 45
Genesis 45
Joseph reveals his identity to his brothers, weeps, forgives, and reframes the sale as divine providence; Pharaoh provides wagons and gifts for Jacob's entire household to descend to Egypt.
Genesis 46
Genesis 46
Jacob receives a final divine promise at Beersheba before leaving Canaan; seventy descendants of Israel enter Egypt; Joseph meets his father in Goshen with a long, silent embrace.
Genesis 47
Genesis 47
Joseph settles his family in Goshen, acquires all Egypt's land and labor for Pharaoh through the famine, and swears to Jacob he will bury him in Canaan.
Genesis 48
Genesis 48
The dying Jacob adopts Ephraim and Manasseh as his own sons and, crossing his hands deliberately, gives the primary blessing to the younger Ephraim over Joseph's objection.
Genesis 49
Genesis 49
Jacob pronounces a tribal oracle over each of his twelve sons — cursing Reuben, Simeon, and Levi for their crimes, crowning Judah as the scepter-bearer, and lavishing blessing on Joseph — then dies.
Genesis 50
Genesis 50
Jacob is buried at Machpelah in a great procession; Joseph reassures his brothers that God turned their evil intention to good; Joseph lives to one hundred and ten and dies in Egypt, his bones ready to be carried home.