225 passages · Humanity
God places the man in the garden to work and care for it. He allows eating from every tree but forbids the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, warning of death.
God pronounces consequences: the serpent is cursed with a coming conflict, the woman will face pain and strained relations, and the man will toil against a cursed ground until he returns to dust.
A repeated pattern lists each man's age at his son's birth, the years he lived afterward, and his death: Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, and Jared.
The pattern breaks with Enoch, who walks with God for 300 years and does not die like the others, because God takes him.
The waters swell, lift the ark, and cover the mountains. Every living thing on dry land dies, and only Noah and those with him survive.
Noah lives 350 more years after the flood and dies at 950.
Sarah dies at 127 in Hebron, and Abraham mourns and weeps for her.
The field and cave are formally transferred to Abraham before the Hittites, and he buries Sarah there. It becomes his first owned piece of the promised land.
Abraham has more sons through Keturah and other concubines, gives them gifts and sends them east, and leaves everything to Isaac. He dies at 175 and Isaac and Ishmael bury him beside Sarah.
On the way to Ephrath, Rachel has a hard labor and dies after giving birth to a son. She names him Ben-oni, but Jacob calls him Benjamin, and he sets up a pillar at her grave.
Judah leaves his brothers, marries a Canaanite woman, and has three sons. Tamar marries the eldest, Er, and after Er dies she is given to Onan, who also dies, and Judah sends Tamar home to wait for Shelah.
The baker recounts his dream of three baskets and birds, and Joseph says he will be executed in three days. Both come true on Pharaoh's birthday, but the cupbearer forgets Joseph.
The narrator notes the twelve tribes and Jacob's blessings. Jacob then instructs his sons to bury him in the cave of Machpelah with Abraham and Isaac, and he dies.
Joseph weeps over his father and has him embalmed. After the mourning period, he asks Pharaoh's court for leave to bury his father in Canaan, and Pharaoh agrees.
A large Egyptian and Israelite company accompanies Joseph. They mourn at Atad, and Jacob's sons bury him in the cave at Machpelah before returning to Egypt.
Joseph lives to 110, sees great-grandchildren, and tells his brothers God will bring them to the promised land. He has them swear to carry his bones there, and dies.
The Israelites are to be kept apart from their uncleanness so they do not die by defiling the LORD's dwelling among them. A summary then repeats the types of discharge these laws cover.
An animal or bird hunted for food must have its blood poured out and covered with earth. Eating an animal found dead requires washing, and anyone who does not wash bears the consequences.
The LORD forbids eating meat with blood in it, divination, sorcery, shaving the hair in certain ways, cutting the body for the dead, and turning to mediums. They must also keep his Sabbaths and honor the sanctuary.
A priest is not to make himself unclean for the dead, except for close family. He must not make bald spots or cuts on his body, because he presents the food of God and must be holy.
The high priest, on whom the anointing oil has been poured, must not go near any dead body, even his parents'. He must not leave the sanctuary and may marry only a virgin from his own people.
The LORD says the Kohathites must not look at the holy objects even briefly, or they will die. Aaron's sons will assign each man his load.
Touching a dead body makes a person unclean for seven days. He must be purified with the water on the third and seventh days, or he defiles the tabernacle and is cut off from Israel.
God details uncleanness from death in a tent, in the open field or by a grave, and explains how a clean man sprinkles the ash-water with hyssop on day three and seven. Neglecting it defiles the sanctuary.
At Mount Hor, God announces Aaron will die because of Meribah. Moses takes Aaron's priestly garments and puts them on Eleazar, Aaron dies on the mountain, and Israel mourns thirty days.
God tells Moses to go up the Abarim range to see the land, after which he will be gathered to his people like Aaron, because of the rebellion at Meribah.
The journey continues to Mount Hor, where Aaron dies at age 123, then on past Edom and Moab to the plains of Moab by the Jordan.
God tells Israel not to provoke Moab, the descendants of Lot. A note explains earlier peoples of the area, and the crossing of the Zered marks thirty-eight years since Kadesh, when the old generation had died.
Moses says Israel are sons of the LORD and holy, so they must not cut themselves or shave their foreheads in mourning for the dead.
A body hanged on a tree after execution must be buried the same day, because someone hanged is under God's curse and the land must not be defiled.