World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 1
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These are the words which spoke to all Israel beyond in , in the opposite Suf, between , Tophel, Laban, , and Dizahab. It is eleven days' journey from by of Mount to . In the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, spoke to the according to all that had given him in to them, after he had struck the king of the who lived in , and the king of who lived in , at . Beyond , in the land of , began to declare this law, saying, " our spoke to us in , saying, 'You have lived long enough at this mountain. Turn, and take your journey, and go to the hill country of the and to all the places near there: in the , in the hill country, in the lowland, in the South, by the seashore, in the land of , and in as far as the great river, the river . Behold, I have set the land before you. Go in and possess the land which to your fathers—to , to , and to —to give to them and to their after them.'" I spoke to you at that time, saying, "I am not able to bear you myself alone. your has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as the stars of for multitude. May , the of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and you, as he has promised you! How can I myself alone bear your problems, your burdens, and your strife? Take men of who are respected among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you." 14You answered me, and said, "The thing which you have spoken is good to do." So I took the heads of your tribes, and respected men, and made them heads over you, captains of thousands, captains of hundreds, captains of fifties, captains of tens, and officers, according to your tribes. I commanded your judges at that time, saying, "Hear cases between your brothers and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the who is living with him. You shall not show partiality in ; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be afraid of the of man, for the is . The case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it." I commanded you at that time all the things which you should do. We traveled from and went through all that great and terrible which you saw, by to the hill country of the , as our commanded us; and we came to . I said to you, "You have come to the hill country of the , which our gives to us. Behold, your has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the of your fathers has spoken to you. Don't be afraid, neither be dismayed." You came near to me, everyone of you, and said, "Let's send men before us, that they may search the land for us, and bring back to us word of by which we must go up, and the cities to which we shall come." The thing pleased me well. I took twelve of your men, one man for every tribe. They turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the valley of , and spied it out. 25They took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us, and brought us word again, and said, "It is a good land which our gives to us." Yet you wouldn't go up, but rebelled against the of your . You murmured in your tents, and said, "Because hated us, he has brought us out of the land of , to us into the hand of the to destroy us. Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our melt, saying, 'The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to . Moreover we have seen the sons of the there!'" 29Then I said to you, "Don't be terrified. Don't be afraid of them. your , who goes before you, he will fight for you, according to all that he did for you in before your eyes, and in where you have seen how that your carried you, as a man carries his son, in all that you went, until you came to this place." Yet in this thing you didn't your , who went before you on , to seek out a place for you to pitch your tents in: in by night, to show you by what way you should go, and in the . heard the voice of your words and was angry, and , saying, "Surely not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land which I to give to your fathers, except the son of . He shall see it. I will give the land that he has trodden on to him and to his children, because he has wholly followed ." Also was angry with me for your sakes, saying, "You also shall not go in there. the son of , who stands before you, shall go in there. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to it. Moreover your little ones, whom you said would be captured or killed, your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, shall go in there. I will give it to them, and they shall possess it. But as for you, turn, and take your journey into by to ." Then you answered and said to me, "We have against . We will go up and fight, according to all that our commanded us." Every man of you put on his weapons of war, and presumed to go up into the hill country. said to me, "Tell them, 'Don't go up and don't fight; for I am not among you, lest you be struck before your .'" So I spoke to you, and you didn't listen; but you rebelled against the of , and were presumptuous, and went up into the hill country. The , who lived in that hill country, came out against you and chased you as bees do, and beat you down in , even to . You returned and wept before , but didn't listen to your voice, nor turn his ear to you. So you stayed in many days, according to the days that you remained.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Egypt and Sinai, 1450 BC to 1200 BC ›
Israel in and then out of Egypt, at a period when Egypt was an imperial power that also controlled Canaan. The nation is formed as a people with a law before it has any land.
- Egypt
- The New Kingdom at its imperial peak, with a professional army, a chariot corps, and control reaching up through Canaan. Ramesses II reigns for sixty-six years and covers the country in monuments to himself. Egyptian power in this period is the reason Canaan is garrisoned rather than free.
- The Hittites
- The other superpower, in what is now Turkey, and Egypt's rival for the Levant. The two fight the largest chariot battle of the ancient world at Kadesh, then sign a treaty whose text survives from both sides. Hittite treaty form, with its historical prologue, stipulations, witnesses, blessings, and curses, is the shape the Sinai covenant takes, which is one of the stronger arguments for the antiquity of that material.
- The Aegean
- Mycenaean Greece: warrior kings in stone citadels at Mycenae and Pylos, keeping palace accounts in Linear B. The world of the Trojan War stories, whatever lies behind them.
- Further afield
- The Shang dynasty in China is casting extraordinary bronzes and writing questions to its ancestors on ox bones. In Mesoamerica the Olmec are beginning the first civilisation of the Americas.