World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 10
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At that time said to me, "Cut two stone tablets like the first, and come up to me onto the mountain, and make an ark of wood. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark." So I made an ark of acacia wood, and cut two stone tablets like the first, and went up onto the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand. He wrote on the tablets, according to the first writing, , which spoke to you on the mountain out of the middle of the in the day of ; and gave them to me. I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they are as commanded me. (The traveled from to Moserah. There , and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest's office in his place. From there they traveled to Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to , a land of brooks of water. At that time the tribe of to bear the , to stand before to minister to him, and to in his name, to this day. Therefore has no nor with his brothers; is his , according as your spoke to him.) I stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights; and listened to me that time also. would not destroy you. said to me, "Arise, take your journey before the people; and they shall go in and possess the land which I to their fathers to give to them." Now, Israel, what does your require of you, but to your , to walk in all his ways, to love him, and to your with all and with all your , to keep and , which I command you today for your good? Behold, to your belongs , the , and the earth, with all that is therein. Only had a delight in your fathers to love them, and he chose their after them, even you above all peoples, as it is today. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of , and be no more . For your , he is of gods and of lords, the great , the mighty, and the awesome, who doesn't respect persons or take bribes. He executes for and and loves the in giving him food and clothing. Therefore love the , for you were in the land of . You shall your . You shall him. You shall cling to him, and you shall by his name. He is your , and he is your , who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down into with seventy persons; and now your has made you as the stars of for multitude.
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.