World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 15
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At the end of every seven years, you shall cancel debts. This is it shall be done: every creditor shall that which he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not require payment from his neighbor and his brother, because has been proclaimed. Of a you may require it; but whatever of yours is with your brother, your hand shall . However there will be no with you (for will surely you in the land which your gives you for an to possess) if only you diligently listen to your voice, to observe to do all this which I command you today. For your will you, as he promised you. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. You will many nations, but they will not you. If a man, one of your brothers, is with you within any of your in your land which your gives you, you shall not harden , nor shut your hand from your brother; but you shall surely open your hand to him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need, which he lacks. Beware that there not be a thought in , saying, "The seventh year, the year of , is at hand," and your eye be evil against your brother and you give him nothing; and he against you, and it be to you. You shall surely give, and shall not be grieved when you give to him, because it is for this thing your will you in all your work and in all that you put your hand to. For will never cease out of the land. Therefore I command you to surely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your , in your land. If your brother, a man, or a woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. When you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your , and out of your press. As your has you, you shall give to him. You shall remember that you were a in the land of , and your you. Therefore I command you this thing today. It shall be, if he tells you, "I will not go out from you," because he loves you and your house, because he is well with you, then you shall take an awl, and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be . Also to your female servant you shall do likewise. It shall not seem hard to you when you let him go free from you, for he has been double the value of a hired hand as he you six years. your will you in all that you do. You shall dedicate all males that are born of your herd and of your flock to your . You shall do no work with of your herd, nor shear of your flock. You shall eat it before your year by year in the place which shall choose, you and your household. If it has any defect—is lame or blind, or has any defect whatever, you shall not it to your . You shall eat it within your . The and the clean shall eat it alike, as the gazelle and as the deer. Only you shall not eat its . You shall pour it out on the ground like water.
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.