World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 24
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When a man takes a wife and marries her, then it shall be, if she finds no in his eyes because he has found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a , put it in her hand, and send her out of his house. When she has departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. 3If the latter husband hates her, and writes her a , puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife; her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife after she is defiled; for that would be an to . You shall not cause the land to , which your gives you for an . When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out in the army, neither shall he be assigned any business. He shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer his wife whom he has taken. No man shall take the mill or the upper millstone as a pledge, for he takes a life in pledge. If a man is found stealing any of his brothers of the , and he deals with him as a , or sells him, then that thief shall . So you shall remove the evil from among you. Be careful in the plague of , that you observe diligently and do according to all that the priests teach you. As I commanded them, so you shall observe to do. Remember what your did to Miriam, by as you came out of . When you lend your neighbor any kind of loan, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge. 11You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge outside to you. If he is a man, you shall not sleep with his pledge. You shall surely restore to him the pledge when the sun goes down, that he may sleep in his garment and you. It shall be to you before your . You shall not oppress a hired servant who is and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the who are in your land within your . In his day you shall give him his wages, neither shall the sun go down on it, for he is and sets on it, lest he cry against you to , and it be to you. The fathers shall not be put to for the children, neither shall the children be put to for the fathers. Every man shall be put to for his own . You shall not deprive the or of , nor take a clothing in pledge; but you shall remember that you were a in , and your you there. Therefore I command you to do this thing. When you reap your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go again to get it. It shall be for the , for , and for the , that your may you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs again. It shall be for the , for , and for the . When you harvest your , you shall not it after yourselves. It shall be for the , for , and for the . You shall remember that you were a in the land of . Therefore I command you to do this thing.
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.