King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 27
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And with the commanded the people, saying, Keep all which I command you this day. And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which thy giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaister them with plaister: And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law, when thou art passed over, that thou mayest go in unto the land which thy giveth thee, a land that floweth with ; as of thy fathers hath promised thee. Therefore it shall be when ye be gone over Jordan, that ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, in mount , and thou shalt plaister them with plaister. And there shalt thou build an unto thy , an of stones: thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them. Thou shalt build the of thy of whole stones: and thou shalt offer burnt offerings thereon unto thy : And thou shalt offer , and shalt eat there, and rejoice before thy . And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly. And and the priests the spake unto all Israel, saying, Take heed, and , O Israel; this day thou art become the people of thy . Thou shalt therefore thy , and do his and his , which I command thee this day. 11And charged the people the same day, saying, These shall stand upon to the people, when ye are come over Jordan; Simeon, and , and Judah, and , and , and : And these shall stand upon mount to ; , Gad, and Asher, and , Dan, and . And the shall speak, and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice, be the man that maketh any graven or molten , an unto , the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a secret place. And all the people shall answer and say, . be he that setteth by his or his mother. And all the people shall say, . be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark. And all the people shall say, . be he that maketh the blind to wander out of . And all the people shall say, . be he that perverteth the of the , , and . And all the people shall say, . be he that lieth with his ’s wife; because he uncovereth his ’s . And all the people shall say, . be he that lieth with any manner of beast. And all the people shall say, . be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his , or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say, . be he that lieth with his mother in law. And all the people shall say, . be he that smiteth his neighbour secretly. And all the people shall say, . be he that taketh reward to an innocent person. And all the people shall say, . be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, .
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. 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.