World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 27
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and the commanded the people, saying, "Keep all the which I command you today. It shall be on the day when you shall pass over to the land which your gives you, that you shall set yourself up great stones, and coat them with plaster. You shall write on them all the words of this law, when you have passed over, that you may go in to the land which your gives you, a and honey, as , the of your fathers, has promised you. It shall be, when you have crossed over , that you shall set up these stones, which I command you today, on Mount , and you shall coat them with plaster. There you shall build an to your , an of stones. You shall not use any iron tool on them. You shall build your of uncut stones. You shall offer burnt offerings on it to your . You shall , and shall eat there. You shall rejoice before your . You shall write on the stones all the words of this law very plainly." and the priests spoke to all Israel, saying, "Be silent and listen, Israel! Today you have become the people of your . You shall therefore your voice, and do his and his , which I command you today." 11 commanded the people the same day, saying, "These shall stand on to the people, when you have crossed over : Simeon, , Judah, , , and . These shall stand on Mount for the : , Gad, Asher, , Dan, and . With a loud voice, the shall say to all the men of Israel, ' is the man who makes an engraved or molten , an to , the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.' All the people shall answer and say, '.' ' is he who dishonors his or his mother.' All the people shall say, '.' ' is he who removes his neighbor's landmark.' All the people shall say, '.' ' is he who leads the blind astray on the road.' All the people shall say, '.' ' is he who withholds from the , , and .' All the people shall say, '.' ' is he who lies with his wife, because he dishonors his bed.' All the people shall say, '.' ' is he who lies with any kind of animal.' All the people shall say, '.' ' is he who lies with his sister, his daughter or his mother's daughter.' All the people shall say, '.' ' is he who lies with his mother-in-law.' All the people shall say, '.' ' is he who secretly kills his neighbor.' All the people shall say, '.' ' is he who takes a bribe to kill an innocent person.' All the people shall say, '.' ' is he who doesn't uphold the words of this law by doing them.' All the people shall say, '.'"
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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.