King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 31
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1And went and spake these words unto all Israel. And he said unto them, I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in: also hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan. thy , he will go over before thee, and he will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess them: and , he shall go over before thee, as hath said. And shall do unto them as he did to and to , kings of the , and unto the land of them, whom he destroyed. And shall give them up before your , that ye may do unto them according unto all which I have commanded you. Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for thy , he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. And called unto , and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou must go with this people unto the land which hath unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to it. And , he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed. And wrote this law, and it unto the priests the , which the of , and unto all the . And commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of , in the , When all Israel is come to appear before thy in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy that is within thy , that they may hear, and that they may learn, and your , and observe to do all the words of this law: And that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to your , as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it. And said unto , Behold, thy days approach that thou must : call , and present yourselves in the of , that I may give him a charge. And and went, and presented themselves in the of . And appeared in the in a pillar of a cloud: and of the cloud stood over the door of the . And said unto , Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my which I have made with them. Then my shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our is not among us? And I will surely hide in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods. Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the : put it in their mouths, that this song may be a for me against the . For when I shall have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with ; and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat; then will they turn unto other gods, and them, and provoke me, and break my . And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen them, that this song shall testify against them as a ; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their : for I know their imagination which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware. therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the . And he gave the son of a charge, and said, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt bring the into the land which I sware unto them: and I will be with thee. And it came to pass, when had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, That commanded the , which the of , saying, Take this book of , and put it in the side of the of your , that it may be there for a against thee. For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against ; and how much more after my ? Gather unto me all the of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call and earth to record against them. For I know that after my ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the ; because ye will do evil in the sight of , to provoke him to through the work of your hands. And spake in the ears of all of Israel the words of this song, until they were ended.
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.