King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 33
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And this is the , wherewith the the before his . And he said, came from Sinai, and rose up from unto them; he shined forth from mount , and he came with ten thousands of : from his went a law for them. Yea, he loved the people; all his are in thy hand: and they sat down at thy feet; every one shall receive of thy words. commanded us a law, even the of of . And he was king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered together. Let live, and not ; and let not his men be few. And this is the of Judah: and he said, Hear, , the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his people: let his hands be sufficient for him; and be thou an help to him from his . And of he said, Let thy and thy be with thy one, whom thou didst prove at , and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of ; Who said unto his and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he his brethren, nor knew his own children: for they have observed thy word, and kept thy . They shall teach thy judgments, and Israel thy law: they shall put before thee, and whole burnt upon thine . , , his substance, and accept the work of his hands: smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again. And of he said, The beloved of shall in safety by him; and shall cover him all the day long, and he shall between his shoulders. And of he said, of be his land, for the precious things of , for the , and for the deep that coucheth beneath, And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the come upon the head of , and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren. His is like the firstling of his bullock, and his are like the of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of , and they are the thousands of . And of he said, Rejoice, , in thy going out; and, , in thy tents. They shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall offer of : for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of hid in the sand. And of Gad he said, be he that enlargeth Gad: he dwelleth as a lion, and teareth the arm with the of the head. And he provided the first part for himself, because there, in a of the lawgiver, was he seated; and he came with the heads of the people, he executed the of , and his judgments with Israel. And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion’s whelp: he shall leap from . And of he said, O , satisfied with , and full with the of : possess thou the west and the south. And of Asher he said, Let Asher be with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil. Thy shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be. There is none like unto the of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the in thy help, and in his excellency on . The is thy refuge, and underneath are the arms: and he shall thrust out from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them. Israel then shall in safety alone: the fountain of shall be upon a land of corn and ; also his shall drop down . Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people by , the shield of thy help, and who is of thy excellency! and thine shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their .
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.