World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 3
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
Then we turned, and went up to . the king of came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at . said to me, "Don't fear him; for I have him, with all his people and his land, into your hand. You shall do to him as you did to king of the , who lived at ." So our also into our hand , the king of , and all his people. We struck him until no one was left to him remaining. We took all his cities at that time. There was not a city which we didn't take from them: sixty cities, all the region of , of in . All these were cities fortified with high walls, , and bars, in addition to a great many villages without walls. We them, as we did to king of , utterly destroying every inhabited city, with the women and the little ones. But all the livestock, and the plunder of the cities, we took for plunder for ourselves. We took the land at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the who were beyond , from the valley of the to . (The call Hermon Sirion, and the call it Senir.) We took all the cities of the plain, and all , and all , to and , cities of of in . (For only king of remained of of the . Behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron. Isn't it in of ? Nine was its length, and four its width, after the of a man.) This land we took in possession at that time: from , which is by the valley of the , and half the hill country of with its cities, I gave to the and to the ; and the rest of , and all , of , I gave to the half-tribe of —all the region of , even all . (The same is called the land of . the son of took all the region of , to the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and called them, even , after his own name, , to this day.) I gave to . To the and to the I gave from even to the valley of the , the middle of the valley, and its border, even to the river , which is the border of ; the also, and and its border, from even to the sea of the , , under the slopes of eastward. I commanded you at that time, saying, " your has given you this land to possess it. All of you men of valor shall pass over armed before your brothers, the . 19But your wives, and your little ones, and your livestock, (I know that you have much livestock), shall live in your cities which I have given you, until gives rest to your brothers, as to you, and they also possess the land which your gives them beyond . Then you shall each return to his own possession, which I have given you." I commanded at that time, saying, "Your eyes have seen all that your has done to these two kings. So shall do to all the kingdoms where you go over. You shall not fear them; for your himself fights for you." I begged at that time, saying, " , you have begun to show your greatness, and your strong hand. For what is there in or in earth that can do works like yours, and mighty acts like yours? Please let me go over and see the good land that is beyond , that fine mountain, and ." But was angry with me because of you, and didn't listen to me. said to me, "That is enough! Speak no more to me of this matter. Go up to the top of , and lift up your eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and see with your eyes; for you shall not go over this Jordan. But commission , and encourage him, and strengthen him; for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to the land which you shall see." So we stayed in the valley near Beth .
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.