King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 5
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And called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them. our made a with us in . made not this with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day. talked with you to in the mount out of the midst of the , (I stood between and you at that time, to shew you the word of : for ye were afraid by reason of the , and went not up into the mount;) saying, I am thy , which brought thee out of the land of , from the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other gods before me. Thou shalt not make thee any graven , or any of any thing that is in above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth: Thou shalt not thyself unto them, nor them: for I thy am , visiting the of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my . Thou shalt not take the name of thy in : for will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in . Keep the to it, as thy hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the of thy : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy that is within thy ; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of , and that thy brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore thy commanded thee to keep the . thy and thy mother, as thy hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which thy giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Neither shalt thou . Neither shalt thou steal. Neither shalt thou bear false against thy neighbour. Neither shalt thou thy neighbour’s wife, neither shalt thou thy neighbour’s house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour’s. These words spake unto all your in the mount out of the midst of the , of the cloud, and of the thick , with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and them unto me. And it came to pass, when ye heard the voice out of the midst of , (for the mountain did burn with ,) that ye came near unto me, even all the heads of your tribes, and your ; And ye said, Behold, our hath shewed us his and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the : we have seen this day that doth talk with man, and he liveth. Now therefore why should we ? for this great will consume us: if we hear our any more, then we shall . For who is there of , that hath heard the voice of the living speaking out of the midst of the , as we have, and lived? Go thou near, and hear all that our shall say: and speak thou unto us all that our shall speak unto thee; and we will hear it, and do it. And heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me; and said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee: they have well said all that they have spoken. O that there were such an in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! 30Go say to them, Get you into your tents again. But as for thee, stand thou here by me, and I will speak unto thee all , and the , and , which thou shalt teach them, that they may do them in the land which I give them to possess it. Ye shall observe to do therefore as your hath commanded you: ye shall not turn aside to or to the left. Ye shall walk in all the ways which your hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess.
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.