World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 9
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
Hear, Israel! You are to pass over today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to , a people great and tall, the sons of the , whom you know, and of whom you have heard say, "Who can stand before the sons of ?" Know therefore today that your is he who goes over before you as a devouring . He will destroy them and he will bring them down before you. So you shall drive them out and make them quickly, as has spoken to you. Don't say in , after your has thrust them out from before you, "For my has brought me in to possess this land;" because drives them out before you because of the wickedness of these nations. Not for your or for the uprightness of do you go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations your does drive them out from before you, and that he may establish the word which to your fathers, to , to , and to . Know therefore that your doesn't give you this good land to possess for your , for you are a people. Remember, and don't forget, how you provoked your to in . From the day that you left the land of until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against . Also in you provoked to , and was angry with you to destroy you. When I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the stone tablets, even the tablets of which made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. to me the two stone tablets written with finger. On them were all the words which spoke with you on the mountain out of the middle of the in the day of . It came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights that gave me the two stone tablets, even the tablets of . said to me, "Arise, get down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought out of have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned away from which I commanded them. They have made a molten for themselves!" Furthermore spoke to me, saying, "I have seen these people, and behold, they are a people. Leave me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under ; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they." So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with . The two tablets of were in my two hands. I looked, and behold, you had against your . You had made yourselves a molded calf. You had quickly turned away from which had commanded you. 17I took hold of the two tablets, and threw them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes. I fell down before , as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your which you , in doing that which was evil in sight, to provoke him to . For I was afraid of the and hot displeasure with which was angry against you to destroy you. But listened to me that time also. was angry enough with to destroy him. I for also at the same time. I took your , the calf which you had made, and burned it with , and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as . I threw its into the brook that descended out of the mountain. At , at , and at you provoked to . When sent you from , saying, "Go up and possess the land which I have given you," you rebelled against the of your , and you didn't him or listen to his voice. You have been rebellious against from the day that I knew you. So I fell down before the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, because had said he would destroy you. I to , and said, " , don't destroy your people and your that you have through your greatness, that you have brought out of with a mighty hand. Remember your servants, , , and . Don't look at the stubbornness of this people, nor at their wickedness, nor at their , lest the land you brought us out from say, 'Because was not able to bring them into the land which he promised to them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to kill them in .' Yet they are your people and your , which you brought out by your great and by your outstretched arm."
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.