King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 10
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And said unto , Go in unto : for I have hardened , and of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him: And that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son’s son, what things I have wrought in , and my signs which I have done among them; that ye may know how that I am . And and came in unto , and said unto him, Thus saith of the , How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? let my people go, that they may me. Else, if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, to morrow will I bring the into thy coast: And they shall cover the of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth: and they shall eat the residue of that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field: And they shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of all the ; which neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers’ fathers have seen, since the day that they were upon the earth unto this day. And he turned himself, and went out from . And ’s servants said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? let the men go, that they may their : knowest thou not yet that is destroyed? And and were brought again unto : and he said unto them, Go, your : but who are they that shall go? And said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto . And he said unto them, Let be so with you, as I will let you go, and your little ones: look to it; for evil is before you. Not so: go now ye that are men, and ; for that ye did . And they were driven out from ’s . And said unto , Stretch out thine hand over the land of for the , that they may come up upon the land of , and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath left. And stretched forth his over the land of , and brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all that night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the . And the went up over all the land of , and rested in all the coasts of : very grievous were they; before them there were no such as they, neither after them shall be such. For they covered the of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of . Then called for and in haste; and he said, I have against your , and against you. Now therefore forgive, I thee, my only this once, and intreat your , that he may take away from me this only. And he went out from , and intreated . And turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the , and cast them into ; there remained not one in all the coasts of . But hardened ’s , so that he would not let the go. And said unto , Stretch out thine hand toward , that there may be over the land of , even which may be felt. And stretched forth his hand toward ; and there was a thick in all the land of three days: They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the had in their dwellings. And called unto , and said, Go ye, ; only let your flocks and your herds be stayed: let your little ones also go with you. And said, Thou must give us also and burnt offerings, that we may unto our . Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind; for thereof must we take to our ; and we know not with what we must , until we come thither. But hardened ’s , and he would not let them go. And said unto him, Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see no more; for in that day thou seest thou shalt . And said, Thou hast spoken well, I will see thy again no more.
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.