King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 13
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1And spake unto , saying, unto me all , whatsoever openeth the among the , both of man and of beast: it is mine. And said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from , out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten. This day came ye out in the month . And it shall be when shall bring thee into the land of , and the , and the , and the , and the , which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee, a and honey, that thou shalt keep this in this month. Seven days thou shalt eat , and in the seventh day shall be a feast to . shall be eaten seven days; and there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee, neither shall there be seen with thee in all thy quarters. And thou shalt shew thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which did unto me when I came forth out of . And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that ’s law may be in thy : for with a strong hand hath brought thee out of . Thou shalt therefore keep this in his season from year to year. And it shall be when shall bring thee into the land of , as he sware unto thee and to thy fathers, and shall give it thee, That thou shalt unto all that openeth the matrix, and every firstling that cometh of a beast which thou hast; the males shall be ’s. And every firstling of an ass thou shalt with ; and if thou wilt not it, then thou shalt break his neck: and all of man among thy children shalt thou . And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand brought us out from , from the house of bondage: And it came to pass, when would hardly let us go, that slew all in the land of , both of man, and of beast: therefore I to all that openeth the matrix, being males; but all of my children I . And it shall be for a token upon thine hand, and for between thine eyes: for by strength of hand brought us forth out of . And it came to pass, when had let the people go, that led them not through of the land of the , although that was near; for said, Lest peradventure the people when they see war, and they return to : But led the people about, through of of : and the went up harnessed out of the land of . And took the bones of with him: for he had straitly the , saying, will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you. And they took their journey from , and encamped in , in the edge of . And went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them ; and by night in a , to give them ; to go by day and night: He took not away of the , nor of by night, from before the people.
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.