World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 16
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They took their journey from , and all of the came to of , which is between and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of . The whole of the murmured against and against in ; and the said to them, "We wish that we had by hand in the land of , when we sat by the meat pots, when we ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this to kill this whole with ." Then said to , "Behold, I will bread from for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's every day, that I may them, whether they will walk in or not. It shall come to pass on the sixth day, that they shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily." and said to all the , "At evening, you shall know that has brought you out from the land of . In the morning, you shall see ; because he hears your murmurings against . Who are we, that you murmur against us?" said, "Now will give you meat to eat in the evening, and in the morning bread to satisfy you, because hears your murmurings which you murmur against him. And who are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against ." said to , "Tell all of the , 'Come close to , for he has heard your murmurings.'" As spoke to the whole of the , they looked toward , and behold, appeared in the cloud. 11 spoke to , saying, "I have heard the murmurings of the . Speak to them, saying, 'At evening you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am your .'" In the evening, quail came up and covered the camp; and in the morning the lay around the camp. When the that lay had gone, behold, on the surface of was a small round thing, small as the frost on the ground. When the saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they didn't know what it was. said to them, "It is the bread which has given you to eat. This is the thing which has commanded: 'Gather of it everyone according to his eating; an omer a head, according to the number of your persons, you shall take it, every man for those who are in his tent.'" 17The did so, and some gathered more, some less. When they measured it with an omer, he who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack. They each gathered according to his eating. said to them, "Let no one leave of it until the morning." Notwithstanding they didn't listen to , but some of them left of it until the morning, so it bred worms and became foul; and was angry with them. They gathered it morning by morning, everyone according to his eating. When the sun grew hot, it melted. On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one; and all the of came and told . He said to them, "This is that which has spoken, 'Tomorrow is a solemn rest, a to . Bake that which you want to bake, and boil that which you want to boil; and all that over lay up for yourselves to be kept until the morning.'" They laid it up until the morning, as ordered, and it didn't become foul, and there were no worms in it. said, "Eat that today, for today is a to . Today you shall not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day is the . In it there shall be none." On the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather, and they found none. said to , "How long do you refuse to keep my and my laws? Behold, because has given you the , therefore he gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days. Everyone stay in his place. Let no one go out of his place on the seventh day." So the people rested on the seventh day. The called its name "", and it was like coriander , white; and its taste was like wafers with honey. said, "This is the thing which has commanded, 'Let an omer-full of it be kept throughout your generations, that they may see the bread with which I fed you in , when I brought you out of the land of .'" said to , "Take a pot, and put an omer-full of in it, and lay it up before , to be kept throughout your generations." As commanded , so laid it up before the , to be kept. The ate forty years, until they came to an inhabited land. They ate until they came to the borders of the land of . Now an omer is one tenth of an ephah.
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.