World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 17
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All of the traveled from of , starting according to , and encamped in ; but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with , and said, "Give us water to drink." said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you ?" The people were thirsty for water there; so the people murmured against , and said, "Why have you brought us up out of , to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?" cried to , saying, "What shall I do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me." said to , "Walk on before the people, and take the with you, and take the in your hand with which you struck , and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on in . You shall strike , and water will come out of it, that the people may drink." did so in the sight of the . He called the name of the place , and , because the quarreled, and because they , saying, "Is among us, or not?" Then came and fought with Israel in . said to , "Choose men for us, and go out to fight with . Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with in my hand." So did as had told him, and fought with ; and , , and went up to the top of the hill. When held up his hand, Israel prevailed. When he let down his hand, prevailed. But ' hands were heavy; so they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat on it. and held up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side. His hands were steady until sunset. defeated and his people with the edge of . said to , "Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of : that I will utterly blot out the memory of from under ." built an , and called its name " our Banner". He said, " has : ' will have war with from generation to generation.'"
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.