King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 18
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
When Jethro, the priest of , ’ in law, heard of all that had done for , and for Israel his people, and that had brought Israel out of ; Then Jethro, ’ in law, took Zipporah, ’ wife, after he had sent her back, And her two sons; of which the name of the one was ; for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land: And the name of the other was ; for the of , said he, was mine help, and me from of : And Jethro, ’ in law, came with his sons and his wife unto into , where he encamped at the mount of : 6And he said unto , I thy in law Jethro am come unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her. And went out to meet his in law, and did obeisance, and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare; and they came into the tent. And told his in law all that had done unto and to the for Israel’s sake, and all the travail that had come upon them by , and how them. And Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which had done to Israel, whom he had out of the hand of the . And Jethro said, be , who hath you out of the hand of the , and out of the hand of , who hath the people from under the hand of the . Now I know that is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them. And Jethro, ’ in law, took a burnt offering and for : and came, and all the , to eat bread with ’ in law before . And it came to pass on the morrow, that sat to judge the people: and the people stood by from the morning unto the evening. 14And when ’ in law saw all that he did to the people, he said, What is this thing that thou doest to the people? why sittest thou thyself alone, and all the people stand by thee from morning unto even? And said unto his in law, Because the people come unto me to enquire of : When they have a matter, they come unto me; and I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the of , and his laws. 17And ’ in law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. now unto my voice, I will give thee , and shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to -ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto : And thou shalt teach them and laws, and shalt shew them wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do. Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as , men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be of thousands, and of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens: And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee. If thou shalt do this thing, and command thee so, then thou shalt be able to , and all this people shall also go to their place in peace. So hearkened to the voice of his in law, and did all that he had said. And chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And they judged the people at all seasons: the hard causes they brought unto , but every small matter they judged themselves. And let his in law depart; and he went his way into his own land.
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.