King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 22
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If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep. If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he , there shall no be shed for him. If the sun be upon him, there shall be shed for him; for he should make full ; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft. If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep; he shall restore double. If a man shall cause a field or to be eaten, and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man’s field; of the best of his own field, and of the best of his own , shall he . If break out, and catch in , so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the shall surely . If a man shall unto his neighbour money or stuff to keep, and it be stolen out of the man’s house; if the thief be found, let him pay double. If the thief be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto the judges, to see whether he have put his hand unto his neighbour’s goods. For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbour. If a man unto his neighbour an ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or any beast, to keep; and it , or be hurt, or driven away, no man seeing it: Then shall an of be between them both, that he hath not put his hand unto his neighbour’s goods; and the owner of it shall accept thereof, and he shall not make it good. And if it be stolen from him, he shall unto the owner thereof. If it be torn in pieces, then let him bring it for , and he shall not make good that which was torn. And if a man borrow ought of his neighbour, and it be hurt, or , the owner thereof being not with it, he shall surely make it good. But if the owner thereof be with it, he shall not make it good: if it be an hired thing, it came for his hire. And if a man entice a maid that is not , and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to . He that sacrificeth unto any , unto only, he shall be . Thou shalt neither vex a , nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of . Ye shall not afflict any , or child. If thou afflict them in any , and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry; And my shall wax hot, and I will kill you with ; and your wives shall be , and your children . If thou lend money to any of my people that is by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury. If thou at all take thy neighbour’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt it unto him by that the sun goeth down: For that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am . Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor the ruler of thy people. Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: of thy sons shalt thou give unto me. Likewise shalt thou do with thine oxen, and with thy sheep: seven days it shall be with his dam; on the eighth day thou shalt give it me. And ye shall be men unto me: neither shall ye eat any that is torn of in the field; ye shall cast it to the dogs.
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.