World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 24
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He said to , "Come up to , you, and , , and , and seventy of the ; and from a distance. alone shall come near to , but they shall not come near. The people shall not go up with him." came and told the people all words, and all the ; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, "All the words which has spoken will we do." wrote all words, then rose up early in the morning and built an at the base of the mountain, with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the , who offered burnt offerings and of cattle to . took half of and put it in basins, and half of he sprinkled on the . He took the book of and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, "We will do all that has said, and be obedient." took , and sprinkled it on the people, and said, "Look, this is of , which has made with you concerning all these words." Then , , , , and seventy of the went up. They saw the of Israel. was like a paved work of sapphire stone, like the skies for clearness. He didn't lay his hand on the nobles of the . They saw , and ate and drank. said to , "Come up to me on the mountain, and stay here, and I will give you the stone tablets with and the commands that I have written, that you may teach them." rose up with , his servant, and went up onto Mountain. He said to the , "Wait here for us, until we come again to you. Behold, and are with you. Whoever is involved in a dispute can go to them." went up on the mountain, and the mountain. settled on , and it six days. The seventh day he called to out of the middle of the cloud. The appearance of was like devouring on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the . entered into the middle of the cloud, and went up on the mountain; and was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
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.