King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 32
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And when the people saw that delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto , and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this , the man that brought us up out of the land of , we wot not what is become of him. And said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto . And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of . And when saw it, he built an before it; and made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to . And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought ; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. And said unto , Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of , have corrupted themselves: They have turned aside quickly out of which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have it, and have thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of . And said unto , I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a people: Now therefore let me alone, that my may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And besought his , and said, , why doth thy wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of with great , and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to them in the mountains, and to consume them from the of the earth? Turn from thy fierce , and of this evil against thy people. Remember , , and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply as the stars of , and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto , and they shall it for ever. And of the evil which he thought to do unto his people. And turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the work of , and the writing was the writing of , graven upon the tables. And when heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto , There is a noise of war in the camp. And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and ’ waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the , and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the drink of it. And said unto , What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a upon them? And said, Let not the of my wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this , the man that brought us up out of the land of , we wot not what is become of him. And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the , and there came out this calf. And when saw that the people were ; (for had made them unto their among their :) Then stood in the of the camp, and said, Who is on ’s side? let him come unto me. And all the gathered themselves together unto him. And he said unto them, Thus saith of Israel, Put every man his by his side, and go in and out from to throughout the camp, and every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. And the children of did according to the word of : and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. For had said, yourselves to day to , even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a this day. And it came to pass on the morrow, that said unto the people, Ye have a great : and now I will go up unto ; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your . And returned unto , and said, Oh, this people have a great , and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their —; and if not, blot me, I thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. And said unto , Whosoever hath against me, him will I blot out of my book. Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine shall go before thee: nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their upon them. And plagued the people, because they made the calf, which made.
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.