World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 33
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spoke to , "Depart, go up from here, you and the people that you have brought up out of the land of , to the land of which I to , to , and to , saying, 'I will give it to .' I will send before you; and I will drive out the , the , and the , and the , the , and the . Go to a and honey; but I will not go up among you, for you are a people, lest I consume you on ." When the people heard this evil news, they mourned; and no one put on his jewelry. had said to , "Tell the , 'You are a people. If I were to go up among you for one moment, I would consume you. Therefore now take off your jewelry from you, that I may know what to do to you.'" The stripped themselves of their jewelry from Mount onward. Now used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far away from the camp, and he called it "The ." Everyone who sought went out to the , which was outside the camp. When went out to the Tent, all the people rose up, and stood, everyone at their tent door, and watched , until he had gone into the Tent. When entered into the Tent, of cloud descended, stood at the door of the Tent, and spoke with . All the people saw of cloud stand at the door of the Tent, and all the people rose up and , everyone at their tent door. spoke to to , as a man speaks to his friend. He turned again into the camp, but his servant , the son of , a young man, didn't depart from the Tent. said to , "Behold, you tell me, 'Bring up this people;' and you haven't let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, 'I know you by name, and you have also in my sight.' Now therefore, if I have in your sight, please show me your way, now, that I may know you, so that I may find in your sight; and consider that this nation is your people." He said, "My will go with you, and I will ." said to him, "If your doesn't go with me, don't carry us up from here. For how would people know that I have in your sight, I and your people? Isn't it that you go with us, so that we are separated, I and your people, from all the people who are on the surface of the earth?" said to , "I will do this thing also that you have spoken; for you have in my sight, and I know you by name." said, "Please show me your ." He said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim name before you. I will be to whom I will be , and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." He said, "You cannot see , for man may not see me and live." also said, "Behold, there is a place by me, and you shall stand on . It will happen, while my passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of , and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you will see my back; but shall not be seen."
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.