King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 39
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And of the blue, and purple, and scarlet, they made cloths of , to do in the place, and made the garments for ; as commanded . And he made the of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen. And they did beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires, to work it in the blue, and in the purple, and in the scarlet, and in the fine linen, with cunning work. 4They made shoulderpieces for it, to couple it together: by the two edges was it coupled together. And the curious girdle of his , that was upon it, was of the same, according to the work thereof; of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen; as commanded . And they wrought onyx stones inclosed in ouches of gold, graven, as signets are graven, with the names of the . And he put them on the shoulders of the , that they should be stones for a memorial to the ; as commanded . And he made the breastplate of cunning work, like the work of the ; of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen. 9It was foursquare; they made the breastplate double: a was the length thereof, and a the breadth thereof, being doubled. And they set in it four rows of stones: the first row was a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this was the first row. And the second row, an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond. 12And the third row, a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst. 13And the fourth row, a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper: they were inclosed in ouches of gold in their inclosings. And the stones were according to the names of the , twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet, every one with his name, according to the twelve tribes. And they made upon the breastplate chains at the ends, of wreathen work of pure gold. And they made two ouches of gold, and two gold rings; and put the two rings in the two ends of the breastplate. 17And they put the two wreathen chains of gold in the two rings on the ends of the breastplate. And the two ends of the two wreathen chains they fastened in the two ouches, and put them on the shoulderpieces of the , before it. 19And they made two rings of gold, and put them on the two ends of the breastplate, upon the border of it, which was on the side of the inward. And they made two other golden rings, and put them on the two sides of the underneath, toward the forepart of it, over against the other coupling thereof, above the curious girdle of the . And they did bind the breastplate by his rings unto the rings of the with a lace of blue, that it might be above the curious girdle of the , and that the breastplate might not be loosed from the ; as commanded . And he made the robe of the of woven work, all of blue. 23And there was an hole in the midst of the robe, as the hole of an habergeon, with a band round about the hole, that it should not rend. And they made upon the hems of the robe pomegranates of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and twined linen. And they made bells of pure gold, and put the bells between the pomegranates upon the of the robe, round about between the pomegranates; A bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate, round about the of the robe to minister in; as commanded . And they made coats of fine linen of woven work for , and for his sons, And a mitre of fine linen, and goodly bonnets of fine linen, and linen breeches of fine twined linen, And a girdle of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, of needlework; as commanded . And they made the plate of the of pure gold, and wrote upon it a writing, like to the engravings of a signet, TO . 31And they tied unto it a lace of blue, to fasten it on high upon the mitre; as commanded . Thus was all the work of the of the tent of finished: and the did according to all that commanded , so did they. And they brought the unto , the tent, and all his furniture, his taches, his boards, his bars, and his pillars, and his sockets, 34And the covering of rams’ skins dyed red, and the covering of badgers’ skins, and the vail of the covering, The , and the staves thereof, and the , The table, and all the vessels thereof, and the , The pure candlestick, with the lamps thereof, even with the lamps to be set in order, and all the vessels thereof, and the oil for , And the golden , and the anointing oil, and the , and the hanging for the door, The brasen , and his grate of brass, his staves, and all his vessels, the laver and his foot, The hangings of the court, his pillars, and his sockets, and the hanging for the court , his cords, and his pins, and all the vessels of the of the , for the tent of , The cloths of to do in the place, and the garments for the priest, and his sons’ garments, to minister in the priest’s office. According to all that commanded , so the made all the work. And did look upon all the work, and, behold, they had done it as had commanded, even so had they done it: and them.
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.