King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 4
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And answered and said, But, behold, they will not me, nor unto my voice: for they will say, hath not appeared unto thee. And said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A . And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a ; and fled from before it. And said unto , Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a in his hand: That they may that of their fathers, the of , the of , and the of , hath appeared unto thee. And said furthermore unto him, Put now thine hand into thy . And he put his hand into his : and when he took it out, behold, his hand was as snow. And he said, Put thine hand into thy again. And he put his hand into his again; and plucked it out of his , and, behold, it was turned again as his other . And it shall come to pass, if they will not thee, neither to the voice of the first sign, that they will the voice of the latter sign. And it shall come to pass, if they will not also these two signs, neither unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land: and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become upon the dry land. And said unto , O my , I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow . And said unto him, Who hath made man’s ? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I ? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy , and teach thee what thou shalt say. And he said, O my , send, I thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. And the of was kindled against , and he said, Is not the thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in . And thou shalt speak unto him, and : and I will be with thy , and with his , and will teach you what ye shall do. And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a , and thou shalt be to him instead of . And thou shalt take this in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs. And went and returned to Jethro his in law, and said unto him, Let me go, I thee, and return unto my brethren which are in , and see whether they be yet alive. And Jethro said to , Go in peace. And said unto in , Go, return into : for all the men are which sought thy life. And took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of : and took the of in his hand. And said unto , When thou goest to return into , see that thou do all those wonders before , which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden , that he shall not let the people go. And thou shalt say unto , Thus saith , Israel is my son, even my : And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will thy son, even thy . And it came to pass by in the inn, that met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. 26So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the . And said to , Go into to meet . And he went, and met him in the mount of , and kissed him. And told all the words of who had sent him, and all the signs which he had commanded him. And and went and gathered together all the of the : And spake all the words which had spoken unto , and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people : and when they heard that had visited the , and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and .
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.