World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 5
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Afterward and came, and said to , "This is what , the of Israel, says, 'Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in .'" said, "Who is , that I should listen to his voice to let Israel go? I don't know , and moreover I will not let Israel go." They said, "The of the has met with us. Please let us go three days' journey into , and to , our , lest he fall on us with pestilence, or with ." The king of said to them, "Why do you, and , take the people from their work? Get back to your burdens!" said, "Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens." The same day commanded the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying, "You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick, as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. You shall require from them the number of the bricks which they made before. You shall not diminish anything of it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, saying, 'Let's go and to our .' Let heavier work be laid on the men, that they may labor in it. Don't let them pay any attention to lying words." The taskmasters of the people went out with their officers, and they spoke to the people, saying, "This is what says: 'I will not give you straw. Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it, for nothing of your work shall be diminished.'" So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of to gather stubble for straw. 13The taskmasters were urgent saying, "Fulfill your work quota daily, as when there was straw!" The officers of the , whom taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and were asked, "Why haven't you fulfilled your quota both yesterday and today, in making brick as before?" 15Then the officers of the came and cried to , saying, "Why do you deal this way with your servants? 16No straw is given to your servants, and they tell us, 'Make brick!' and behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people." But said, "You are idle! You are idle! Therefore you say, 'Let's go and to .' Go therefore now, and work; for no straw shall be given to you; yet you shall the same number of bricks!" The officers of the saw that they were in trouble when it was said, "You shall not diminish anything from your daily quota of bricks!" 20They met and , who stood along , as they came out from . They said to them, "May look at you and judge, because you have made us a stench to be abhorred in the eyes of , and in the eyes of his servants, to put a in their hand to kill us!" returned to , and said, ", why have you brought trouble on this people? Why is it that you have sent me? For since I came to to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people. You have not rescued your people at all!"
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.