King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 9
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Then said unto , Go in unto , and tell him, Thus saith of the , Let my people go, that they may me. For if thou refuse to let them go, and wilt hold them still, Behold, the hand of is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep: there shall be a very grievous murrain. And shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of : and there shall nothing of all that is the children’s of Israel. And appointed a , saying, To morrow shall do this thing in the land. And did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of : but of the cattle of the not one. And sent, and, behold, there was not one of the cattle of the . And of was hardened, and he did not let the people go. And said unto and unto , Take to you handfuls of of the furnace, and let sprinkle it toward the in the sight of . And it shall become small in all the land of , and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of . And they took of the furnace, and stood before ; and sprinkled it up toward ; and it became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast. And the magicians could not stand before because of the boils; for the boil was upon the magicians, and upon all the . And hardened of , and he hearkened not unto them; as had spoken unto . And said unto , Rise up early in the morning, and stand before , and say unto him, Thus saith of the , Let my people go, that they may me. For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine , and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth. For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence; and thou shalt from the earth. And in very deed for this cause have I thee up, for to shew in thee my ; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. As yet exaltest thou thyself against my people, that thou wilt not let them go? Behold, to morrow about this time I will cause it to a very grievous hail, such as hath not been in since the foundation thereof even until now. Send therefore now, and gather thy cattle, and all that thou hast in the field; for upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall . He that feared the word of among the servants of made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses: And he that regarded not the word of left his servants and his cattle in the field. And said unto , Stretch forth thine hand toward , that there may be hail in all the land of , upon man, and upon beast, and upon every herb of the field, throughout the land of . And stretched forth his toward : and sent thunder and hail, and the ran along upon the ground; and rained hail upon the land of . So there was hail, and mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of since it became a nation. And the hail smote throughout all the land of all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field. Only in the land of , where the were, was there no hail. And sent, and called for and , and said unto them, I have this time: is , and I and my people are . Intreat (for it is enough) that there be no more mighty thunderings and hail; and I will let you go, and ye shall stay no longer. And said unto him, As soon as I am gone out of the city, I will spread abroad my hands unto ; and the thunder shall cease, neither shall there be any more hail; that thou mayest know how that the earth is ’s. But as for thee and thy servants, I know that ye will not yet . And the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled. But the wheat and the rie were not smitten: for they were not grown up. And went out of the city from , and spread abroad his hands unto : and the thunders and hail ceased, and the was not poured upon the earth. And when saw that the and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he yet more, and hardened , he and his servants. And of was hardened, neither would he let the go; as had spoken by .
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.