King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Leviticus 25
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And spake unto in , saying, Speak unto the , and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a unto . Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy , and gather in the fruit thereof; But in the seventh year shall be a of rest unto the land, a for : thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy . That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land. And the of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy that sojourneth with thee, 7And for thy cattle, and for that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat. And thou shalt number seven of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the shall ye make the sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy undressed. For it is the jubile; it shall be unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession. And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest ought of thy neighbour’s hand, ye shall not oppress one another: According to the number of years after the jubile thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee: According to of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee. Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy : for I am your . Wherefore ye shall do , and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall in the land in safety. And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and therein in safety. And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: Then I will command my upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store. The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and with me. And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a for the land. If thy brother be waxen , and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to it, then shall he that which his brother sold. And if the man have none to it, and himself be able to it; 27Then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; that he may return unto his possession. But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year of jubile: and in the jubile it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession. 29And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he it. 30And if it be not within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to him that bought it throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubile. But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country: they may be , and they shall go out in the jubile. Notwithstanding the cities of the , and the houses of the cities of their possession, may the at any time. And if a man purchase of the , then the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall go out in the year of jubile: for the houses of the cities of the are their possession among the . But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession. And if thy brother be waxen , and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a , or a ; that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy ; that thy brother may live with thee. 37Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. I am your , which brought you forth out of the land of , to give you the land of , and to be your . And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen , and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to as a : But as an hired servant, and as a , he shall be with thee, and shall thee unto the year of jubile: And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of : they shall not be sold as bondmen. Thou shalt not him with rigour; but shalt fear thy . Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an for your children after you, to them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the , ye shall not rule one over another with rigour. And if a or wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax , and sell himself unto the or by thee, or to the stock of the ’s family: After that he is sold he may be again; one of his brethren may him: Either his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may him; or if he be able, he may himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubile: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him. 51If there be yet many years behind, according unto them he shall give again the price of his out of the money that he was bought for. 52And if there but few years unto the year of jubile, then he shall count with him, and according unto his years shall he give him again the price of his . And as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him: and the other shall not rule with rigour over him in thy sight. And if he be not in these years, then he shall go out in the year of jubile, both he, and his children with him. For unto me the are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of : I am your .
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.