King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Numbers 11
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And when the people complained, it displeased : and heard it; and his was kindled; and the of burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp. And the people cried unto ; and when unto , the was quenched. And he called the name of the place : because the of burnt among them. And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the also wept again, and said, Who shall give us to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: But now our is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this , before our eyes. And was as coriander , and the colour thereof as the colour of bdellium. And the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it: and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil. And when the fell upon the camp in the night, fell upon it. Then heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent: and the of was kindled greatly; also was displeased. And said unto , Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? and wherefore have I not found in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me? Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy , as a nursing beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers? Whence should I have to give unto all this people? for they weep unto me, saying, Give us , that we may eat. I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I thee, out of hand, if I have found in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness. And said unto , Gather unto me seventy men of the , whom thou knowest to be the of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the of , that they may stand there with thee. And I will come down and talk with thee there: and I will take of which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone. And say thou unto the people, yourselves against to morrow, and ye shall eat : for ye have wept in the ears of , saying, Who shall give us to eat? for it was well with us in : therefore will give you , and ye shall eat. 19Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of ? And said, The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand footmen; and thou hast said, I will give them , that they may eat a whole month. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them? or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to suffice them? And said unto , Is ’s hand waxed short? thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not. And went out, and told the people the words of , and gathered the seventy men of the of the people, and set them round about the . And came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy : and it came to pass, that, when rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease. But there remained two of the men in the camp, the name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad: and rested upon them; and they were of them that were written, but went not out unto the : and they prophesied in the camp. 27And there ran a young man, and told , and said, Eldad and Medad do in the camp. And the son of , the , one of his young men, answered and said, My , forbid them. And said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? would that all ’s people were , and that would put his upon them! 30And gat him into the camp, he and the . And there went forth a wind from , and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day’s journey on this side, and as it were a day’s journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two high upon the of the earth. And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp. And while was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the of was kindled against the people, and smote the people with a very great plague. And he called the name of that place : because there they buried the people that lusted. And the people journeyed from unto ; and abode at .
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.