King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Numbers 16
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Now , the son of , the son of , the son of , and and , the sons of , and On, the son of Peleth, sons of , took men: And they rose up before , with certain of the , two hundred and fifty princes of , famous in , men of renown: And they gathered themselves together against and against , and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all are , every one of them, and is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above of ? And when heard it, he fell upon : And he spake unto and unto all his company, saying, Even to morrow will shew who are his, and who is ; and will cause him to come near unto him: even him whom he hath chosen will he cause to come near unto him. This do; Take you censers, , and all his company; And put therein, and put in them before to morrow: and it shall be that the man whom doth choose, he shall be : ye take too much upon you, ye . 8And said unto , Hear, I you, ye : Seemeth it but a small thing unto you, that the of Israel hath separated you from of Israel, to bring you near to himself to do the of the of , and to stand before to minister unto them? And he hath brought thee near to him, and all thy brethren the with thee: and seek ye the priesthood also? For which cause both thou and all thy company are gathered together against : and what is , that ye murmur against him? And sent to call and , the sons of : which said, We will not come up: Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with , to kill us in , except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us? Moreover thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with , or given us of fields and vineyards: wilt thou put out the eyes of these men? we will not come up. And was very wroth, and said unto , Respect not thou their : I have not taken one ass from them, neither have I hurt one of them. And said unto , Be thou and all thy company before , thou, and they, and , to morrow: And take every man his censer, and put in them, and bring ye before every man his censer, two hundred and fifty censers; thou also, and , each of you his censer. 18And they took every man his censer, and put in them, and laid thereon, and stood in the door of the of with and . And gathered all against them unto the door of the of : and appeared unto all . 20And spake unto and unto , saying, Separate yourselves from among this , that I may consume them in a moment. And they fell upon their faces, and said, O , the of the spirits of , shall one man , and wilt thou be wroth with all ? 23And spake unto , saying, Speak unto , saying, Get you up from about the of , , and . And rose up and went unto and ; and the followed him. And he spake unto , saying, Depart, I you, from the tents of these men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye be consumed in all their . So they gat up from the of , , and , on every side: and and came out, and stood in the door of their tents, and their wives, and their sons, and their little children. And said, Hereby ye shall know that hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own . If these men the common of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then hath not sent me. But if make a new thing, and the earth open her , and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into ; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked . And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them: And the earth opened her , and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto , and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into , and the earth closed upon them: and they from among . And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also. And there came out a from , and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered . 36And spake unto , saying, Speak unto the son of the priest, that he take up the censers out of the burning, and scatter thou the yonder; for they are hallowed. The censers of these against their own , let them make them broad plates for a covering of the : for they offered them before , therefore they are hallowed: and they shall be a sign unto the . 39And the priest took the brasen censers, wherewith they that were burnt had offered; and they were made broad plates for a covering of the : To be a memorial unto the , that no , which is not of the of , come near to offer before ; that he be not as , and as his company: as said to him by the hand of . But on the morrow all of the murmured against and against , saying, Ye have killed the people of . And it came to pass, when was gathered against and against , that they looked toward the of : and, behold, it, and appeared. 43And and came before the of . 44And spake unto , saying, Get you up from among this , that I may consume them as in a moment. And they fell upon their faces. And said unto , Take a censer, and put therein from off the , and put on , and go quickly unto , and make an atonement for them: for there is gone out from ; the plague is begun. And took as commanded, and ran into the midst of ; and, behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on , and made an atonement for the people. And he stood between and the living; and the plague was stayed. Now they that in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, beside them that about the matter of . And returned unto unto the door of the of : and the plague was stayed.
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.