World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Numbers 2
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1 spoke to and to , saying, "The shall encamp every man by his own standard, with the banners of their fathers' houses. They shall encamp around the at a distance from it. "Those who encamp on the east side toward the sunrise shall be of the standard of the camp of Judah, according to their divisions. The prince of the children of Judah shall be the son of . His division, and those who were counted of them, were seventy-four thousand six hundred. "Those who encamp next to him shall be the tribe of . The prince of the children of shall be the son of . His division, and those who were counted of it, were fifty-four thousand four hundred. "The tribe of : the prince of the children of shall be the son of . His division, and those who were counted of it, were fifty-seven thousand four hundred. "All who were counted of the camp of Judah were one hundred eighty-six thousand four hundred, according to their divisions. They shall set out first. "On the south side shall be the standard of the camp of according to their divisions. The prince of the children of shall be the son of . His division, and those who were counted of it, were forty-six thousand five hundred. "Those who encamp next to him shall be the tribe of . The prince of the children of shall be the son of . His division, and those who were counted of them, were fifty-nine thousand three hundred. "The tribe of Gad: the prince of the children of Gad shall be the son of . His division, and those who were counted of them, were forty-five thousand six hundred fifty. "All who were counted of the camp of were one hundred fifty-one thousand four hundred fifty, according to their armies. They shall set out second. "Then the shall set out, with the camp of the in the middle of the camps. As they encamp, so shall they set out, every man in his place, by their standards. "On the west side shall be the standard of the camp of according to their divisions. The prince of the children of shall be the son of . His division, and those who were counted of them, were forty thousand five hundred. "Next to him shall be the tribe of . The prince of the children of shall be the son of . His division, and those who were counted of them, were thirty-two thousand two hundred. "The tribe of : the prince of the children of shall be the son of . His army, and those who were counted of them, were thirty-five thousand four hundred. "All who were counted of the camp of were one hundred eight thousand one hundred, according to their divisions. They shall set out third. "On the north side shall be the standard of the camp of Dan according to their divisions. The prince of the children of Dan shall be the son of . His division, and those who were counted of them, were sixty-two thousand seven hundred. "Those who encamp next to him shall be the tribe of Asher. The prince of the children of Asher shall be the son of . His division, and those who were counted of them, were forty-one thousand five hundred. "The tribe of : the prince of the children of shall be the son of . His division, and those who were counted of them, were fifty-three thousand four hundred. "All who were counted of the camp of Dan were one hundred fifty-seven thousand six hundred. They shall set out last by their standards." These are those who were counted of the by their fathers' houses. All who were counted of the camps according to their armies were six hundred three thousand five hundred fifty. But the were not counted among the , as commanded . Thus the did. According to all that commanded , so they encamped by their standards, and so they set out, everyone by their families, according to their fathers' houses.
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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.