King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Numbers 2
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1And spake unto and unto , saying, Every man of the shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their ’s house: far off about the of shall they pitch. And on the east side toward the rising of the sun shall they of the standard of the camp of Judah pitch throughout their armies: and the son of shall be captain of the children of Judah. And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were threescore and fourteen thousand and six hundred. And those that do pitch next unto him shall be the tribe of : and Nethaneel the son of shall be captain of the children of . And his host, and those that were numbered thereof, were fifty and four thousand and four hundred. Then the tribe of : and the son of shall be captain of the children of . And his host, and those that were numbered thereof, were fifty and seven thousand and four hundred. All that were numbered in the camp of Judah were an hundred thousand and fourscore thousand and six thousand and four hundred, throughout their armies. These shall first set forth. On the south side shall be the standard of the camp of according to their armies: and the captain of the children of shall be the son of . And his host, and those that were numbered thereof, were forty and six thousand and five hundred. And those which pitch by him shall be the tribe of : and the captain of the children of shall be the son of . And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were fifty and nine thousand and three hundred. Then the tribe of Gad: and the captain of the sons of Gad shall be the son of . And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were forty and five thousand and six hundred and fifty. All that were numbered in the camp of were an hundred thousand and fifty and one thousand and four hundred and fifty, throughout their armies. And they shall set forth in the second rank. Then the of shall set forward with the camp of the in the midst of the camp: as they encamp, so shall they set forward, every man in his place by their standards. On the west side shall be the standard of the camp of according to their armies: and the captain of the sons of shall be the son of . And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were forty thousand and five hundred. And by him shall be the tribe of : and the captain of the children of shall be the son of . And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were thirty and two thousand and two hundred. Then the tribe of : and the captain of the sons of shall be the son of . And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were thirty and five thousand and four hundred. All that were numbered of the camp of were an hundred thousand and eight thousand and an hundred, throughout their armies. And they shall go forward in the third rank. The standard of the camp of Dan shall be on the north side by their armies: and the captain of the children of Dan shall be the son of . And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were threescore and two thousand and seven hundred. And those that encamp by him shall be the tribe of Asher: and the captain of the children of Asher shall be the son of Ocran. And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were forty and one thousand and five hundred. Then the tribe of : and the captain of the children of shall be the son of . And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were fifty and three thousand and four hundred. All they that were numbered in the camp of Dan were an hundred thousand and fifty and seven thousand and six hundred. They shall go hindmost with their standards. These are those which were numbered of the by the house of their fathers: all those that were numbered of the camps throughout their hosts were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty. But the were not numbered among the ; as commanded . And the did according to all that commanded : so they pitched by their standards, and so they set forward, every one after their families, according to the house of their fathers.
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.