King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Numbers 35
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And spake unto in by Jordan near , saying, Command the , that they give unto the of the of their possession cities to in; and ye shall give also unto the suburbs for the cities round about them. And the cities shall they have to in; and the suburbs of them shall be for their cattle, and for their goods, and for all their . 4And the suburbs of the cities, which ye shall give unto the , shall reach from the wall of the city and outward a thousand round about. 5And ye shall measure from without the city on the east side two thousand , and on the south side two thousand , and on the west side two thousand , and on the north side two thousand ; and the city shall be in the midst: this shall be to them the suburbs of the cities. And among the cities which ye shall give unto the there shall be six cities for refuge, which ye shall appoint for the manslayer, that he may flee thither: and to them ye shall add forty and two cities. So all the cities which ye shall give to the shall be forty and eight cities: them shall ye give with their suburbs. And the cities which ye shall give shall be of the possession of the : from them that have many ye shall give many; but from them that have few ye shall give few: every one shall give of his cities unto the according to his which he inheriteth. 9And spake unto , saying, Speak unto the , and say unto them, When ye be come over Jordan into the land of ; Then ye shall appoint you cities to be for you; that the slayer may flee thither, which killeth any person at unawares. And they shall be unto you cities for refuge from the ; that the manslayer not, until he stand before in . 13And of these cities which ye shall give six cities shall ye have for refuge. Ye shall give three cities on this side Jordan, and three cities shall ye give in the land of , which shall be . These six cities shall be a refuge, both for the , and for the , and for the among them: that every one that killeth any person unawares may flee thither. And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he , he is a : the shall surely be put to . And if he smite him with throwing a stone, wherewith he may , and he , he is a : the shall surely be put to . 18Or if he smite him with an hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may , and he , he is a : the shall surely be put to . The revenger of himself shall the : when he meeteth him, he shall him. But if he thrust him of hatred, or hurl at him by laying of wait, that he ; 21Or in enmity smite him with his hand, that he : he that smote him shall surely be put to ; for he is a : the revenger of shall the , when he meeteth him. But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or have cast upon him any thing without laying of wait, 23Or with any stone, wherewith a man may , seeing him not, and cast it upon him, that he , and was not his enemy, neither sought his harm: Then shall judge between the slayer and the revenger of according to these judgments: And shall the slayer out of the hand of the revenger of , and shall restore him to the city of his refuge, whither he was fled: and he shall in it unto the of the , which was with the oil. 26But if the slayer shall at any time come without the border of the city of his refuge, whither he was fled; And the revenger of find him without the borders of the city of his refuge, and the revenger of kill the slayer; he shall not be guilty of : Because he should have remained in the city of his refuge until the of the : but after the of the the slayer shall return into the land of his possession. So these things shall be for a of unto you throughout your generations in all your dwellings. Whoso killeth any person, the shall be put to : but one shall not testify against any person to cause him to . Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a , which is guilty of : but he shall be surely put to . And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to in the land, until the of the priest. So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of that is shed therein, but by of him that shed it. Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I : for I among the .
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.