World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Numbers 36
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The heads of the fathers' households of the family of the children of , the son of , the son of , of the families of the , came near and spoke before and before the princes, the heads of the fathers' households of the . They said, " commanded my to give the land for by lot to the . My was commanded by to give the of our brother to his daughters. 3If they are married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the , then their will be taken away from the of our fathers, and will be added to the of the tribe to which they shall belong. So it will be taken away from the lot of our . When the of the comes, then their will be added to the of the tribe to which they shall belong. So their will be taken away from the of the tribe of our fathers." commanded the according to word, saying, "The tribe of the speak what is right. This is the thing which commands concerning the daughters of , saying, 'Let them be married to whom they think best, only they shall marry into the family of the tribe of their . So shall no of the move from tribe to tribe; for the shall all keep the of the tribe of his fathers. Every daughter who possesses an in any tribe of the shall be wife to one of the family of the tribe of her , that the may each possess the of his fathers. 9So shall no move from one tribe to another tribe; for the tribes of the shall each keep his own .'" The daughters of did as commanded : for , , , , and , the daughters of , were married to their brothers' sons. 12They were married into the families of the sons of the son of . Their remained in the tribe of the family of their . These are and the which commanded by to the in by at .
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. 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.