King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Numbers 5
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1And spake unto , saying, Command the , that they put out of the camp every , and every one that hath an issue, and whosoever is defiled by : Both male and female shall ye put out, without the camp shall ye put them; that they defile not their camps, in the midst whereof I . 4And the did so, and put them out without the camp: as spake unto , so did the . 5And spake unto , saying, Speak unto the , When a man or woman shall commit any that men commit, to do a trespass against , and that person be guilty; Then they shall their which they have done: and he shall his trespass with the principal thereof, and add unto it the fifth part thereof, and give it unto him against whom he hath trespassed. But if the man have no kinsman to the trespass unto, let the trespass be recompensed unto , even to the priest; beside the ram of the atonement, whereby an atonement shall be made for him. And every of all the things of the , which they bring unto the priest, shall be his. And every man’s hallowed things shall be his: whatsoever any man giveth the priest, it shall be his. 11And spake unto , saying, Speak unto the , and say unto them, If any man’s wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him, And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no against her, neither she be taken with the manner; And of come upon him, and he be of his wife, and she be defiled: or if of come upon him, and he be of his wife, and she be not defiled: Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put thereon; for it is an of , an of memorial, bringing to remembrance. And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before : And the priest shall take water in an ; and of that is in the floor of the the priest shall take, and put it into the water: And the priest shall set the woman before , and uncover the woman’s head, and put the of memorial in her hands, which is the : and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the : And the priest shall charge her by an , and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the : But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband: Then the priest shall charge the woman with an of , and the priest shall say unto the woman, make thee and an among thy people, when doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; And this water that causeth the shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, , . And the priest shall write these in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water: And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the : and the water that causeth the shall enter into her, and become bitter. Then the priest shall take the out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the before , and offer it upon the : And the priest shall take an handful of the , even the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the , and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water. And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive . This is of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another instead of her husband, and is defiled; 30Or when of cometh upon him, and he be over his wife, and shall set the woman before , and the priest shall execute upon her all this law. Then shall the man be guiltless from , and this woman shall bear her .
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.