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Covenant Collection

A text for line-by-line reading, with transliteration, translation, and resources.

Scholarly name for laws in Exodus chapters 20–23, within the Torah, addressing service, injuries, property and worship. Their composition date is debated.

Folio 44r of the Leningrad Codex, from the early eleventh century CE. It contains Exodus 21:18–22:6, within the collection known as the Covenant Code. The date of this manuscript copy differs from the composition date of the laws it preserves
Folio 44r of the Leningrad Codex, from the early eleventh century CE. It contains Exodus 21:18–22:6, within the collection known as the Covenant Code. The date of this manuscript copy differs from the composition date of the laws it preservesUnknown author (manuscript); facsimile source: Sefaria / Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Public domainImage rights · Related reference · Image source

Metadata

These are descriptive fields, not conclusions.

Edition
5

Text

Covenant Collection is a scholarly name for laws in Exodus chapters 20–23, within the TorahTorah / PentateuchGenesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy: Mosaic corpus with a compositional history. Torah can also mean teaching or law beyond these five books.Glossary · Click to read the explanation’s five books. It includes service, injury, livestock and property provisions alongside religious and social commands. Exodus 24 narrates MosesMosesCentral figure in Exodus, Torah traditions and the Qur’an; childhood accounts differ in detail.Glossary · Click to read the explanation reading the covenant book and the people accepting it; covenant here is a relationship of commitment between YahwehYahwehThe divine proper name written YHWH in the Hebrew Bible.Glossary · Click to read the explanation and the community. [3][11]

Studies differ over the collection’s limits and composition stages. David WrightDavid P. WrightHebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern law and ritual scholar, professor emeritus at Brandeis.Glossary · Click to read the explanation’s model proposes its composition in 740–640 BCE, during Neo-Assyrian influence. This disputed scholarly date concerns the collection’s writing rather than Moses’s narrative time. Other Torah laws lie outside it, so chapters and verses are specified when comparing Mesopotamian texts. [6]

References and notes

  1. Exodus 21, primary comparison text. KJV chapter consulted with the Hebrew expressions published by Wright; this study paraphrases provisions rather than supplying a new critical translation. One translation does not settle the pregnancy-and-harm debate. Exodus 21:2–11, 18–32 Return to the text ↑
  2. David Wright, Inventing God’s Law (2009), publisher abstract: proposed composition and literary dependence in 740–640 BCE. Abstract read, not full monograph; attributed model, not consensus. Oxford University Press publisher abstract, not the complete monograph. Return to the text ↑
  3. Reading the covenant book and the community’s response in the narrative. Evidence for the text’s presentation of authority, not an independent record of the collection’s composition date. Exodus 24:3–8 Return to the text ↑

Research history

Substantive changes are retained here. Minor copy edits remain in the internal operational log.

  1. Edition 5 · 13 October 2026 · editor

    Substantive record update

    Read this revision in its original language (Arabic)

  2. Edition 4 · 13 October 2026 · aladmin

    Substantive record update

    Read this revision in its original language (Arabic)

  3. Edition 3 · 13 October 2026 · editor

    Substantive record update

    Read this revision in its original language (Arabic)

  4. Edition 2 · 12 October 2026 · editor:aladmin

    Substantive record update

    Read this revision in its original language (Arabic)

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IL Archive, «Covenant Collection», Edition 5, https://ilarchive.com/en/texts/covenant-code