Exodus: rescue and covenant

About the book

Exodus means ‘going out’, the name the ancient Greek Old Testament gave it. The Hebrew Bible names it by its opening words, "These are the names" (Exodus 1:1), as Shemot, ‘names’.

Jews and Christians have long received Exodus as a book of Moses. The Genesis lesson sets out that tradition, and the view of many scholars that the five books of the Law grew from several sources (in Exodus usually labelled J, E and P). Exodus itself records that "Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD" (Exodus 24:4), and Jesus quoted the story of the burning bush from "the Book of Moses" (Mark 12:26).

The map under the Jesus tab sets these events in the era of the exodus and the wilderness, the fifteenth or thirteenth century BC, and each date has its grounds. First Kings counts 480 years from the exodus to the fourth year of Solomon (1 Kings 6:1), which points to the fifteenth century. Others note that the Israelites built the store city of Rameses (Exodus 1:11), a name borne by the pharaohs of the thirteenth century, and take the 480 years as a round figure, twelve generations of forty years. Many scholars doubt that the story happened as told, since no Egyptian record mentions Israel's slavery or flight. Others answer that a people would hardly invent a beginning in slavery, and that the book's Egyptian setting fits its age. On the traditional view Moses wrote it in the wilderness, for the people he led.

How it unfolds

Exodus moves from slavery to worship.

Key passages

At the bush God gives Moses his name, "I AM WHO I AM" (Exodus 3:14): the God who heard his people's groaning and "remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" (Exodus 2:24). On the night of the last plague, the first Passover, the blood of a lamb on the doorposts marked the houses God would spare: "when I see the blood, I will pass over you" (Exodus 12:13). Matthew Henry notes that Israel's "safety and deliverance were not a reward of their own righteousness, but the gift of mercy" Matthew Henry. At the sea Moses told the terrified people:

Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the LORD's salvation, which He will accomplish for you today … The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.

Exodus 14:13-14

Rescue comes first, and the law after it. The commandments open not with a demand but with what God has done:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.

Exodus 20:2-3

The covenant is sealed with blood, and God tells Moses to build a sanctuary "so that I may dwell among them" (Exodus 25:8). But at the foot of the mountain the people make a golden calf. Moses pleads for them, and the LORD passes before him proclaiming his name: "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness" (Exodus 34:6), forgiving sin, yet not leaving the guilty unpunished (34:7). The book ends: "the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle" (Exodus 40:34).

Christians read the law given at Sinai in more than one way. The Westminster Confession of the Presbyterian churches holds that the ceremonial laws are ‘now abrogated under the New Testament’ 19.3, that the judicial laws ‘expired together with the State of that people’ 19.4, and that the moral law, summed up in the Ten Commandments, ‘doth forever bind all’ 19.5. So the Westminster Shorter Catechism teaches the commandments Q. 41, and the Heidelberg Catechism of the Reformed churches of continental Europe teaches them as the life of thanks of those God has saved Q. 92. Lutherans, who follow Martin Luther's teaching, put first the distinction between law and gospel; others hold that the law of Moses is fulfilled as a whole in Christ. Law and covenant, in the doctrine course, sets out these views.

The book and Christ

The risen Jesus began "with Moses" to explain the Scriptures about himself (Luke 24:27). "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed," Paul writes (1 Corinthians 5:7), and John the Baptist hailed Jesus as "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).

Jesus said, "before Abraham was born, I am!" (John 8:58), with the words, ‘I am’ (egō eimi), that open God's naming of himself at the bush in the Greek Old Testament: ‘I am the One who is’. John writes that the Word "made His dwelling among us" (John 1:14): his verb, skēnoō, means to pitch a tent, and recalls the tabernacle, where God's glory dwelt. Hebrews sets Moses beside Christ: "Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house" (Hebrews 3:5), "but Christ is faithful as the Son over God's house" (3:6). At the transfiguration, Moses and Elijah spoke with Jesus "about His departure, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem" (Luke 9:31); Luke's word for it is exodos.

Reading it

Forty chapters at three a day take about two weeks; begin with Exodus 1. Chapters 25–31 give the plan of the tabernacle and 35–40 tell of its building in nearly the same words: read them more quickly, but notice God's care to live among his people. Read Exodus 20 and chapters 32–34 slowly. Then go on to Leviticus.

Practice