The Book of Exodus

The Hebrew title, Shemot (שְׁמוֹת), comes from the book's opening words, "ve'eleh shemot," "and these are the names" (1:1), listing the sons of Israel who came down to Egypt. The English title comes through Greek exodos, "a going out," and names the book's central event. The two titles frame the book differently before a reader gets past the first verse, Shemot ties Exodus back to Genesis, these are the same family, the same names, still being tracked; "Exodus" names the departure that makes the rest of the book possible. Both are true of the same book.

Israel's growth into a feared, enslaved people (ch 1) gives way to Moses's birth, exile, and call at the burning bush, where God gives his name, Ehyeh asher Ehyeh (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, "I am who I am," or "I will be who I will be," 3:14, chs 2-4). Ten plagues break Pharaoh's resistance (chs 5-11). The Passover is instituted the night of the final plague (ch 12, its own subject on this wiki). Israel leaves, is pursued to the Red Sea, and crosses on dry ground while the pursuing army is destroyed (chs 13-14). The Song of the Sea that follows (ch 15) is, by most textual assessments, among the oldest poetry preserved anywhere in the Hebrew Bible, archaic even by the standards of the rest of the Torah.

Israel arrives at Sinai in chapter 19. The Ten Commandments (ch 20, their own subject on this wiki) are followed by the Book of the Covenant (chs 21-23), case law covering servants, personal injury, property, and social obligation, the practical outworking of the ten words just given. Chapter 24 ratifies the covenant, Moses reads the book aloud and the people answer, "all that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient" (24:7), and blood is thrown on the people as "the blood of the covenant" (24:8).

What follows is easy to read past too quickly. Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders go up the mountain and "saw the God of Israel," and "they beheld God, and ate and drank" (24:9-11). A meal, eaten in God's direct presence, survived without incident, sits at the center of the covenant-ratification scene, a striking claim the text makes without elaborating on it further.

While Moses is still on the mountain receiving the tabernacle instructions, Aaron builds a golden calf at the people's demand (32:1-6). God tells Moses he intends to destroy the people and start over through Moses alone (32:9-10). What happens next is presented as real exchange, not a foregone conclusion, Moses appeals to God's reputation among the nations and to the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (32:11-14), and "the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people." After the Levites carry out a violent purge of the ringleaders (32:25-29), Moses intercedes again and asks to see God's glory directly, and is told "you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live," but is allowed to see God's back as he passes by (33:12-23).

That passing-by is where the Name is proclaimed, "the LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty" (34:6-7). This formula becomes one of the most repeated lines in the rest of the Hebrew Bible, echoed in Numbers 14:18, Psalm 86:15, Psalm 103:8, Psalm 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, and Nahum 1:3, effectively Israel's own working definition of who God is, given in direct response to the worst act of unfaithfulness the book has narrated so far.

Chapters 25-31 give detailed instructions for the tabernacle; chapters 35-40 narrate its construction in language that echoes the instructions almost word for word. Read quickly, this looks like repetition for its own sake, and many readers skim or skip it. Read as the book's structure intends, it is the point the whole book has been moving toward.

A people that opened the book enslaved, without a home, without even a settled name for their God beyond what Moses is given at the bush, closes the book with that same God taking up residence in a portable structure at the center of their camp. "Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle... for the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys" (40:34, 40:38). Deliverance from Egypt was never the endpoint. God moving in and staying was.

This page treats Exodus as a literary and theological whole, deliverance, covenant, failure, intercession, and indwelling, in that order and building on each other. For the exodus as a historical event, its dating, and the archaeological questions around it, see The Exodus. The book of Exodus contains the event of the exodus; it is not limited to it, most of the book takes place after the departure is already complete.