Today, we understand that we are sinners in need of saving, but that was not the way God created us. So much so that Pharaoh felt threatened by their presence in Egypt and subjected them to forced labor and issued a shocking decree: All baby boys should be killed at birth.
But God had plans for the people through whom he meant to reach the world. Baby Moses should have been killed at birth, but through the actions of some brave women, God preserved him so he could eventually lead the Israelites out of bondage and into the Promised Land. The account of the exodus from Egypt is one of the most exciting stories in all of Scripture. After God called Moses into service through a burning bush exodus 3 , Moses confronted the stubborn Pharaoh, who only increased the suffering of the Israelites.
God, in turn, brought a series of plagues on Egypt, culminating in the death of the firstborn commemorated by the Passover to this day that finally led the Egyptian king to let Israel go. However, once they were gone, the embarrassed and angry Pharaoh pursued the Israelites intending to wipe them off the face of the earth. Near the Red Sea, God parted the waters allowing his people to escape and then closed the waters in judgment on the pursuing Egyptians.
Beyond the threatening reach of Egypt, Moses led the Israelites to Mount Sinai, near where he first encountered God in the burning bush.
Here God entered into a covenant a legal agreement between two parties, similar to a treaty between a great king and his subjects with Israel and gave them his law, headed by the Ten Commandments exodus — Other laws, many of which are case laws, 5 follow these famous commandments — Much of the remainder of the Torah contains law, so much so that it warrants looking closely at law in the next section.
Besides the exodus and the giving of the law, the book of Exodus also describes the building of the tabernacle, an ornate portable structure where God made his presence known. The tabernacle was also the site of sacrifices and worship to God some of the laws in the rest of the Pentateuch set up the requirements for these sacrifices and worship ceremonies , before the Israelites settled in their new land.
God initiated its construction —8 and even provided the plans , 40 , the materials —36 , and the skill —11 to build it! Instead they grumbled and complained and, like Adam and Eve in the garden, rebelled against their Maker and Savior. They did not trust him, so he condemned that first generation to die in the wilderness. Thus for forty years they wandered—until everyone from that first generation had died—before they finally reached the border of the Promised Land.
Before moving on in the story of the Torah, we might ask why we should read the book of Exodus. In each of the three major parts of the book we are introduced to truths that remain important to Christians today. This final section prefigures Jesus, the Word who became flesh and lived among us john His audience is the second generation, the children of those who died in the wilderness, and the subject of his sermon is the law of God. After rehearsing all the good things God had done for them in the past chaps.
Moses was leading the second generation into renewing the covenant their parents had made with God at Mount Sinai. Through Moses, God reminded them that keeping the covenant leads to blessing—restoration of relationship with God that results in good relationships with others and a flourishing life chaps. Remember Me. Email required. Get monthly emails with the latest Discovery Series reading plan. Username or email. Return to Sign In. Username required.
First Name. Last Name. Address Line 2. Discovery Series monthly readings. Our Daily Bread daily devotions. Modern Faith. Morality and Ethics. Medieval Interpretation. Series and Symposia. TABS Blog. Torah in the News. Stay updated with the latest scholarship I would like to receive new essays When published Before Shabbat. Konrad Schmid Genesis, Exodus, and the Composition of the Torah. Edit article. Konrad Schmid ,. Exod Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation.
Gen After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers and all who had gone up with him to bury his father. Gen And you, be fruitful, and multiply; increase abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. Gen And I will multiply you exceedingly. Exod And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them. Exod Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we.
Gen Raise your eyes and look out from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west, for I give all the land that you see to you and your offspring forever. Ps The moon and the stars to dominate the night, His steadfast love is eternal. Hos And Jacob had to flee to the land of Aram; there Israel served for a wife, for a wife he had to guard [sheep].
El Shaddai In short, P was faced with two independent origin stories, [19] one now found in Genesis and the other in Exodus. Consequences of Separating the Blocks The redaction-historical separation of Genesis and Exodus before P has significant consequences for understanding the history of religion and theology of the Hebrew Bible.
Undoing the Exceptionalism Inherent in the Documentary Hypothesis The Documentary Hypothesis suggested a clear discontinuity between ancient Israel and its neighbors, because it posited that Israel from its very beginnings believed in a God who acts for his people in history, in contrast to its neighboring cultures who mostly venerated cyclic processes of nature according to seasonal changes or exceptional natural events as divine.
Published January 13, Last Updated November 10, Previous in the Series. Next in the Series. Footnotes View Footnotes. Gen together with all of Joseph's household, his brothers, and his father's household; only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the region of Goshen.
See Schmid, Genesis and the Moses Story , Related Topics: Documentary Hypothesis. Priestly Source P. Torah, Composition. Symposium: More Responses No items found. In what follows, I want to share a helpful summary of why we should read Genesis and Exodus together, how those chapters are designed to lead us to Christ, and how a right understanding of the biblical narrative anchors our hope in the person and work of Christ, and not the machinations of modern day Israel.
When we compare the literary structure of Genesis 1—3 and Exodus 25—40, we find remarkable and apparently intended parallelism. From a careful comparison, it becomes evident that Moses wrote Genesis 1—2 in such a way that the reader can see God-given connections between these two divine dwelling places. On that note, consider this introduction to the tabernacle in Exodus 25—40 from the late John Sailhamer.
Thus the account of Creation in Genesis 1—2 and the building of the tabernacle in Exodus have several significant similarities. The first area of similarity is the overall structure of the two accounts. It is well known, for example, that the Creation account in Genesis is structured around a series of seven acts of creation. Each of these acts is marked by the divine speech.
Moreover, the Garden of Eden is described in ways similar to that of the tabernacle. For example, both contained pure gold Ge a; Ex and precious jewels Ge b; Ex and were guarded by cherubim Ge ; Ex At the close of the Creation account in Genesis —3 was the reminder that God rested on the seventh day, the Sabbath. Furthermore, the Creation account in Genesis 1 and 2 is followed by the account of the Fall Ge 3.
This symbolism suggests, moreover, that its various physical forms also had a spiritual meaning of sense to them. There was thus already a typology in the various features of the tabernacle. They sacrificed their children to these gods. They became sexually perverse, militaristic and cruel. This time, instead of destroying recorrupted humanity and leaving a remnant to begin again, the Creator did something different.
He created a special nation. He began this nation by choosing one man — Abraham. The Lord made a covenant with him that included the promise that through Abraham and his descendants, the nations of the world would be blessed.
This covenant was reaffirmed to Isaac and to Jacob. Through the Chosen People, the true way of atonement, through a God-ordained sacrificial system, would be most clearly seen. Finally, through Israel, the Seed of the Woman, the Messiah, the Redeemer and Savior of the world would come and undo all the damage done in Eden. When the nation of Israel was in the early stages of formation, the surrounding peoples were older, bigger, stronger — and they were evil.
How could God grow a holy nation in the midst of these unholy nations, so that the nation would be safe, and not be corrupted by the other nations, and become useless? The Creator needed a way to protect this infant nation while it grew to maturity.
God arranged things so that there was a devastating, seven year famine in that part of the Middle East, and the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob migrated to Egypt, where the Lord had previously arranged for Joseph to be. Joseph was placed in a position of authority so that he could store enough food for the Egyptians and the Israelis to survive the famine.
There, in Egypt, the infant nation survived the famine, settled and began to multiply. To control our multiplying population, he began killing our sons. The next part of our story focuses on one of those sons who was targeted for death. Moses was born, put in a basket and placed along the shore of the Nile river. He was found by the daughter of the king and raised in the home of Pharaoh, with all the advantages of being a prince of Egypt.
When he became an adult, Moses went to his people and saw how difficult life was for us — the slavery, the hard labor and mistreatment. He saw an Egyptian who was mistreating one of us and killed him. The murder became known and Moses fled to Midian, where he married Tziporah, the daughter of the priest of Midian. Moses was instructed to return to Egypt, confront the king and demand the release of the Jewish people. Understandably, Moses was reluctant to accept this challenge.
God reassured Him that He would help him. He would do miracles that would convince the Egyptians to release the Jewish people, and Moses would successfully lead them back to this same mountain. Moses returned to Egypt and confronted the king, but Pharaoh refused to let Israel go — time after time after time. After each refusal, God poured out a devastating plague on the land of Egypt.
These plagues not only humbled the Egyptians, but also demonstrated the superiority of the God of Israel over the gods of Egypt. The Egyptians worshiped various animals, men like Pharaoh, the Nile river and the sun; and when their gods were affected by the plagues, the God of Israel was shown to be superior to the gods of Egypt.
The tenth plague was the worst of all — death for all the first-born sons throughout the land of Egypt — the first-born of Israel and the first-born of the Egyptians, and even the first-born of the animals. There was only one way a first-born son could survive that terrible night — by his family killing an unblemished, year-old male lamb and placing some of the blood on the two doorposts and the top of the door of the home.
That first Passover there was a great outcry throughout Egypt, because every home experienced the death of the first-born son. But as He promised, on each door where He saw the blood of a spotless lamb, God passed over that home and spared the son from death.
After experiencing the miraculous power of the God of Israel and the death of his first-born son, Pharaoh finally released the holy nation of Israel from the incubator of Egypt. The story of Passover is amazing, and we still celebrate it years later.
Of course, for those of us who know that Yeshua is the Messiah, we also understand that Passover was a prophecy of a greater lamb and a greater redemption that was to come. The next day we left our homes and arrived at the Red Sea, which was the border of Egypt.
Meanwhile, Pharaoh had a change of heart and decided it was a mistake to free us. He sent his army to re-enslave us. The Lord intervened and placed a cloudy pillar between us and the Egyptian army. Then He divided the waters and enabled us to walk through the sea on dry ground, to the other side.
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