Πεντάτευχος

1. Introduction to Exodus: The Birth of a Nation

The book of Exodus is the connecting link between God's promise to Abraham and the beginning of the theocratic kingdom of Israel under Moses. Conservative scholarship holds to Mosaic authorship, dating the book to the late 13th century BC (around 1290, though some date it earlier to about 1450 BC). Jesus Himself affirmed that Moses wrote Exodus (Mark 7:10). The central events are the miraculous deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt and the establishment of the Mosaic covenant as the constitution of the new nation. The first 18 chapters portray God as Savior and Provider. The second section reveals God's character through detailed laws. The conclusion gives instructions for the tabernacle, which foreshadows Christ. Genesis ended in a coffin with a promise; Exodus begins with that promise being kept.

2. A New Pharaoh Who Knew Not Joseph

A new king arose in Egypt who had no appreciation for Joseph's character or achievements. He saw the rapidly multiplying Israelites as a threat. "Look," he said, "the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we." His solution was ruthless oppression: slave masters, forced labor, and the construction of the store cities Pithom and Rameses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied. God was sovereignly blessing His people even under persecution. When the oppression didn't work, Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill all male babies at birth. The midwives feared God and disobeyed, letting the boys live. When confronted, they explained that Hebrew women were vigorous and gave birth before the midwives arrived. God was kind to the midwives and gave them families of their own. Finally, Pharaoh commanded all his people: "Every son who is born you shall cast into the river."

3. The Birth and Preservation of Moses

A man from the house of Levi married a Levite woman. She gave birth to a son and hid him for three months. When she could no longer hide him, she made a papyrus basket, covered it with tar and pitch, and placed the child among the reeds by the Nile. The child's sister stood at a distance to see what would happen. Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe, saw the basket, and sent her maid to get it. When she opened it, she saw the crying baby and had compassion. The sister suggested finding a Hebrew nurse — who turned out to be the baby's own mother. Pharaoh's daughter paid Moses' mother to nurse her own son. When the child grew, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, who named him Moses, saying, "Because I drew him out of the water." In God's mercy, Moses' parents not only got their son back but were paid to care for him — and the enemy's house funded the deliverer's preparation.

4. Moses: From Prince to Shepherd to Deliverer

Moses grew up in Pharaoh's house, educated in all the wisdom of Egypt. But at age forty, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that, and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day, he tried to stop two Hebrews from fighting, and one said, "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Moses realized his act was known. Pharaoh sought to kill him, and Moses fled to Midian. There he defended seven daughters of the priest of Midian at a well, married one (Zipporah), and became a shepherd. For forty years, Moses learned humility and patience in the wilderness — far from the palace, far from his dreams of delivering Israel. God spent forty years emptying him out so He could fill him. The man at eighty was not the man at forty. Self-confidence had given way to God-dependence.

5. The Burning Bush: Holy Ground

Moses was pastoring the flock of his father-in-law Jethro when he came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the Lord appeared in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. The bush burned but was not consumed. Moses turned aside to see this great sight. God called to him from the bush: "Moses, Moses!" He said, "Here I am." Then God said, "Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground." The command to remove sandals meant: don't let anything separate you from Me. Then God declared: "I am the God of your father — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Moses hid his face, afraid to look upon God. The bush that burned without being consumed is itself a picture of Israel in Egypt — afflicted but not destroyed, suffering but not extinguished.

6. The Call of Moses: "Who Am I?"

God commissioned Moses: "Come now, I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." Moses responded, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?" God's answer was not what Moses expected. He did not list Moses' qualifications. He said, "I will certainly be with you." The power of the calling depends not on the one called, but on the One who calls. Moses then asked for God's name. God replied, "I AM WHO I AM" (Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh). This name, YHWH (Yahweh), speaks to God's self-existence and eternal presence. He depends on nothing. He never changes. He will be whatever His people need Him to be at the moment they need it. God instructed Moses to gather the elders of Israel and go to Pharaoh, asking for a three-day journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord. God also revealed that Pharaoh would not let them go except under compulsion, so God would stretch out His hand and strike Egypt with wonders.

7. Moses' Excuses and God's Answers

Moses gave five objections. First: "They won't believe me." God gave three signs: staff turning to serpent and back; hand becoming leprous and restored; water from the Nile turning to blood. Second: "I am not eloquent." God reminded him that He made the mouth. Third: "Send someone else." God became angry but appointed Aaron as his spokesman. Fourth: "I don't know Your name." God revealed YHWH. Fifth: "The people won't listen." God had already promised they would. After forty years of humility training, Moses still struggled to trust his own calling. The lesson: God doesn't call the qualified; He qualifies the called. Every great servant of God in Scripture protested first and was sent anyway. The right response to a divine call is "Here I am" — not "Here is what I cannot do."

8. The Plagues: Mocking the Gods of Egypt

Moses and Aaron confronted Pharaoh, demanding, "Let My people go." Pharaoh refused. God then sent ten plagues, each one an attack on specific Egyptian deities. They fell in three cycles of three, with the tenth as the climax. The first cycle: Water turned to blood (mocking Hapi, the Nile god, and Isis, goddess of the Nile); Frogs (mocking Hequet, the frog-headed goddess of birth); Gnats (mocking Set, god of the desert). The second cycle: Flies (mocking Re, the sun god); Death of livestock (mocking Hathor the cow-headed goddess and Apis the bull god); Boils (mocking Sekhmet, goddess of disease, and Isis, goddess of healing). The third cycle: Hail (mocking Nut the sky goddess and Osiris the crop god); Locusts (mocking Nut and Osiris again); Darkness (mocking Re and Horus, the sun gods). The tenth plague — death of the firstborn — mocked Min (god of reproduction), Hequet, and Isis. By the end, every god of Egypt had been shown to be impotent. The Lord alone is God.

9. The Passover: A Memorial of Redemption

Before the tenth plague, God gave instructions for the Passover. Each household was to take a lamb without blemish on the tenth day of the month. On the fourteenth day at twilight, they were to kill the lamb and put its blood on the two doorposts and the lintel of their houses. They were to eat the lamb roasted with fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, with their loins girded, sandals on their feet, and staff in hand — in haste. That night, the Lord passed through Egypt and struck all the firstborn, from the firstborn of Pharaoh to the firstborn of the captive. But when He saw the blood on the doorposts, He passed over those houses. The blood was the sign. Not their goodness, not their heritage — only the blood. This was the first gospel: the innocent substitute dies, the guilty go free.

10. The Exodus: Plundering Egypt

At midnight, the Lord struck all the firstborn of Egypt. There was a great cry, for there was no house where there was not someone dead. Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, "Rise, go out from among my people, you and the children of Israel." The Egyptians urged the people to go quickly, saying, "We shall all be dead." The Israelites asked their neighbors for articles of silver and gold and clothing, and the Lord gave them favor. They plundered Egypt — not as theft, but as back wages for 400 years of slavery. The gold and silver would later be used to build the tabernacle. About 600,000 men, plus women and children, left Egypt that night — a logistical miracle. And they left in such haste that their dough had no time to leaven. The Exodus had begun. The Passover lamb points directly to Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). His blood, applied by faith, causes the judgment to pass over us. As Paul wrote, "Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us" (1 Corinthians 5:7).