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Old Testament · The Law · Book 2 of 66

Exodus

The LORD brings Israel out of bondage in Egypt by Moses, binds them to himself in covenant at Sinai, and comes to dwell among them in the tabernacle.

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Exodus begins with Jacob’s sons in Egypt and ends with a cloud resting on a tent. Between the two the LORD keeps his word to the fathers. He hears Israel’s groaning and remembers “his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob” (Exodus 2:24). He names himself to Moses at the burning bush, breaks Pharaoh by ten plagues, and brings his people out under the blood of the Passover lamb and through the sea on dry ground. At Sinai he gives them his law and makes them his people by covenant.

The order matters. The commandments begin with what God has already done: “I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (20:2). The law is given to a people already redeemed. The tabernacle then shows what the redemption was for: “let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them” (25:8). Israel breaks the covenant with a golden calf before the work begins, but the LORD renews it, and the book closes with the cloud of his glory resting on the finished tent (40:34–35).

Key verse
I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Exodus 20:2 KJV

The burning bush Exodus 3:2
The rock in Horeb Exodus 17:6
The breastplate Exodus 28:17

Before you read

Who wrote it
Moses. The LORD tells him to write (Exodus 17:14; 34:27), and “Moses wrote all the words of the LORD” (24:4). Jesus cites the account of the bush from “the book of Moses” (Mark 12:26).
When it happens
From the generation after Joseph (Exodus 1:6–8) to the first day of the second year after Israel came out of Egypt, when the tabernacle was reared up (40:17). 1 Kings 6:1 counts 480 years from the exodus to the building of Solomon’s temple; that count is read in two ways.

An earlier date, from the count in 1 Kings 6:1 The exodus came 480 years before Solomon began the temple in the fourth year of his reign, about 1446 BC. Jephthah’s three hundred years in the land fit that count, and Genesis already calls Goshen “the land of Rameses” in Joseph’s day.

Grounds 1 Kings 6:1Judges 11:26Genesis 47:11

A later date, from the city named Raamses Raamses, the store city Israel built, is taken to bear the name of the Pharaohs called Ramesses, which places the exodus in the thirteenth century BC. On this view the 480 years of 1 Kings 6:1 stand for twelve generations of forty years.

Grounds Exodus 1:111 Kings 6:1

Where
Egypt, where Israel dwelt in Goshen; then the wilderness from Succoth by the Red Sea to Rephidim; and from 19:1–2 to the end of the book, the camp before mount Sinai.

How Exodus is laid out

8 movements · 171 passages · 1,213 verses

3:1412:1314:1316:420:225:834:640:34
11–425–11312:1–15:21415:22–18:27519–24625–31732–34835–40

Bondage, and a deliverer called

Chapters 1–4 · 100 verses

Jacob’s family multiplies in Egypt, and a new king who knew not Joseph sets taskmasters over them and orders their sons thrown into the river. Moses is drawn out of the water and raised by Pharaoh’s daughter, then flees to Midian. At the burning bush on Horeb the LORD gives his name, I AM, and sends Moses back with Aaron. The people believe.

17 passages

  1. 1:1–7 The Children of Israel Settle and Grow
  2. 1:8–14 The Israelites Oppressed
  3. 1:15–22 Pharaoh Attempts Genocide
  4. 2:1–10 The Birth of Moses
  5. 2:11–15 Moses Defends the Hebrews and Flees
  6. 2:16–22 Moses in Midian
  7. 2:23–25 God Hears Israel’s Groaning
  8. 3:1–6 Moses at the Burning Bush on Horeb
  9. 3:7–10 God Hears and Commissions Moses
  10. 3:11–12 Moses’ First Objection: Who Am I?
  11. 3:13–15 The Name of God ("I AM")
  12. 3:16–22 Instructions for the Elders and Prediction of Deliverance
  13. 4:1–9 Moses' First Objection: The Signs of Authority
  14. 4:10–17 Moses' Second Objection: Aaron Appointed Spokesman
  15. 4:18–23 The Return to Egypt
  16. 4:24–26 The Circumcision Crisis
  17. 4:27–31 The Leaders Meet and the People Believe

Let my people go

Chapters 5–11 · 184 verses

Pharaoh will not let Israel go, and doubles their labour. The LORD renews his promise: “I am the LORD.” Aaron’s rod swallows the magicians’ rods, and nine plagues follow: blood, frogs, lice, flies, murrain, boils, hail, locusts and darkness. Pharaoh bargains, but his heart is hardened after each, and Moses announces the death of every firstborn in Egypt.

7 chapters

  1. 5 Moses and Aaron Confront Pharaoh
  2. 6 God Reaffirms His Covenant and Name
  3. 7 Moses Given Divine Authority Over Pharaoh
  4. 8 The Second Plague: Frogs
  5. 9 The Fifth Plague: Pestilence on Livestock
  6. 10 The Purpose of the Plagues and the Locust Warning
  7. 11 Announcement of the Final Plague

The Passover and the sea

12:1–15:21 · 125 verses

Each household kills a lamb and strikes its blood on the doorposts, and the LORD passes over them when he smites Egypt’s firstborn at midnight. Israel goes out with unleavened dough, and the firstborn are set apart to the LORD. A pillar of cloud and fire leads them; Pharaoh pursues to the sea, the waters divide, and his army drowns. Moses and Miriam sing.

20 passages

  1. 12:1–13 Institution of the Passover and New Calendar
  2. 12:14–20 The Feast of Unleavened Bread
  3. 12:21–28 Moses Instructs Israel
  4. 12:29–36 The Tenth Plague and the Exodus
  5. 12:37–42 The Journey Begins
  6. 12:43–51 Regulations for Passover Participation
  7. 13:1–2 Sanctification of the Firstborn
  8. 13:3–10 The Ordinance of Unleavened Bread
  9. 13:11–16 Redemption of the Firstborn
  10. 13:17–22 God Guides Israel
  11. 14:1–4 God Directs Israel’s Encampment
  12. 14:5–9 Pharaoh Mobilizes His Army
  13. 14:10–14 Israel’s Fear and Moses’ Assurance
  14. 14:15–18 God Commands the Crossing
  15. 14:19–20 The Cloud Separates the Camps
  16. 14:21–26 The Sea Divided and Israel Crosses
  17. 14:27–31 The LORD Saves Israel at the Sea
  18. 15:1–12 The Song of Moses: Praise for Deliverance
  19. 15:13–19 Anticipation of the Conquest
  20. 15:20–21 Miriam and the Women Celebrate

Bread and water in the wilderness

15:22–18:27 · 85 verses

Three days out, the water at Marah is bitter until the LORD shows Moses a tree. In the wilderness of Sin the people murmur, and the LORD rains bread from heaven, a portion every day and a double portion before the sabbath. At Rephidim water comes from the smitten rock, and Amalek is beaten while Moses’ hands are held up. Jethro counsels Moses to appoint judges.

12 passages

  1. 15:22–27 The Trial at Marah and Provision at Elim
  2. 16:1–3 Israel Murmurs in the Wilderness
  3. 16:4–12 God Promises Manna and Quail
  4. 16:13–21 Quail and Manna Provided
  5. 16:22–30 Manna and the Institution of the Sabbath
  6. 16:31–36 A Memorial of God’s Provision
  7. 17:1–7 Israel Tests the Lord at Rephidim
  8. 17:8–16 War Against Amalek
  9. 18:1–6 Jethro Hears and Returns Moses' Family
  10. 18:7–12 Reunion and Shared Worship
  11. 18:13–23 Jethro Counsels Moses on Judging
  12. 18:24–27 Moses Appoints Judges and Jethro Departs

The covenant at Sinai

Chapters 19–24 · 169 verses

Israel camps before the mount, and the LORD offers to make them a peculiar treasure and a kingdom of priests. He comes down in fire and speaks the ten commandments; Moses receives the judgments of the book of the covenant. The people answer, “All that the LORD hath said will we do,” and are sprinkled with its blood. Moses goes up for forty days.

6 chapters

  1. 19 Israel Arrives at Mount Sinai
  2. 20 The Lord Declares the Covenant
  3. 21 Laws Concerning Hebrew Servants
  4. 22 Laws Concerning Theft and Restitution
  5. 23 Laws of Ethical Justice and Integrity
  6. 24 Invitation to the Mountain

The pattern shown in the mount

Chapters 25–31 · 243 verses

The LORD asks for an offering, that they may make him a sanctuary, and shows Moses its pattern: the ark and mercy seat, table and candlestick, curtains, boards and veil, the altar and court, and the garments of Aaron and his sons. The incense altar, laver and oil follow. Bezaleel is filled with the Spirit, the sabbath is given as a sign, and Moses receives the two tables.

7 chapters

  1. 25 Call for Offerings for the Sanctuary
  2. 26 The Inner Curtains of Linen
  3. 27 Instructions for the Bronze Altar
  4. 28 The Priests and Their Holy Garments
  5. 29 The Ritual of Consecration Begins
  6. 30 The Altar of Incense
  7. 31 Appointment of the Tabernacle Craftsmen

The calf and the covenant renewed

Chapters 32–34 · 93 verses

While Moses is on the mount, Aaron makes a golden calf. The LORD would consume the people; Moses intercedes, breaks the tables, and the Levites execute judgment. The LORD will send an angel but not go up among them. Moses pleads, “If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence,” and is heard. The LORD proclaims his name, renews the covenant, and Moses’ face shines.

13 passages

  1. 32:1–6 The Golden Calf is Made
  2. 32:7–14 The LORD Threatens to Destroy Israel
  3. 32:15–20 Moses Descends and Executes Judgment
  4. 32:21–29 Moses Confronts Aaron and Judges the Sin
  5. 32:30–35 Moses Intercedes for Israel
  6. 33:1–6 God Refuses to Accompany Israel
  7. 33:7–11 The Tent of Meeting Established
  8. 33:12–17 Moses Pleads for God's Presence
  9. 33:18–23 Moses Sees God's Glory
  10. 34:1–4 Preparation for Covenant Renewal
  11. 34:5–9 The Lord Proclaims His Name
  12. 34:10–27 Renewal of the Covenant Stipulations
  13. 34:28–35 Moses’ Shining Face and the Veil

The tabernacle raised and filled

Chapters 35–40 · 214 verses

The willing-hearted bring so much that they must be restrained from bringing. Bezaleel, Aholiab and every wise-hearted man make the tabernacle, its furniture and the priests’ garments, “as the LORD commanded Moses.” Moses sees the work and blesses them. On the first day of the second year the tabernacle is reared up, the cloud covers it, and the glory of the LORD fills it.

6 chapters

  1. 35 Assembly and Reiteration of Commands
  2. 36 The Skilled Workers Begin the Task
  3. 37 Construction of the Ark of the Covenant
  4. 38 The Bronze Altar and Laver
  5. 39 The Priestly Garments Constructed
  6. 40 Instructions for Setting Up and Consecration

The words Exodus turns on

Serve and bring out run through the deliverance, know through the plagues, covenant through Sinai; tabernacle fills chapters 25–40, and the glory fills the tabernacle.

See these words across the whole Bible

What Exodus teaches

ʻâbad · serve

From bondage to service

The Egyptians “made the children of Israel to serve with rigour” (1:13). The message Moses is to carry to Pharaoh uses the same verb: “Israel is my son, even my firstborn … Let my son go, that he may serve me” (4:22–23). The Hebrew word covers a bondman’s labour and a worshipper’s service, so the plagues settle whom Israel will serve. They are not set free to belong to no one; they pass from Pharaoh’s house to the LORD’s. At Sinai they are forbidden to bow down to other gods “nor serve them” (20:5), and the law later gives the ground of a Hebrew’s freedom: “they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 25:42).

yâdaʻ · know

Knowing the LORD

At the bush God gives Moses his name: “I AM THAT I AM” (3:14). Pharaoh’s answer to that name is “I know not the LORD” (5:2), and the plagues answer Pharaoh. Israel will know the LORD by what he does: “ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians” (6:7). Egypt will know him too (7:5). At the frogs Pharaoh hardens his own heart (8:15); at the boils the LORD hardens it (9:12), as he had said he would (4:21), and he gives the reason he raised Pharaoh up: “that my name may be declared throughout all the earth” (9:16), words Paul quotes in Romans 9:17. By chapter 18 a priest of Midian has heard: “Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods” (18:11).

bᵉrîyth · covenant

A covenant with the redeemed

The covenant at Sinai rests on one already made. Before the plagues the LORD says, “I have remembered my covenant” (6:5). At the mount he speaks first of what he has done: “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself” (19:4). Only then does he set terms: “if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me” (19:5). Moses reads the book of the covenant, the people promise obedience, and he sprinkles them: “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you” (24:8). Before he comes down from the mount they have broken it with a molten calf (32:8), and it stands again only because the LORD says, “Behold, I make a covenant” (34:10).

shâkan · dwell

That I may dwell among them

The LORD gives his dwelling as the purpose of the exodus itself: “they shall know that I am the LORD their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them” (29:46). The tabernacle’s name, mishkân, comes from the verb to dwell. After the calf the LORD says, “I will not go up in the midst of thee” (33:3); Moses pleads, and the LORD answers, “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest” (33:14). The book ends with that promise kept. When the tent is raised, Moses cannot enter it, “because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (40:35). Abode is the same verb as dwell.

Christ in Exodus

The New Testament reads the exodus as the pattern of Christ’s work. Paul writes, “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7). The lamb was to be without blemish and none of its bones broken (Exodus 12:5; 12:46). When the soldiers did not break Jesus’ legs, John wrote that it was done “that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken” (John 19:36). At the transfiguration Moses and Elias “spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31), and Luke’s word for decease is exodos.

Jesus names himself the true manna: “Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven” (John 6:32). Of the rock in the wilderness Paul says, “that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4). And the tabernacle, where the glory came to dwell, is answered when “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). John’s word for dwelt means to pitch a tent, and he adds, “we beheld his glory.”

People

By how many verses name them

71 more are named.

Places

31 named

Map: The Kingdom of Egypt in the Time of Moses
The Kingdom of Egypt in the Time of Moses · 26 more · Map © Biblica Open Bible Maps · CC BY-SA 4.0

The passages it leans on, and the ones that lean on it

Books Exodus links to most

  1. Psalms896
  2. Deuteronomy774
  3. Numbers648
  4. Leviticus598
  5. Isaiah509
  6. Genesis477

Cross-references from Exodus into each book · 63 books in all

See every thread

The Church Fathers on Exodus

553 quotations from 46 writers before AD 800 · the ten most quoted, in date order

  1. Origen253
  2. Ephrem373
  3. Ambrose397
  4. Chrysostom407
  5. Jerome420
  6. Augustine430
  7. Caesarius542
  8. Cassiodorus585
  9. Gregory604
  10. Bede735

Eusebius on the angel in the bush, whom Scripture also calls God and Lord.

And when an angel appears to Moses, Holy Scripture also makes it plain, saying, “The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush.” But when it refers to the actual being who replies, it calls him God and Lord and no longer an angel. It is equally clear in its distinction between the angel and the Lord in the account of what happened at the Red Sea.
Eusebius of Caesarea 339 · Proof Of The Gospel 5.11.238 · on Exodus 3:2

Chrysostom on the lamb’s unbroken bones, a type fulfilled at the cross.

That well-known prophecy likewise was fulfilled: “Not a bone of him shall you break.” For even if this was spoken with reference to the lamb among the Jews, the type preceded for the sake of truth and was, rather, fulfilled in this event.
John Chrysostom 407 · Homilies On The Gospel Of John 85 · on Exodus 12:46

Augustine read the crossing of the sea, as Paul did, as a figure of baptism.

This people of God, freed from a great and broad Egypt, is led, as through the Red Sea, that in baptism it may make an end of its enemies. For by the sacrament as it were of the Red Sea, that is by baptism consecrated with the blood of Christ, the pursuing Egyptians, the sins, are washed away.
Augustine of Hippo 430 · Explanation Of The Psalms 107.3 · on Exodus 14:22

Ephrem on the tabernacle as a model, made to give way to something lasting.

By saying [to him], “You shall make everything according to the model of the tabernacle that I will show you,” he first called it a model and a temporal tabernacle to indicate that it was transitory and that it would be replaced by the church, the perfect prototype which lasts forever. And so … they would esteem it because of its likeness to the heavenly tabernacle.
Ephrem the Syrian 373 · Commentary On Exodus 25:1 · on Exodus 25:9
Matthew Henry · 136 sections on Exodus“In these verses we have, 1. A recital of the names of the twelve patriarchs, as they are called, Act 7:8.”

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Book introductionAn Introduction to Exodus: Redemption and CovenantDevotional · Exodus 26:14The Inverted HouseMeaning mapWhere Exodus’s verses sit among the whole Bible’sAsk AIAsk a question about Exodus