The Exodus


The Exodus is the founding myth of the Israelites whose narrative is spread over four of the five books of the Pentateuch. The narrative of the Exodus describes a history of Egyptian bondage of the Israelites followed by their exodus from Egypt through a passage in the Red Sea, in pursuit of the Promised Land under the leadership of Moses.
The story of the Exodus is central in Judaism. It is recounted daily in Jewish prayers and celebrated in festivals such as Passover. Early Christians saw the Exodus as a typological prefiguration of resurrection and salvation by Jesus. The Exodus is also recounted in the Quran as part of the extensive referencing of the life of Moses, a major prophet in Islam. The narrative has also resonated with various groups in more recent centuries, such as among African Americans striving for freedom and civil rights, and in liberation theology.
The consensus of modern scholars on the historicity of the Exodus is that the Pentateuch does not give an accurate account of the origins of the Israelites, who appear instead to have formed as an entity in the central highlands of Canaan in the late second millennium BCE from the indigenous Canaanite culture. Most modern scholars believe that some elements in the story of the Exodus might have some historical basis, but that any such basis has little resemblance to the story told in the Pentateuch. While the majority of modern scholars date the composition of the Pentateuch to the period of the Achaemenid Empire, some of the elements of this narrative are older, since allusions to the story are made by 8th-century BCE prophets such as Amos and Hosea.

In the Bible

The Exodus tells a story of the enslavement of the Israelites, the Plagues of Egypt, the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, the revelations at Mount Sinai, and the Israelite wanderings in the wilderness up to the borders of Canaan. Its message is that the Israelites were delivered from slavery by Yahweh their god, and therefore belong to him by covenant.

Narrative

The story of the Exodus is told in the first half of the book of Exodus, with the remainder recounting the 1st year in the wilderness, and followed by a narrative of 39 more years in the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the last four of the first five books of the Bible. In the first book of the Pentateuch, the Book of Genesis, the Israelites had come to live in Egypt in the Land of Goshen during a famine, under the protection of an Israelite, Joseph, who had become a high official in the court of the Egyptian pharaoh. Exodus begins with the death of Joseph and the ascension of a new pharaoh "who did not know Joseph".
The pharaoh becomes concerned by the number and strength of the Israelites in Egypt and enslaves them, commanding them to build at two "supply" or "store cities" called Pithom and Rameses. The pharaoh also orders the slaughter at birth of all male Hebrew children. One Hebrew child, however, is rescued and abandoned in a floating basket on the Nile. He is found and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, who names him Moses. Grown to a young man, Moses kills an Egyptian he sees beating a Hebrew slave, and takes refuge in the land of Midian, where he marries Tzipporah, a daughter of the Midianite priest Jethro. The old pharaoh dies and a new one ascends the throne.
According to Ezekiel 20:8-9, the enslaved Israelites also practised "abominations" and worshiped the gods of Egypt. This provoked Yahweh to destroy them but he relented to avoid his name being "profaned".
Meanwhile, Moses goes to Mount Horeb, where Yahweh appears in a burning bush and commands him to go to Egypt to free the Hebrew slaves and bring them to the Promised Land in Canaan. Yahweh also speaks to Moses's brother Aaron, and the two assemble the Israelites and perform miraculous signs to rouse their belief in Yahweh's promise. Moses and Aaron then go to Pharaoh and ask him to let the Israelites go into the desert for a religious festival, but he refuses and increases their workload, commanding them to make bricks without straw. Moses and Aaron return to Pharaoh and ask him to free the Israelites and let them depart. Pharaoh demands Moses to perform a miracle, and Aaron throws down Moses' staff, which turns into a tannin ; however, Pharaoh's magicians are also able to do this, though Moses' serpent devours the others. Pharaoh refuses to let the Israelites go.
After this, Yahweh inflicts a series of Plagues on the Egyptians each time Moses repeats his demand and Pharaoh refuses to release the Israelites. Pharaoh's magicians are able to match the first plagues, in which Yahweh turns the Nile to blood and produces a plague of frogs, but they cannot match any plagues starting with the third, the plague of gnats. After each plague, Pharaoh asks the Israelites to worship Yahweh to remove the plague, then still refuses to free them.
Moses is commanded to fix the first month of Aviv at the head of the Hebrew calendar. He instructs the Israelites to take a lamb on the 10th day, and on the 14th day to slaughter it and daub its blood on their doorposts and lintels, and to observe the Passover meal that night, the night of the full moon. In the final plague, Yahweh sends an angel to each house to kill the firstborn son and firstborn cattle, but the houses of the Israelites are spared by the blood on their doorposts. Yahweh commands the Israelites to commemorate this event in "a perpetual ordinance".
Pharaoh finally casts the Israelites out of Egypt after his firstborn son is killed. Yahweh leads the Israelites in the form of a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire at night. However, once the Israelites have left, Yahweh "hardens" Pharaoh's heart to change his mind and pursue the Israelites to the shore of the Red Sea. Moses uses his staff to part the Red Sea, and the Israelites cross on dry ground, but the sea closes on the pursuing Egyptians, drowning them all.
The Israelites begin to complain, and Yahweh miraculously provides them with water and food, eventually raining manna down for them to eat. The Amalekites attack at Rephidim, but are defeated. Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, convinces him to appoint judges for the tribes of Israel. The Israelites reach the Sinai Desert and Yahweh calls Moses to Mount Sinai, where Yahweh reveals himself to his people and establishes the Ten Commandments and Mosaic covenant: the Israelites are to keep his torah, and Yahweh promises them the land of Canaan.
Yahweh establishes the Aaronic priesthood and detailed rules for ritual worship, among other laws. However, in Moses's absence the Israelites sin against Yahweh by creating the idol of a golden calf. As punishment Yahweh has the Levites kill three thousand of the Israelites, and Yahweh sends a plague on them. The Israelites now accept the covenant, which is reestablished; they build a tabernacle for Yahweh, and receive their laws. Yahweh commands Moses to take a census of the Israelites and establishes the duties of the Levites. Then the Israelites depart from Mount Sinai.
Yahweh commands Moses to send twelve spies ahead to Canaan to scout the land. The spies discover that the Canaanites are formidable, and to dissuade the Israelites from invading, the spies falsely report that Canaan is full of giants. The Israelites refuse to go to Canaan, and Yahweh declares that the generation that left Egypt will have to pass away before the Israelites can enter the promised land. The Israelites will have to remain in the wilderness for forty years, and Yahweh kills the spies through a plague except for the righteous Joshua and Caleb, who will be allowed to enter the promised land. A group of Israelites led by Korah, son of Izhar, rebels against Moses, but Yahweh opens the earth and sends them living to Sheol.
The Israelites come to the oasis of Kadesh Barnea, where Miriam dies and the Israelites remain for nineteen years. To provide water, Yahweh commands Moses to get water from a rock by speaking to it, but Moses instead strikes the rock with his staff, for which Yahweh forbids him from entering the Promised Land. Moses sends a messenger to the king of Edom requesting passage through his land to Canaan, but the king refuses. The Israelites then go to Mount Hor, where Aaron dies. The Israelites try to go around Edom, but the Israelites complain about lack of bread and water, so Yahweh sends a plague of poisonous snakes to afflict them.
After Moses prays for deliverance, Yahweh has him create a brazen serpent, and the Israelites who look at it are cured. The Israelites are soon in conflict with various other kingdoms, and king Balak of Moab asks the seer Balaam to curse the Israelites, but Balaam blesses them instead. Some Israelites begin having sexual relations with Moabite women and worshipping Moabite gods, so Yahweh orders Moses to impale the idolators and sends another plague. The full extent of Yahweh's wrath is averted when Phinehas impales an Israelite and a Midianite woman having intercourse. Yahweh commands the Israelites to destroy the Midianites, and Moses and Phinehas take another census. Then they conquer the lands of Og and Sihon in Transjordan, settling the Gadites, Reubenites, and half the Tribe of Manasseh there.
Moses then addresses the Israelites for a final time on the banks of the Jordan River, reviewing their travels and giving them further laws. Yahweh tells Moses to summon Joshua to lead the conquest of Canaan. Yahweh tells Moses to ascend Mount Nebo, from where he sees the Promised Land, and dies.

Covenant and law

The climax of the Exodus is the covenant between God and the Israelites mediated by Moses at Sinai: Yahweh will protect the Israelites as his chosen people for all time, and the Israelites will keep Yahweh's laws and worship only him. The covenant is described in stages: at Exodus 24:3–8 the Israelites agree to abide by the "book of the covenant" that Moses has just read to them; shortly afterwards God writes the "words of the covenant" – the Ten Commandments – on stone tablets; and finally, as the people gather in Moab to cross into the promised land of Canaan, Moses reveals Yahweh's new covenant "beside the covenant he made with them at Horeb". The laws are set out in a number of codes: