Exodus

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Tanakh
Torah | Nevi'im | Ketuvim
Books of the Torah
1. Genesis
2. Exodus
3. Leviticus
4. Numbers
5. Deuteronomy

Exodus (Greek: "departure") is the second book of the Jewish Torah and the Christian Old Testament, in which Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt. The book opens with the Israelites in Egypt, having been welcomed there at the end of Genesis. The Israelites settle in Egypt and grow in numbers. A new Pharaoh oppresses them to the point of ordering that the male Israelite babies be massacred. A Levite couple hides their infant son to protect him, and a daughter of the Pharaoh finds him, names him Moses, and raises him as her son. After killing an Egyptian guard who had been whipping Israelites, Moses flees Egypt. He meets God, who tells him to return to Egypt to liberate the Israelites. Moses returns, and God sends plagues to demonstrate his power. Finally, the Pharaoh relents and lets Moses lead the Israelites away. They travel for years through the wilderness, receive a covenant and its laws, and then displease God by creating a golden calf to worship. Moses wins God's forgiveness for his people, and they build the tabernacle.

According to tradition, Exodus and the other four books of the Torah were written by Moses. Modern biblical scholarship has produced numerous theories, all of which place it in the 1st millennium BC.

Historians and archaeologists have been unable to verify any of the events recounted in Exodus.[1]

Contents

Exodus derives from the Greek title Exodos Ἔξοδος, meaning "departure, out-going," given to the book in the Septuagint, a Greek translation of Jewish scriptures composed between the 3rd to 1st centuries BC. In Hebrew it is called Shemot (שְׁמוֹת), from the opening phrase Ve-eleh shemot, ואלה שמות, "These are the names".

Towards the end of Genesis a great famine strikes the Promised Land, causing the Hebrews to relocate to Egypt, where their kinsman Joseph has risen to a position of great power. Thanks largely to his administrative skills, food in Egypt remains plentiful. Joseph persuades his entire extended family to come live under his protection so that he can support them for the duration of the famine.

Once the famine ends, however, the Hebrews do not return to the Promised Land. Rather, they proceed to settle down in Egypt and remain there.

Then a new Pharaoh, who did not know Joseph, becomes concerned about the military implications of the large increase in the Israelite population. He forces them to do manual labor and orders the Hebrew midwives to kill all male babies.[2] About this time, a Levite couple has a son, which they hide until he is three months old. Then, the baby's mother puts him into the Nile in a basket. A daughter of Pharaoh finds him and calls him Moses (Biblical authors interpret the meaning as from the water.). Moses is brought up as an Egyptian. One day, while watching his fellow Hebrews working, he feels sympathy for a laborer who is being whipped by a guard. He kills the guard and buries his body in the sand.[3]

To escape from Pharaoh, who wants to kill him, Moses flees the country. Moses' exile takes him to Midian, where he becomes shepherd to the priest Jethro and marries his daughter, Zipporah. As he feeds the sheep on Mount Horeb, God appears to him from a burning bush, which is not consumed by the flames. God orders Moses to demand the release of the Israelites from Pharaoh and gives him the power to perform three miraculous signs to show his authority. Aaron, mentioned for the first time and identified as Moses' brother, is appointed to assist him. On his return to Egypt, the Lord seeks to kill Moses, but Zipporah, at the inn, circumcises Moses' son, fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant and saving Moses' life.

The Pharaoh refuses Moses' request and oppresses the people still further, ordering them to make bricks without straw. Moses subsequently complains to God, who announces to him that he will display his power to such an extent that the Pharaoh will be keen to send the Israelites away, even with all the jewelery of the Egyptians. The genealogy of Moses and his family appears at this point, rather than at the beginning of the story.

God sends a series of plagues onto Egypt, each time acting through Moses. Since each one has respite, and the Egyptian magicians are capable of duplicating some of them, the Pharaoh becomes increasingly stubborn. In addition, God made Pharaoh more stubborn twice so He could show his power[4]. Finally, a great plague, killing all the firstborn, occurs, passing over the houses of the Israelites, since they have completed the passover ritual, marking their houses. Pharaoh consequently relents and is only too glad to get rid of the Israelites.

The Exodus begins after the Pharaoh issues the expulsion order following the tenth plague, and the Israelites go to Succoth. The nobles of Egypt object to Pharaoh's consent, and so Pharaoh gathers together a large army to chase after the Israelites, who have by this point reached what is usually translated as the 'Red Sea' [5]. The Israelites are divinely guarded and are able to make their passage through the Red Sea when God causes the waters to part as Moses leads his people through. The waters collapse on the pursuing Egyptians once the Israelites have passed, defeating Pharaoh,[6] and the Israelites joyfully sing the Song of the sea [7]. In 13:21, the Lord is described as going ahead in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to lead the Israelites.

The Israelites continue their journey into the desert, and once in the Wilderness of Sin, they complain about the lack of food. Listening to their complaint, God sends them quail and subsequently provides a daily shower of manna from heaven. Once at Rephidim, water is provided miraculously from a rock at Kadesh. The Amalekites ambush the Israelites, and although Joshua manages to lead an army to vanquish them, God orders an eternal war against Amalek [8]. Jethro hears of Moses' approach and visits him, advising Moses to appoint judges [9].

In the third month the Israelites arrive at Mount Sinai, and God announces, via Moses, that the Israelites are God's people. The Jews accept this call, and so, with thunder and lightning, clouds of smoke, and the sound of flutes, God appears to them at the top of Mount Sinai[10] and again according to Bible, God's light only appeared to a selected group of people, chosen by Moses.

God then announces a summarised moral law, the Ten Commandments. A more detailed Covenant Code is subsequently provided, concerning both ritual and civil law, and God promises Canaan to the Israelites if they obey but warns against the paganism of its inhabitants[11]. God calls Moses up into the mountain to receive a set of stone tablets containing the law, and further instructions.

Intricate instructions are then given detailing the construction of a tabernacle, so that God can dwell permanently amongst the Israelites. These directions provide for a particularly extensive construction:

Instructions are also given for the garments of the priests:

  • A shoulder-band (ephod), containing two onyx stones, each engraved with the names of six of the tribes of Israel
  • A breastplate containing Urim and Thummim
  • Golden chains for holding the breastplate set with twelve specific precious stones, in four rows
  • A robe for the ephod, with bells and pomegranates around the seam
  • A coat
  • A mitre
  • A golden mitre plate with the inscription Holiness to the Lord
  • A girdle

Following these instructions are details of the ritual to be used to ordain the priests, including robing, anointing, and seven days of sacrifices. There are also instructions for daily morning and evening offerings of a lamb. The specifications for construction of the tabernacle is then continued with directions for making a golden altar of incense, laver, anointing oil, and perfume. Bezaleel and Aholiab are identified, by God, as the appointed craftsmen to construct these things.

While Moses is upon the mountain, the people become impatient and urge Aaron to make them "a god who shall go before [them]." Aaron instructs them to take off the gold earrings of their wives, sons and daughters and give these to him. From these, Aaron makes a golden calf, which the people worship with joy. God informs Moses that they have become idolatrous, threatening to abandon Israel, but Moses intercedes for them. However, when he comes down, he sees what they have done and in anger smashes the two tablets of the law. After pronouncing judgment upon Aaron and the people Moses again ascends to God to implore forgiveness and is successful. Moses consequently is commanded to make two new tablets on which God will personally write the commandments. God then gives the Ritual Decalogue, writing the ten commandments onto the tablets. Moses then returns to the people, who listen to him in respectful silence. Moses then commands the sons of Levi to slay "every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor" (Exodus 32:27).

Moses gathers the congregation, enjoins upon them the keeping of the Sabbath, and requests gifts for the sanctuary. The entire people respond willingly, and under the direction of Bezaleel and Aholiab, they complete all the instructions, for making the tabernacle, its contents, and the priestly robes. The Israelites put it together on the first day of the second month. This section is almost, but not completely, a word for word copy of Chapters 25-31.

There is no single, universally accepted theory regarding the origins of Exodus; instead various theories are currently advanced placing it in a variety of different periods ranging from the 12th century BC or earlier to the period after 300 BC. Jews and Christians have traditionally understood the Torah to have been written by Moses. The most well-regarded scholarly theory, the documentary hypothesis, describes Exodus as comprising three sources, combined c 400 BC.[1]

Sample verse from Exodus 35:2 "For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a sabbath of complete rest to the LORD; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death." (http://bible.cc/exodus/35-2.htm)


Main article: Mosaic authorship

The traditional belief in both Jewish and Christian circles was that Moses was the author of all five books of the Torah. This theory is still advanced by Orthodox Jewish and evangelical Christian scholars but is not considered viable by mainstream biblical critics.

19th century biblical criticism concluded that the Torah was composed of four originally independent documents, known as the Yahwist, the Elohist, the Deuteronomist, and the Priestly source. Of these the Elohist is identified as uniquely responsible for the episode of the golden calf, and the Priestly source as uniquely responsible for the chiastic, and monotonous, instructions for creating the tabernacle, vestments, and ritual objects, and the account of their creation. The poetic Song of the sea, and the prose Covenant Code, both in Exodus, were identified as smaller independent works embedded in the main documents. In 1878 Julius Wellhausen, in his Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, argued that the Priestly source was the last to be composed, in the 6th century BC, and his formulation became the consensual view.

The southern Jahwist source promotes Aaron, the progenitor of the southern, Aaronite priestood. Meanwhile, it portrays Moses in a less flattering light. The northern Elohist denigrates Aaron as instigating worship of the golden calf. It also includes the Covenant Code, incorporated from an earlier source.

According to most scholarly analyses, the Yahwist source (J) provides the main narrative of Exodus, supplemented by the Elohist (E).[1] The priestly editors (c 400 BC) reworked the JE source and added substantial material, such as the description of the tabernacle in chapters 35-40.[1]

There is no agreement amongst scholars today on just how the final Torah was produced.[citation needed] Documentary approaches such as Wellhausen's classic formulation see it as an act of redaction, in which an editor (usually seen as Ezra) took the four sources - a 9th century Yahwist, 8th century Elohist, and 6th century Priestly source (the Deuteronomist is not present in Exodus) - and combined them with minimal changes. Thus Richard Elliott Friedman's The Bible with Sources Revealed (2003) is a modern documentary hypothesis more or less identical with Wellhausen but accepting Yehezkel Kaufmann's dating of the Priestly source to the early 7th century. By contrast, John Van Seters and Rolf Rendtorff see the Torah as a process of progressive supplementation in which generations of authors added to and edited each other, although Van Seters sees the final author as a late, 5th century, Yahwist, Rendtorff as a Priestly school. R. N. Whybray, whose The Making of the Pentateuch (1987) was a seminal critique of the methodology and assumptions of the documentary hypothesis, has proposed that the creation of Exodus and the Torah was the action of a single author, working from a host of fragments. The only areas of agreement between these views is that the terms "Yahwist", "Priestly" and "Deuteronomist" do have some meaning in terms of identifiable and differentiable content and style, and that the final Torah emerged in the 5th century BC.

Still a minority view today is the so-called Biblical minimalism school, which holds that the Torah is a very late composition, created in the 4th century BC or even later.

Main article: the Exodus

Historical analysis and archaeological evidence has greatly ruled out the possibility of the exodus itself, pointing to more mythical than historical origins or routes.

The time-span in this book, from the death of Joseph to the erection of the tabernacle in the wilderness, covers about one hundred forty-five years, on the supposition that one computes the four hundred thirty years (12:40) from the time of the promises made to Abraham (Galatians 3:17).

There have been several attempts to fix the date of the events in the book to a precise point on the Gregorian Calendar. These attempts generally rest on three considerations

  • Who the unnamed pharaoh was
  • The dates for non-biblical accounts of large numbers of semitic people leaving Egypt
  • The date that archaeology implies Jericho was destroyed

Generally, fixing the identification of the Pharaoh is considered the key, and two dynasties are usually suggested:

  • Ramses II or Merneptah of the 19th Dynasty, around 1290 BCE, favoured by the large majority of both religious and secular scholars, although this contradicts several key aspects of the biblical account and neglects several recent archaeological discoveries in Tel el-Dab'a and Jericho.
  • Thutmose III or Amenhotep II of the 18th Dynasty, around 1444 BCE, favoured by a large minority of mostly religious scholars, since it precedes the destruction of Jericho, although some doubt surrounds the archaeological evidence supporting the Exodus and Canaanite conquest dating. Egypt still dominated Canaan during that period in history [1], making such a date less plausible. The carbon-dating tests at Jericho are also disputed regarding dating.
  • Akhenaton of the 18th Dynasty, around 1340 BC. The link to Akhenaton is that, like Moses, this pharaoh was struggling to convert the people to monotheism. The brother of Akhenaton was named Thutmose,[12] and while it is often assumed that this Thutmose died, young Professor Cyril Aldred shows that he was the commander of the king's chariot forces. [13] The Jewish historian Josephus Flavius similarly records that Moses was an Egyptian prince and army commander.[14][15]
  • Many others have been suggested, such as Dudimose, the Hyksos expulsion, and others.

 Bible Portal

  1. ^ a b c d Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985.
  2. ^ Exodus 1
  3. ^ Exodus 2
  4. ^ Exodus 10:1, 11:9-10
  5. ^ Many scholars believe that the Hebrew phrase 'yam suph', commonly translated 'Red Sea', means 'Sea of Reeds' or 'Sea of Seaweed'.
  6. ^ According to Islam, Pharaoh drowned but his body was saved for the future generations
  7. ^ Exodus 13 and 14
  8. ^ Exodus 15-17
  9. ^ Exodus 18
  10. ^ Chapter 19
  11. ^ Exodus 21-23
  12. ^ Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson (2004), p.157
  13. ^ Cyril Aldred, Akhenaton, King of Egypt p.259.
  14. ^ Antiquities 2:232, 2:241
  15. ^ Ralph Ellis, Jesus, Last of the Pharaohs p.131.

  • Colin J. Humphreys, The Miracles of Exodus: A Scientist’s Discovery of the Extraordinary Natural Causes of the Biblical Stories 2003, HarperSanFrancisco
  • W. F. Albright From the Stone Age to Christianity (2nd edition) Doubleday/Anchor
  • W. F. Albright Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (5th edition) 1969, Doubleday/Anchor
  • Encyclopedia Judaica, Keter Publishing, entry on "Population", volume 13, column 866.
  • Y. Shiloh, "The Population of Iron Age Palestine in the Light of a Sample Analysis of Urban Plans, Areas and Population Density." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (BASOR), 1980, 239:25-35
  • Exploring Exodus: The Origins of Biblical Israel Nahum Sarna, Shocken Books, 1986 (first edition), 1996 (reprint edition), chapter 5, "Six hundred thousand men on foot".
  • "Those Amazing Biblical Numbers: Taking Stock of the Armies of Ancient Israel" William Sierichs, Jr.
  • "The Rise of Ancient Israel : Symposium at the Smithsonian Institution October 26, 1991" by Hershel Shanks, William G. Dever, Baruch Halpern and P. Kyle McCarter, Biblical Archaeological Society, 1992.
  • The Biblical Exodus in the Light of Recent Research: Is There Any Archaeological or Extra-Biblical Evidence?, Hershel Shanks, Editor, Biblical Archaeological Society, 1997
  • Secrets of the Exodus: The Egyptian Origins of the Hebrew People", by Messod Sabbah, Roger Sabbath, Helios Press, 2004
  • "Did the Red Sea Part? No Evidence, Archaeologists Say", by Michael Slackman, New York Times, April 3, 2007

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus"
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