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Hathor: a mother goddess who was a cow
Apis: a bull of the god Ptah, a symbol of fertility
Minevis: also a bull, the sacred bull of Heliopolis
Imhotep: the god of medicine
Nut: the sky goddess
Seth: the protector of crops
Re, Aten, Atum and Horus: all sun gods
Pharaoh was also said to be divine
The plagues were specifically directed against these Egyptian gods. The message was very simple: the God of the Hebrew slaves is far more powerful than all your gods put together.
Some see a problem with what we are told in this section of narrative about Pharaoh’s heart. We read that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Some have even erected a doctrine of predestination on this passage and verses in Romans 9 where Paul talks about God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. They suggest that the passage teaches that it is up to God to choose whether he softens or hardens someone’s heart. Advocates of this view argue that we do not know why God makes these choices, but whatever the reason, in the case of Pharaoh he decided he was going to harden his heart. It is as if God picks names out of a hat and decides to save some and send others to hell, to harden some and soften others.
This is not what the Bible teaches, however. If you study the text carefully you find that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened ten times. On the first seven occasions Pharaoh hardens his own heart, in the next three God hardens Pharaoh’s heart. So God only hardens Pharaoh’s heart after Pharaoh has deliberately and repeatedly hardened his own heart. He confirms the choice that Pharaoh has made. This is the way God punishes: he helps people along the road they are determined to travel. In Revelation God says, ‘Let him that is filthy be filthy still.’ So there is no arbitrary choice about God’s dealings with Pharaoh – he hardens his own heart first and then God hardens it for him. God responds to our choices. If we persistently choose the wrong way, God will help us along that route. He will demonstrate his judgement if we refuse to be a demonstration of his mercy.
4. Feast and first-born
The tenth plague was that every first-born boy in every Egyptian family would die. This was the pivotal plague to the whole drama. The tragedy would also happen to the Jews unless they followed God’s instructions. They were to paint the blood of a lamb on their doorposts. The angel of death would come to Egypt that night and pass over the houses displaying the mark. For the other households, death would take place at midnight. Interestingly, blood is a scarlet/maroon colour, the hardest colour to see in the dark.
The blood had additional significance: the Jews were to slaughter a one-year-old ram, fully mature, and after they had put its blood on their doorposts they were to take it inside for roasting. So they were both covered by it and fed by it. When we call Jesus the ‘lamb of God’ it can suggest a softer, more docile image than the Bible intends, for he is actually the ‘ram of God’, which gives a more robust picture. The Jews were to eat the meat standing up, dressed and ready to leave at a moment’s notice. They were told to take emergency rations of unleavened bread. They were to leave Egypt that very night.
The Jews continue to keep the feast of the Passover to this day. At a particular moment in the evening, the youngest member of the family has to ask, ‘What does all this mean?’ The oldest member of the family replies, ‘This is what God did on the night when every first-born boy died and we were saved because of the blood of the ram.’ Thus they are reminded that the first-born needs to be redeemed in every generation.
5. Delivered and drowned
There are three possibilities for the route taken by the Israelites when they left Egypt, indicated on the map overleaf.
The first is known as the northern route. This suggests that they went through a row of sandbanks in a shallow part of the Mediterranean. Maps of Egypt show sandbanks marked at a place called Lake Sirbonis. Their route then takes them to Kadesh Barnea. But they could not have been followed by the Egyptian chariots across the sandbanks, so this seems unlikely.
The second theory is that they went straight across through the Mitler Pass to Kadesh. But there was a line of fortresses (where the Suez Canal is today) built across there, against any invasion from the east. So the Israelites would have had to get through that line of fortresses. They were not armed and able to fight, so this route is very unlikely also.
The third possibility was the southern route down to Mount Sinai, where Moses had been a shepherd for 40 years. This is the most likely, for Moses knew this country. The location of Mount Sinai is uncertain, but all the tradition in the Middle East puts Sinai in the south. The Israelites left Goshen and came south. Pharaoh would only let them go into the desert, thinking that he could always bring them back from there. Having camped, they were hidden from the Egyptians by a cloud God had sent.
As regards the actual crossing of the sea, the Bible does not say that God divided the Red Sea, but that he sent an east wind which divided the water. But how could an east wind divide a sea?
If we were to examine the area in detail we would see that years ago the Great Bitter Lakes were actually joined up to what we call the Red Sea (see diagram below). They were joined up by a shallow, marshy channel called the ‘Reed Sea’ and in fact the Hebrew suggests the ‘Reed Sea’ is a more likely name than the ‘Red Sea’. The fortified line came right down to the Bitter Lake.
If this was where the Hebrews crossed, there are two natural forces which could have divided the sea. A strong east wind could drive the water to the west end of the Great Bitter Lake, an ebb tide also pulling it south.
This does not explain the miracle at all. How did the east wind just happen to come at the right time? In looking at it in such a down-to-earth way, we are not trying to explain away the miracle. Rather we are showing that it is a miracle of ‘coincidence’. In fact, the Bible tells us that there is no such thing as ‘coincidence’, but only ‘providence’.
The most striking fact about this crossing of the Red Sea or Reed Sea is that it happened on the third day after the Passover lamb was killed. The Israelites’ liberation came on the third day after the Passover lamb. Furthermore, the book of Exodus tells us the very hour when the Passover lamb had to be slaughtered: 3.00 p.m. On the third day after that the Israelites finally escape. They are free of Pharaoh and will never see him again. We will note later some parallels with events in the New Testament.
6. Provided and protected
The desert region over which the Israelites travelled was unable to support human life. It was not the ideal place to take 2.5 million people plus animals.
There were both external and internal problems for Moses, therefore, the most basic being the physical need for food and water. Every morning God provided food for them. They found it lying on the ground when they awoke. It was known as ‘What is it?’ in Hebrew – Manna. Every day there were 900 tons of it. It was literally bread from heaven, a theme revisited later in the Bible.
Though living comfortably on manna, the Israelites complained that they were not getting any meat. They had been used to a high-protein diet in Egypt. So God sent a flock of quails, so many that they lay 1.5 metres deep on the desert floor. The people ate quails until they were sick of them!
They also had a problem with water. The first oasis they came to was Marah. Although the place provided water, it was undrinkable – until it became fresh through a miracle. The next place, Elim, had fresh water from the start. The quantities required were considerable – at least 2 million gallons a day would be needed for that number of animals and people. Later they would get water from rock reservoirs. Perhaps one of the biggest miracles of their providential journey was that their sandals never wore out. Rocks even today wreck rubber tyres on vehicles, yet these sandals lasted 40 years!
Moses also faced internal difficulties. Given the enormous numbers, it is no wonder that one of the biggest problems Moses had was judging disputes between the people. We are told that this could go on all day, to the point where Moses became exhausted. It needed his father-in-law Jethro to suggest a delegation of responsibility, whereby Moses appointed 70 elders to assist in the work.
Chapters 19–40
After the narrative of the escape from Egypt, the second part of Exodus turns more towards legislation, the commandments God gave his people, telling them how they were to live, and the covenant he made with them.
7. Commandments and covenant
There are three ‘legal’ collections in the second half of Exodus. The best known is the ‘Ten Commandments’ (or decalogue, which means ‘10 words’), written with God’s finger on two tablets of stone. (Most modern pictures of the event depict Moses returning from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments split between the two tablets, five on one and five on the other, but actually all 10 were on each stone.) This was a legal contract, in keeping with similar treaties agreed at that time. A conquering king might make a treaty with a vanquished nation, for example. Each party would have a copy. In the case of the Ten Commandments, one copy was God’s and one copy was the people’s. This treaty was special, however, known in the Bible as a ‘covenant’. A covenant was not a bargain between two parties but a contract written by God which could be either accepted or rejected by the people.
The Ten Commandments formed the first legal collection and this was followed by what is known as the ‘Book of the Covenant’, which can be found in Exodus 20:23–23:33. This deals with laws relating to community life. The third collection is the book of laws in Chapters 25–31, which centre on the worshipping life of Israel and are concerned with the place of worship and those conducting worship. Overlap and expansion of these laws is found in Deuteronomy. Thus there are not just Ten Commandments, but a total of 613 rules and regulations about the way to live right before God.
It is crucial to underline the importance of the context of the laws in Exodus. The Ten Commandments and the Book of the Covenant are sandwiched between two links which refer to the past and the future.
1 In 20:2 God says, ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.’
2 In 23:20–33 God assures the people of his presence in the future and of the provision of land, providing they keep to his ways.
The first text refers back to Egypt and the second passage focuses on entering Canaan in the future. The context tells us that these laws from God are for people who have experienced his past and are expecting his future and who will therefore be able to live in his present.
King Alfred based the British legal system on the Ten Commandments, but it is hard to see how people can understand them if they have not experienced redemption. They must be seen in the proper context.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
A closer look at the Ten Commandments and the accompanying legislation reveals three basic principles which are enshrined there. First is the principle of respect. All the Ten Commandments are based on this – respect for God, respect for his name, respect for his day, respect for people, respect for family life, respect for life itself, respect for marriage, respect for people’s property, respect for people’s reputation.
The message is clear: a healthy, holy society is built on respect. So much of society today, especially the mass media, sets out to destroy respect. Television comedy often encourages an irreverent view of life so that nothing is regarded as sacred. Everything and everyone is a potential figure of fun. But it is clear that the loss of respect for God leads to idolatry, and the loss of respect for people leads to immorality and injustice.
Most of the Ten Commandments are about acts or words, but the last of the ten is about feelings – it is the only one about the heart. Perhaps this is why the apostle Paul said in Romans 7 that he had kept the first nine but he could not manage the tenth, the commandment about greed. For when we desire something we do not have, our problem is with our inner life. If you break one law you have broken them all. They all belong together like a necklace, and if you break a necklace just once the beads are all lost. In reality there are not ten separate commandments. They are all one law.
The second principle is responsibility. Increasingly we are taught that we are not responsible for our actions, even down to the claim that wickedness is due to genetics! We know that original sin is transferred through the genes, but the idea that some people are more wicked than others because they have a wrong gene leads to the view that people are not responsible for what they do. Exodus stands directly opposed to that view. The Lord God says we are responsible before him for how we live with regard to his law.
The third principle is retribution. There are three reasons for punishment under the law. The first is reformation: punishment is intended to make the wrongdoer better. The second is deterrence: the idea being that observing others being punished works as a warning to other would-be malefactors. The third is retribution: the punishment occurs simply because the person deserves it, with no necessary concern for whether others heed the warning or the guilty party learns from his errors. This third principle of retribution is enshrined in the Exodus laws.
Capital punishment is applied to 18 different sins against God, from murder to breaking the Sabbath. These also include kidnapping, cursing or assaulting parents, and occasions when a person’s uncontrolled animal causes death.
There is a very careful distinction in God’s law between intentional and accidental death. There are two sorts of killing: intentional murder and accidental manslaughter. One carries the death penalty, the other a less severe punishment. In every case we are told that there is no sacrifice in the Mosaic law for continued deliberate, intentional sin. Indeed, if you read Hebrews you will find the same thing being said in the New Testament.
It is worth noting that the denial of personal freedom through imprisonment is not an option under the law. Nowhere in the Bible is this form of punishment argued. There was, however, a clear system of restitution, a system of compensation for those who had been injured. This is the lex talionis, known today by the shorthand expression ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. If, for example, a pregnant woman is attacked and the baby she carries is born with a deformity resulting from the attack, the guilty party will be handicapped in the same way as the victim. In other cases there was a system of repayment in kind or cash when property was damaged or stolen.
8. Specification and specialists
SPECIFICATIONS
Next we come to the extraordinary fact that God wanted to live with Israel. He had already made his holiness very clear. When the law was given on Mount Sinai, God wanted the Israelites to be sure what his holiness meant. God said that no one could touch his holy mountain and live. Moses erected a fence around the bottom. The giving of the law was accompanied by thunder, lightning and fire, indicating God’s power and separateness from man.
But having emphasized his separateness, God then tells Moses that he wants to come down and live in the camp with them. Wherever they camp he wants to be there at the heart of his people. It will be in a tent in the middle of the camp and it must be a tent which communicates his holiness, so that the people will worship him respectfully.
This tent was called the ‘tabernacle’ and Exodus gives us the building specifications which God laid down, in the laws concerning the religious life of Israel (Chapters 25–31). Everything about the tabernacle was to speak of God and the right approach to him. It was to be located in the centre of the camp, with the 12 tribes arranged in sequence around it.
SPECIALISTS
To use it
Most importantly, the tabernacle was not readily accessible, despite being in the middle of the camp. To begin with there was a fence 100 cubits by 25, high enough to prevent an outsider looking in. The fence had just one opening situated opposite the tribe of Judah. Inside the fence was a courtyard with an altar and a laver.
The first approach to God, therefore, would be through sacrifice: the animal would be slaughtered and then burnt on the altar in offering to the Lord. Then the worshipper would cleanse his hands in the copper laver between the altar and the holy place. Only then could God’s tent be approached. The tent had two sections, the place where God actually lived being a smaller part of the larger tent, a place shut off from human view and visited just once a year by the High Priest.
The larger part was 10 yards by 20 yards and was known as the holy place. Only priests were allowed to enter and then only if they had sacrificed an animal and cleansed their hands in the laver. It had three pieces of furniture. There was a table with shewbread, 12 loaves representing the 12 tribes of Israel. There was also a seven-branch candlestick lit by holy oil burning continually, and another altar for sacrifice next to a veil.
The veil hid an area 10 yards by 10 yards, the holy of holies: the place where God dwelt. In the holy of holies was a chest and above the chest were two cherubim. In the Bible, cherubim are always angels of judgement. Here they are described as looking downwards to the golden top of the mercy seat. Once a year the High Priest would enter the holy of holies and sacrifice a one-year-old, spotless ram as atonement for the people. Also located in the holy of holies was the ark of the covenant, containing some manna and the books of the law. There was no natural light within the holy of holies, yet it was always radiantly bright. God dwelt there and his glory lit the place.
The beauty of the tabernacle must have been breathtaking, but most of it was hidden. There were beautifully embroidered curtains and coverings, but all were covered with a badger’s skin, hiding the beauty from the people. Inside were golden pieces of furniture and curtains embroidered in blue (the colour of heaven), red (the colour of blood), silver and gold.
The whole structure indicated that if you wished to come to God you must make a sacrifice first in order to be clean. God said that this was a copy of where he lived in heaven.
Even when this tent was dismantled and moved, all the elements were kept covered up. The tent had to be carried by specified people and the ‘ordinary’ people had to keep a thousand paces away from it until it was erected again.
The holiness of God is also emphasized in the clothes of the priests. The High Priest was given specific instructions regarding what he was to wear. He wore 12 jewels on his chest representing the 12 tribes of Israel. These jewels are mentioned again on the last page of the Bible, which describes the New Jerusalem. The High Priest also wore a special girdle, turban, robe, ephod and coat.
The ordinary priests also had ‘robes of office’, but their requirements included only special coats, girdles, caps and breeches. We can discern in these different robes a picture of the one to come who would be the High Priest for ever on behalf of his people.
To build it
Up to that point, the people’s skills consisted only of constructing and transporting bricks, so the task of building such an elaborate tent would normally have been beyond them. We are told that Bezalel, Oholiab and others were given particular gifts by God to accomplish the building. This is the first mention of ‘spiritual gifts’ in the Bible, and it is interesting that it should be in association with manual tasks such as these.
9. Indulgence and intercession
INDULGENCE
Moses was on Mount Sinai for a long time receiving the law. Not knowing what had happened to him, the people asked Aaron if they could worship a ‘god’ they could see. So with Aaron’s help they melted down their gold to make a bull calf they could worship. The choice of animal was significant. As we have already noted, these animals were one of many idols used by the Egyptians. Bulls and calves were symbols of fertility and have been used as such down through history. It is a clear principle of Scripture that idolatry leads to immorality: loss of respect for God leads to loss of respect for people. A wild orgy followed. When Moses came down and saw what was going on, he smashed both copies of the law. He was symbolizing what the people had already done by their behaviour.
INTERCESSION
Moses went back up the mountain and told God that he was fed up with the people, only to find that God was feeling just the same. We reach a key moment in the history of Israel and a pivotal moment in Moses’ leadership. Moses told God that if he was going to blot Israel out of his book, he should be blotted out too, as he did not want to be the only one left. He was effectively saying, ‘Take my life in atonement for them.’ God explained that he only blots out of his book the names of those who have sinned against him, a theme picked up at various points throughout the Bible. The most important thing in life is to keep your name in the Book of Life. God said to Moses, ‘I blot out of my book those who sin against me.’
Moses insisted that the people were punished and God told him to deal with the ringleaders. Three thousand died. This precise figure may mean little to us, but the details of the Exodus narrative have some amazing correspondences with events in the New Testament. The law was given on Sinai on the fiftieth day after the Passover lamb was killed. The lamb was killed at 3.00 p.m. and on the third day after that the slaves were liberated. On the fiftieth day after the Passover the law was given, a day the Jews then called Pentecost. Three thousand people died because they broke the law. It was on that same fiftieth day centuries later, when the Jews were celebrating the giving of the law, that God gave his Spirit – and this time 3,000 people were saved (see Acts 2).
10. Construction and consecration
Where did the Israelites get all the materials they needed to build the tabernacle? At least one ton of gold was needed, not to mention the cloth, linen, jewels, copper and wood. There was an average gift of a fifth of an ounce of gold from each man.
God had told Abraham many centuries before that not only would his descendants be in slavery, but when they left the land of their captivity he would bring them out with great possessions. The materials for the tabernacle and the priests’ garments actually came from the Egyptians, who were so glad to see the back of the Israelites that they gave them all their jewellery. This tells us how they came to have the materials. They came to be used in the tabernacle because the people gave them, donated them for use in this way. Four words describe the nature of their giving: it was spontaneous, thoughtful, regular and sacrificial. This was not an enforced collection with penalties for those who did not give, but was purely down to the free decision of the people (‘Everyone who is willing…’).
At the end of Exodus we are told how God took up residence and consecrated the tent. The people saw his glory arrive and they saw the plume of smoke or cloud above the inner room. The inner room became filled with light as the glory of the Lord came into it. God was camping with his people. Thereafter, when they saw the cloud and the light move they knew it was time to move on.
Christian use of the Book of Exodus
The story of Exodus is compelling and the details of the Israelites’ worship fascinating, but we must ask this: How should Christians read it today?
The first thing to say is that God has not changed. He deals with Christians in the same way as he did with the children of Israel. That is why so many of the words in Exodus are used again in the New Testament – words such as law, covenant, blood, lamb, Passover, Exodus, leaven. They are used in the New Testament but derive their meaning from the book of Exodus.
At the same time there are some significant differences. We are not now under the law of Moses but under the law of Christ. As we shall see, in some ways this makes things harder and in other ways it makes them easier.
The tabernacle is no longer necessary, for we know that Christ has provided direct access into the holy of holies. Neither are we dependent on God’s provision of food and water from the sky and the rock.
There are two essential ways in which Christians need to apply Exodus today.
Christ
Christians are to seek Christ in the book of Exodus. Jesus said, ‘Search the Scriptures, for they bear witness to me.’ The Exodus is central to the Old Testament, and all the books which follow look back to it as the redemption on which everything else is based. In the same way the cross is central to the New Testament.
This is not a fanciful connection. Six months before Jesus died on the cross he was 4,000 feet high on top of Mount Hermon in the north of Israel, talking with Moses and Elijah. Luke’s Gospel tells us that they talked about ‘the exodus’ which Jesus was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.
What is more, Jesus died at 3.00 p.m., the very time when thousands of Passover lambs were being slaughtered. So Christ is called ‘our Passover lamb’, the one who has been sacrificed for us so that the angel of death would pass over those who trust in him. He rose from the dead on the third day and his resurrection liberates us from death, just as the Hebrews were liberated from slavery on the third day after the Passover.
There are other links, too. We read in John’s Gospel that Jesus is the bread from heaven. Paul says that Jesus is the rock from which Moses drew the water for the children of Israel. John also says in his Gospel that ‘the word became flesh and “tabernacled among us”’. He literally pitched his tent, God in Christ dwelling in the midst of his people.
With all this in mind, we can understand Christ’s words in Matthew: ‘I did not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it’. In short, we cannot understand the New Testament without the Old.
Christians
The book of Exodus can also be applied to Christians. Paul, reflecting on some of the events in Exodus, writes to the church at Corinth: ‘These things occurred as examples, to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things, as they did.’
The crossing of the Red Sea prefigures baptism. Paul says the children of Israel were baptized into Moses in the Red Sea and his readers had been baptized into Christ.
Christians also have a Passover meal regularly, for the Lord’s Supper is a Passover meal, commemorating the liberation of Christ.
Paul speaks of keeping the feast and getting rid of the yeast or leaven because Christ the Passover lamb has been sacrificed. This seems a strange exhortation until we consider the context. He was writing to a church about the immoral behaviour of a believer who was sleeping with his stepmother. In this context the yeast stood for the evil that was taking place which needed to be got rid of if they were truly to ‘keep the feast’. The Exodus account sees things in a material way, while the New Testament sees them in a moral context.
Many become especially concerned about how Christians should treat the laws given to Moses. It is true that we do not need to keep the law, but in many ways the ‘Law of Christ’ is much harder than the ‘law of Moses’. The law of Moses says ‘do not kill anybody’, and ‘do not commit adultery’. Many people are clear at that level, but the Law of Christ says ‘do not even think about it’. It is much harder to keep the Law of Christ than the law of Moses.
On the other hand, it is much easier in some ways because now we do not need a great number of priests, rituals and special buildings. The apostle John wrote, ‘For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.’ Whenever we pray we can enter the holiest place of all unhindered in the name of Jesus.
There is a big difference, too, between the New Covenant and the Old. Under the law given at Pentecost 3,000 died, but with the Spirit given at Pentecost 3,000 lived. I would rather have the Spirit who writes the law on the heart than the old law.
The theme of glory also has a new meaning for Christians. Paul compares the fading glory of Moses with the Spirit’s work in the New Covenant. Christians can know the same glory that Moses knew when he came down from the mountain. This glory, however, is not connected with altars, incense and robes but with the Spirit who indwells the believer. This glory increases day by day.
Finally, we must note the way in which the tabernacle speaks so powerfully of how we approach God today. We come first through sacrifice (the altar), justified through Christ, then we need cleansing by the Spirit (the laver). The colours of the tabernacle are significant: purple speaking of royalty, blue of heaven and white of purity. Today we have a High Priest who represents us before God, but one who needs no sacrifice for his own sins. He made the once-and-for-all sacrifice to which all the sacrifices under the Old Covenant point.
