The Second Book of Moses, Called Exodus

Bible #2

by Anonymous, David Grossman (Introduction)

The publication of the King James version of the Bible, translated between 1603 and 1611, coincided with an extraordinary flowering of English literature and is universally acknowledged as the greatest influence on English-language literature in history. Now, world-class literary writers introduce the book of the King James Bible in a series of beautifully designed, small-format volumes. The introducers' passionate, provocative, and personal engagements with the spirituality and the language of the text make the Bible come alive as a stunning work of literature and remind us of its overwhelming contemporary relevance.

Genres: Religion, Christian, Nonfiction, Christianity, Classics, History, Scripture

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 501

About the author

Books can be attributed to "Anonymous" for several reasons:

* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author

Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.

See also: Anonymous

Reviews

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most people in America are familiar with the Ten Commandments and the story of Moses parting the Red Sea...but there's a lot more to the second book of the Old Testament than that! Between Moses' birth, the ten plagues, and the Israelites wandering the wilderness, it's a great read. I would suggest listening to a dramatized recording, such as The Word of Promise or The Bible Experience, of this Biblical account; it really helps God's Word leap off the page!

[Marlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

"God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you."" - Exodus 3:14

Exodus (according to BibleHub.com) was written between 1450-1410 BC by Moses. It's the second book of the Bible, with locations in Egypt, by (and through) the Red Sea, and Mount Sinai. It's part of the Pentateuch, which is just a fancy name for the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).

Rating: 5 stars

I "read" Exodus by watching it on DeafBible, a great app on my phone, which has videos of some of the books of the Bible signed in ASL, verse by verse. I find it motivating to read this way!

Important points: Exodus covers the persecution of the Israelites by the Egyptians, Moses persuading Pharoah to release the Hebrew slaves, the ten plagues, the Exodus of the Israelites, and the Ten Commandments.

Movie adaptations:When I was growing up, my mother and I would watch The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston from time to time. I appreciate that movie because it made the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt easy to visualize. I now prefer the animated musical Prince of Egypt, which admittedly doesn't cover as much of Exodus as the movie The Ten Commandments. My only quibble with Prince of Egypt is that in one line of the lyrics, I'd want a certain portion to be changed. "Who knows what miracles you can achieve..." could have been SO EASILY changed to "Who knows what miracles can be achieved…." Prince of Egypt makes me cry every time I see it.

Christian elements: Obviously, the whole thing is "Christian" since it's part of the Bible. But I wanted to mention an aspect of the Ten Commandments. My husband and I teach a 2nd and 3rd grade Sunday school class at church. One week, the lesson was focused on the Ten Commandments, and my husband demonstrated that the ten commandments can be summed up by "Love God" (commandments 1-4) and "Love people" (commandments 5-10). If I'd ever heard that before, I sure didn't remember it!

Sounds familiar! Jesus told an expert in the law that the greatest commandment is to love God, and the second greatest is to love people. (I'm paraphrasing.)

Is it clean? Yes. As far as violence goes, there is a mention of the firstborn sons of Egypt dying, and of the Egyptians dying at the Red Sea.

***********

I'd always recommend the Bible as good reading for anyone. I'm currently reading Joshua.

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps it is my imagination, but the recent episode in which an angry US citizen crashed his car into a stone rendering of the ten commandments did rather remind me of a famous story from the Bible. Could Michael Tate Reed be a descendant of Moses, and are any Americans currently worshipping golden calves? I think we should be told.


Moses


Reed

[Arman]

کتاب "خروج" یا "شِموت"، دومین کتاب از کتب عهد عتیق می‌باشد. کتاب قبلی، "پیدایش" که با ورود اسرائیلیان به مصر و درگذشتِ یعقوب به پایان رسیده بود، با یک پرشِ زمانی به اندازه‌ی چند نسل، در این کتاب از سر گرفته می‌شود.
کتاب، حداقل تا پیش از صدورِ ده فرمان، همانند کتاب اول، غنی از نمادها و الگوهای داستانیِ آشنا در سرزمین خاورِ نزدیک می‌باشد که راویانِ کتاب مقدسی به خوبی و مهارت از پسِ جذب و استحاله‌ی آن‌ها در شریعت یهود و داستان دینی قومی‌شان بر‌آمده‌اند.

در کتاب پیدایش، یهوه به یعقوب (پیش از ترک کنعان به مقصد مصر) وعده می‌دهد که نوادگان‌ش را دوباره به کنعان، این سرزمین موعود باز می گرداند.
در کتاب خروج، یهوه با تولد و برگزیدنِ موسی، به وعده‌اش مبنی بر نجاتِ اسرائیلیان که گویی در "دوزخِ" مصر و فرعونیان سقوط کرده‌اند، جامه ی عمل می‌پوشاند، و این قوم برگزیده‌ی یهوه به رهبری موسی و برادرش هارون، دست به سفری حماسی به سوی سرزمین موعود می‌زنند. در این مسیر، آن ها با گذر از میان دریا (مرز بین دوزخ و سرزمین موعود= "برزخ") با یاری یهوه، عملاً پای در مسیری بی‌بازگشت و از پیش وعده داده شده می‌گذارند.

نورتوپ فرای، این گذرِ حماسی و پر شور از میان دریا را بزرگ‌ترین و مهم‌ترین الگوی روایی در کتاب مقدس می داند، و معتقد است که باید هر واقعه‌ای در عهد عتیق و جدید و نیز تاریخِ این قوم را با رهاییِ اسرائیلیان از مصر مقایسه کرد. زیرا مصر و گذر از آن، تنها یک جغرافیا و واقعه ی تاریخیِ واقعی نیست، بلکه در اینجا، با مصری معنوی مواجه هستیم؛ وضعیتی سراسر رنج و عذاب که می‌توان در هر دوره ی زمانی‌ای در آن قرار گرفت و می‌بایست با جلب توجه یهوه از آن "خروج" کرد. (و برای همین است که من همیشه با بررسیِ تاریخی و جغرافیاییِ وقایعی از این دست، کاملاً مخالف بوده و هستم).
و از همین منظر است که گروهی از ربی ها معتقدند که هر نسلی باید طوری به خود بنگرد که گویی شخصاً از مصر نجات پیدا کرده است؛ انگار که خودِ فرد همراه با اسرائیلیانِ محبوس در مصر، این سفرِ رهایی‌بخش را انجام داده و از آن سرزمین نجات پیدا کرده است. و باز همین منظر است که یهودیانی که در زمان جنگ جهانی دوم از دست نازیان و بعدتر از شوروی کمونیستی می‌گریختند، برای توصیف وضعیت و سفرشان از آنسوی دریا، از این داستانِ رهایی قوم یهود استفاده می کردند.

علاوه بر پیوستگی روایی، کتاب خروج به لحاظ نمادشناختی نیز ارتباط تنگاتنگی با نه تنها با دیگر کتاب های عهد عتیق بلکه با اناجیل دارد. برای مثال، نگاهی به داستانِ "گذر از دریا" بیندازیم:
همان‌طور که در ابتدای کتاب پیدایش، آفرینش و هستی را از دل تاریکیِ "لجه" بیرون کشیده می‌شود، و همان‌گونه که نوح و سرنشینان کشتی‌ش از دلِ طوفانِ بنیان‌افکن وعالم‌گستر نجات پیدا می‌کنند، و همان‌طور که عیسی با بیرون کشیده شدن از رودخانه‌ی اردن، "فرزند خدا" نام می‌گیرد، موسی و اسرائیلیان نیز با اراده‌ی یهوه، از دلِ دریا (این مظهر بی‌شکلیِ پیشاآفرینشی) بیرون کشیده می‌شوند، و به "قومِ برگزیده" تبدیل می‌شوند تا به دنبال شریعتِ تازه و سرزمینِ موعودشان بگردند.
راجع به تمامی وقایعِ کتاب خروج (تولد و پرورش موسی، برگزیده شدن موسی بر بالای کوه حوریب، بلایای مصر، سفر در بیابان و ظهورِ یهوه بر موسی در کوه سینا) می‌توان به سیاق فوق، داستان به داستان، همین نگاه تطبیقی را (چه درون بایبلی و چه بینا‌فرهنگی) لحاظ کرد، تا بتوان پیوستگیِ نمادپردازی و رواییِ باورنکردنیِ نهفته در دلِ این به ظاهر اغتشاشِ موجود در کتاب مقدس، دست پیدا کرد.





پ ن: بخش مهمی از کتاب، "ده فرمان" و دستورات و قوانینی‌ست که بر بالای کوه سینا بر موسی صادر می‌شود. راجع به این بخش، در یادداشت مربوط به "کتاب لاویان" خواهم نوشت.
پ ن2: باز هم باید از شایان و سهیل تشکر کنم که بدون آن‌ها، این خوانش، قطعاً (و بی‌هیچ تعارفی) کیفیت و مطلوبیت کمتری برای‌م می‌داشت.
پ ن3: همان‌طور که نوشتم، بایستی بر جای‌ جای این کتاب‌ها درنگ کرده و به تحلیل آن‌ها پرداخت؛ این کتاب‌‌ها واقعا برای روخوانی و گذشتن و کنار گذاشته شدن نوشته نشده‌اند.
پ ن4: باز هم به سیاق خوانش دیگر کتب مقدس، از ستاره دادن به کتاب، معذورم.

[Sarita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love the first half with the plagues and the Israelites exodus out of Egypt, but the second half is always a struggle.

[Katja Labonté · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exodus is amazing story of God's power over everything earthly.
Pharaoh was all-powerful, right? Well, yeah, until God stepped in.
There wasn't any escape for Israel, right? Well, yeah, until God stepped in.
Moses was absolutely helpless, right? Well, yeah, until God stepped in.
The desert kills, right? Well, yeah, until God steps in.
The most powerful army wins, right? Well, yeah, until God steps in.
Our God is all-mighty, and His will always comes to pass. No matter how much Pharaoh hardens his heart and oppresses the people and ignore the judgments.

[فؤاد · Rating 4 out of 5]

سِفر خروج
به نظر مى رسد خدايى كه "سِفر خروج" تصوير مى كند، "خداى واحد" نيست. بلكه چنین بر مى آيد كه خدايان متعددى وجود دارند كه هر يك، متعلق به يك قومند، و "يَهوَه" تنها خداى قوم بنى اسرائيل است. به اين مطلب، برتراند راسل در تاريخ فلسفه ى غرب تصريح مى كند.

مثلاً در طىّ سِفر خروج، خدايان ديگر اقوام نفى نمى شوند، بلكه فقط يَهوه به بنى اسرائيل مى گويد: "شما خدايان اقوام ديگر را نپرستيد، چرا كه من بر آن خدايان پيروزم و من حامى شمايم."
همچنین در هيچ جاى سفر خروج موسى (ع) تلاشى براى تبليغ دين بین اقوام غیر اسرائیلی و هدايت فرعون يا قبطى ها يا اقوام ديگر نمى كند. بحث فقط بحث قوميت است: موسى مأمور است قوم بنى اسرائيل را از مصر نجات دهد، اقوام ساكن فلسطين (عمالقه، كنعانى ها، حيتى ها و...) را شكست دهد و قوم بنى اسرائيل را در آن جا سكونت دهد.

این در کتاب های دیگر تورات نیز مشاهده می شود. مثلاً در کتاب صفنیا، به هنگام توصیف روزی که بنی اسرائیل بر اقوام دیگر پیروز و سروَر می شوند، می گوید "خداوند تمامی خدایان جهان را نابود خواهد کرد و آن گاه همه ی اقوام او را عبادت خواهند کرد."

هر چند از چند بخش، بر مى آيد كه يَهوه خداى همه ى جهان است: يكى جايى كه خود را خداى فرعون معرّفى مى كند و ديگر، جايى كه می گوید "با ساکنان فلسطین دوستی نکنید، چرا که آن ها به جای پرستش من، بت ها را می پرستند".
جداى از اين ه��، سِفر پيدايش كاملاً تصريح دارد بر اين كه يَهوه آفريننده ى تمام جهان و انسان هاست.

[Laura Motta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Proof of two things: That Penguin's repackaging efforts can indeed go too far, and that even God needed an editor.

[Angela R. Watts · Rating 5 out of 5]

KJV.

[Lizzy (Elizabeth) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was great! I love learning more about Moses and the Israelites!

[denise]

It's giving💀
It's giving ✨Moses✨ and ✨murder✨but it's giving nonetheless

[Drew Canole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite as interesting as Genesis as this just follows one story. But still it has some classic stuff like baby Moses in the Nile, the ten Plagues God curses the Egyptians with, the parting of the Red Sea, and the Ten Commandments.

So Jacob helped get his family set up in Egypt and now hundreds of years later they've become numerous (but still enslaved) - and the Pharoah is worried about an uprising so starts to kill of their newborn males.

Moses was one of those boys but is put into the Nile by his mom - later to be found and raised by the Pharoah's daughter. Adult Moses kills an Egyptian slave overseer and flees eventually seeing god in a burning bush. God gets Moses to go back and free the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery and take them to Canaan (present day Israel/Jerusalem/West Bank/Gaza Strip area).

But on the way back to Egypt this happens:
24. And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him [Moses].
25. Then Zipporah [Moses's wife] took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, "Surely a bloody husband art thou to me."
26. So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.

In Egypt God does the 10 plagues thing because Pharaoh reuses to give the Hebrews time for worship. Pharaoh kicks out the Israelites but then later decides to chase after them. Moses parts the Red Sea allowing his people to escape, and leaving the Pharaoh's men scratching their heads.

God tells Moses the Ten Commandments and instructions to build a tabernacle and other religious stuff. Moses's brother Aaron crafts a golden calf and people start to worship it which pisses off Moses. He breaks his tablets and has to go back to make new ones.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 2 out of 5]

Baby Moses in the basket, the burning bush, the ten plagues, Passover, the parting of the Red Sea, manna from heaven in the wilderness, the Sabbath, the Ten Commandments, the golden calf, the Ark of the Covenant. I don't doubt you know the contents, whether you learnt them at Sunday School or from Cecil B. DeMille and Charlton Heston.

I learnt about the Old Testament at school, but I can't recall that we actually read any of it. Read childishly dramatized versions of it, were told about it, saw films about it, sure; but never read the actual thing, even a modern version let alone the King James.

I should point out before I go any further that I am rating Exodus as a reading experience only, not as the Word of God and a contract of faith with humanity (well, Jewish humanity at least, though as a raised Roman Catholic it should be for me too).

Some of the most indelible phrases appear in the earliest chapters, such as 'a stranger in a strange land' (2:22) and 'a land flowing with milk and honey' (3:17). Moses is initially full of self doubt ('I am slow of speach, and of a slow tongue' 4:10) and frustrated with the Lord ('since I came to Pharaoh to speake in thy Name, he hath done evil to this people, neither hast thou delivered thy people at all' 5:23), but he soon gains belief. The first half of the book details most of the famous elements I highlighted at the start.

The second half starts with the Ten Commandments, which are still just about as good a guide as any about how to live. But the 'judgements' of chapters 21-23, where an eye for an eye is first mentioned, are largely forgotten, and no wonder as they are mostly ridiculous:

'And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money' (21:20-21)

'Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death' (22:19)

The rest consists of a tedious, repetitious litany of technical concerns about how to correctly worship the Lord via a moveable tabernacle, more use to Jewish priests, carpenters and clothiers than to anyone else looking to be enlightened.

I never would have expected to use a tired old football cliche to describe one of the most monumental books of the Old Testament, but Exodus really is like a game of two halves.

If, like me, you read the Bible to know the word of God in order to be inspired by it's grandeur, Exodus largely fails, though 'And the sight of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire' (24:17) is a notable exception.

The Lord continually calls the Israelites a "stiff-necked" people, a curious phrase. And my word what a tough task master He was!

The Egyptians only suffer all ten plagues before acceding to the exodus because the Lord actively 'hardened Pharaoh's heart' to the demands. But the Israelites are cowed into belief through their fear first, not their faith: 'And Israel saw that great worke which the Lord did vpon the Egyptians: & the people feared the Lord, and beleeued the Lord' (14:31)

Then, of course, He starts in on them after the golden calf debacle, calling together Moses and his cronies to make atonement: 'And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.' (32:27)

Yes the Old Testament God is wrathful one. Thank God for Jesus, who put a stop to all that. If we were left with this God we would be damned for all eternity 'For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children' (20:05)

Exodus is timeless scripture, carved by the hand of God like the proverbial tablets of stone, yet the dullness of the second half is undeniable, while its wrathfulness is, by my way of thinking, positively ungodly.

[F · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been reading the Bible through every year since 1974 and I can testify it is fresh every time.
I was amazed, once again, at the details the Holy Spirit included. Every year I find more reason to believe that Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is the very Word of the living God.
I understand more each year and yet have so much more to take in [it can never, this side of glory, be exhausted]. If you find something in the Bible you don't understand don't assume the Bible is wrong, assume that YOU don't understand ... yet.
On a side note: the idea of having individual copies of each book of the Bible is a good one... kind of pricy but good nonetheless.
Exodus tells of the exodus of Israel from Egypt but it also tells the details of the construction of the Tabernacle. Some get bored with the many details given here but the details are not incidental. Because of the detail given many have constructed scale models of the Tabernacle. Also the details are painting a picture of the person and work of Christ. What? Yes, a portrait of Christ in the Old Testament. Books have been written on the subject but I'll just recommend J. Vernon McGee's for the curious. Excellent. There are lessons even in the materials used [silver speaks of redemption, brass speaks of judgement, gold- the deity of Christ and wood the humanity of Christ... and the list goes on. The clothes of the priests likewise speak of Christ. This is why a lifetime study of the Word of God is profitable. You will not master this Book in one reading.

[Andrea Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

What overwhelmed me (in a good way) this time around (January 2018) was how many details God gave Moses on how to design the tabernacle. There are oodles of intricacies in there, which further made me appreciate how much God cares about the numerous details of my daily life and the plan He has for my time here on earth. I am eternally grateful for His wisdom and attention to the smallest of details.

I was not compensated for my honest review.

[Ryan Jung · Rating 2 out of 5]

Exodus had a lot going for it at the beginning, since the first twenty or so chapters played out as a single, contiguous story with no glaring self-contradictions, unlike Genesis, which clashed with its own words on the regular. The back half of the book, however, became a real slog in quite the opposite way as Genesis. Where Genesis couldn't keep its story straight, Exodus definitely does, by laying out several chapters of rules for the descendents of Abraham to follow, often to an excruciating level of detail, and then repeating those rules - usually in the same exact language - over several more chapters as the characters execute them. Really, from about Chapter 21 onward, this book lost a ton of favor with me. And while this section repeats itself thoroughly and consistently, it also serves as a giant contradiction to the first half.

There are also some oddities. As a person born into Catholicism but who drifted away as critical thought took hold, I'm particularly interested in all the stories in the Bible that were not told to us as children and in church. Exodus begins with one such story in the second chapter in which Moses outright murders an Egyptian for "smiting an Hebrew". Normally I wind up a little irked by these stories because of the way they gloss over horrible things with no critical thought (like the childish way the Noah's Ark story gets told to children, focusing on garish drawings of cute animals living on a boat in harmony and ignoring the fact that God is committing global, multi-species genocide to no apparent positive effect and requiring incest for the continuation of all species), but this was a case where I thought the nasty bit helped the story out. It establishes Moses early on as a person who isn't going to put up with the abuse the Egyptians are exerting on the Hebrews.

That said, the back half of the book - the part with all the laws handed down by God - winds up endorsing slavery in quite thorough, specific ways. Chapter 21:2-11 clearly describe the ways in which human chattel are to be treated. They must work in slavery for six years before being set free in the seventh (and this work-six-rest-seven pattern is very common throughout these laws, often being attributed to the contradicting six day creation stories from Genesis). If the slave is married, his wife gets to leave, too. But not if the wife had kids; then the wife and the kids both still belong to the slavemaster. The slave can choose to remain in slavery, too, if they want, and if that happens and "the judges" agree, he gets a shiny gold earring and becomes the slavemaster's property forever, no take backs. Female servants are not granted the rights of freedom that male servants are. So this does end up being a bit of a contradiction as well. God doesn't like it when Hebrews are made to be slaves and is willing to do a lot to free them from slavery, but he's totally fine if the Hebrews take each other to be slaves, and establishes a full set of rules to govern that slavery.

While we're on the subject of morality, this is a fine time to bring up the ten commandments. Interestingly, these get dropped in Chapter 20, but don't get referred to as "the ten commandments" until Chapter 34. Also interestingly, these aren't immediately identifiable as "the ten commandments" because they're surrounded by literally hundreds of other commandments. Most of the other commandments are extremely self-aggrandizing. They involve unbelievably minute details of how to build and decorate a tabernacle and an ark and how to place the ark in the tabernacle (it goes on, and I'll circle back to it).

But the Big Ten... Well, they're mostly not the moral guidepost they're made out to be. The first four are all about worshipping God and make no moral statements whatsoever. Don't make any "graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above" (a commandment which the Rennaissance painters routinely violated, as well as the baroque artists that the Inquisition was so fond of). Don't serve any other gods (one of a number of passages in the Old Testament where God acknowledges he's not the only god). Don't "take the name of the LORD thy God in vain". Keep holy the sabbath.

The fifth could be construed as a moral statement - "Honour thy father and thy mother" - although I think anybody thinking critically would put caveats on that. Some parents are not worth honoring. A small bevy of pretty agreeable moral codes come next - don't kill, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't be a dick to your neighbors - but the tenth is one I take some umbrage with. "Thou shalt not covet" various things is a thought crime, and not something anyone should be held accountable for.

As I said before, this is followed by an enormous list of other commandments that runs - no joke - all the way through the end of Chapter 31. Among these commandments are the rules of slavery mentioned earlier, nine full verses on how to deal with atrocities commited by oxen, and many entire chapters on how to deck out a tabernacle. That tabernacle is bedecked in gold, by the way, and jewels, and fine linens of various colors with gold woven through them. It's very extravagant, very ostentatious, and will be directly contradicted in the New Testament when Jesus tells us rich people are bastards. After all of these very specific, very intricate, very boring rules are relayed to Moses, he goes and tells all his people about them, and they go and build the ark and tabernacle. This information is relayed to the reader with a chapters-long copy-paste of the previous several chapters. This was an almost unbearable portion of the book to read, and had a lot to do with this getting a two-star rating instead of a three-star rating.

There are some other oddities scattered throughout the book. In Exodus 4:22-25, we get a weird thing where Moses, who has grown up as an Egyptian and is just now discovering his Hebrew heritage, realizes his son (by an Egyptian mother named Zipporah) isn't circumcised. "Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me." I can completely relate to Zipporah here because I do not understand this lust for foreskin the God character has. Male circumcision, being completely unnecessary from a medical and biological point of view, is pretty nasty to begin with, but doing it with bronze age technology - a sharp stone - is fucking brutal. I don't want to gloss over how completely disgusting this demand for foreskins is. Nevertheless, it's of utmost importance to these people, and not apparently for issues of cleanliness. Moses here is worried that Pharoah won't pay any attention to his pleas for his people's freedom because he is uncircumcised himself, and therefore not obviously Hebrew.

Circumcision is not the only gross thing crossing the Genesis-Exodus barrier. Moses is the son of his father and his father's aunt, so there's that whole incest thing again.

Anyway, I did mention that the first half of the book was actually pretty compelling, and I mostly enjoyed it. It's a pretty classic tale that's been retold in a number of different settings ever since. Moses is sent away from his Hebrew home as an infant to be found and raised by Egyptian enslavers. He grows up to rediscover his origins and becomes a speaker for his people. With supernatural help from beyond the tangible world, he leads his people to freedom. Good stuff.

But I don't understand much of God's motivations throughout this part, which kind of tempered my enjoyment of it. God outright says he wants to help Moses, but he also prevents Moses from achieving his goal many times over. He begins by having Moses compete with Pharoah's court magicians (weird) with things like turning a staff into a snake and back again and turning a river into blood, then keeps inflicting various sufferings upon Pharoah and the Egyptians - plagues and flaming hail and the destruction of crops. Each one should be convincing or humbling, and God even acknowledges that, but each time, God "hardens Pharoah's heart". This indicates to me that God is unnecessarily escalating things, punishing Pharoah for actions he makes Pharoah commit.

The final blow involves God killing everyone's firstborn son except for those of the Hebrews who slaughter a lamb and paint lamb's blood on the posts and tops of their front door, again perpetuating this blood sacrifice. God loves bloodshed in his name, flesh burned in his name, foreskins excised with sharp stones in his name, extravagances built in his name. And he pays it back in death. The Red Sea is parted so that Moses and his Hebrews can cross it, but Pharoah's army's chariots are destroyed in the middle, and the waters closed down upon them, killing scores of men in a violent drowning.

But now the Hebrew people are lost in the middle east with limited supplies, and they wonder how they're going to survive with no food in the desert. Thus begins what is easily my favorite part of this book, and something that was never once read to me as a kid. In a perfect fantasy story scenario, God drops "manna" on the ground every morning (except for the sabbath). It's a thin, flaky, breadlike substance that sustains the Hebrews for quite some time. They eat their fill every morning, and the rest of it rots and disappears by the end of the day. On the day before the sabbath (the sixth day), the manna that falls is enough for two days' sustenance and does not rot until the end of the sabbath. I got this amazing visual in my head of these people waking up in the morning to find a magical bready dew covering the ground. It's the most perfect visual I've gotten while reading the Bible so far, due in large part to how terse most of the language is. This is the first case where something is described in more than half a sentence's detail.

Moses and his brother Aaron (who does most of the talking for Moses, who, by his own admission, is "ineloquent" and "slow of speech, and of a slow tongue"), convene with God a few times, but when the ten commandments are given on Mount Sinai, Aaron is back at the Hebrew camp going along with everyone's plan to defy God and build a golden calf to worship. God doesn't really punish them for this because Moses delivers the word of God to them, and they shape up pretty quick.

However, having just said, "Thou shalt not kill," God almost immediately instructs the Hebrews to go and kill people of other tribes. In 32:37, God says, "Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor." So there's that contradiction again. Yes, this is twelve chapters after "Thou shalt not kill" but in terms of chronology, it's pretty immediate; most of the intervening chapters are just God rattling off orders. Some of the stranger and more oddly specific things to note in this section are...

* Altars are to be "unhewn" and made of single pieces of stone or wood. To "hew" the altar is to "pollute" it.
* One is not to approach an altar by walking up stairs to it (which is how things are laid out in literally every church I've ever been in) because that might expose one's genitals to God.
* You can beat your servants, but don't kill them. If you kill them, God will punish you. But if you beat them and they survive two days, you're all good.
* If you beat a pregnant woman and she miscarries, you're in trouble.
* You have to marry any unmarried woman you have sex with.
* "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
* "Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death."

I feel like I'm going on forever about crazy laws, but that's fair because there are twenty whole chapters about it. Regarding the tabernacle, here are a few of the many, many, many rules around building it and decorating it.

* There should be a table made of shittim wood (almost everything is made with shittim wood), two cubits by one cubit by one and a half cubits, and "thou shalt overlay it with pure gold" (almost all of the wood is covered or bordered in gold). There should be gold rings on almost everything as well.
* There should be a candlestick made of a single chunk of gold, and there should be four bowls on the candlestick with "a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same, according to the six branches that proceed out of the candlestick." I believe this is describing what we now call a menorah.
* "And thou shalt make loops of blue upon the edge of the one curtain from the selvedge in the coupling..."

This sort of thing goes on for chapter after chapter after chapter, and completely turned me off. Eventually, it ends with the people building the ark of the testimony (called the ark of the covenant in some printings and in popular culture) and the tabernacle of the testimony. In a sense, it's a good ending to the book because the main conflict is resolved and it's a happy ending, more or less. It just takes way too long to get there. This was worse than reading Tolkein.

I want to close this review out by talking about the truth of the story. This is only important to me because people make truth claims about this story. There are ongoing conflicts in the middle east today that have spawned from the notion of the enslavement of the Hebrews in Egypt and whether the land they left it for is "theirs" in any meaningful way.

It seems that basically nothing in this story is actually verifiable, though. Archaeologists have searched for centuries trying to find evidence of Hebrews wandering around Egypt, to no avail. Nobody has ever discovered the tabernacle of the testimony, despite the story telling of how it's built with some very notable features and a shitload of solid gold. The ark of the covenant has never been located. The best we've gotten is "some people in Somalia say they have it, but won't let anyone see it". And if nobody's allowed to see it, then it can't be verified, and let's be honest, it's probably not the ark of the covenant.

I'm not overly concerned with the truth of this as far as my reading of it and rating and general enjoyment of it... But let's just get it out of the way... It's probably not a true story. It appears to be completely unsubstantiated. Ultimately, I'll recommend the first half of Exodus to people; it's a pretty good read. But you really have to ignore a good chunk of it to be able to say that.

[Bud Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exodus is incredible. I never studied any of these stories, no church as a kid, just have heard the stories in it in various forms adapted in various pieces of media. I’m not religious, I don’t worship. I’m interested in God as a being of change, who learns and adapts as they go, slowly switches modes, learns to be God as they go. Who goes from solitary artist/architect to the grand public reveal—curtain lifted. It happens over millions of years Genesis through Exodus, but by the end of this second of five Books of Moses, we see God emerge as one of the most interesting literary characters ever created.

The Book of Genesis introduces us to God, who creates the earth and all its beasts, including man. Unhappy with being disobeyed by Adam and Eve, Cain, and their descendants, God destroys the earth and all mankind except for Noah. God washes away the toys and the toy box.

God starts fresh with an all new mankind descendant from Noah, the only guy he likes. The descendants of Noah he likes just as much and he keeps this second attempt at life on earth going long enough that eventually God begins to like a whole segment of society. God has his bois, God’s bois are made men in the holy mafia. The rules don’t apply to them. They misbehave and others are punished but not God’s bois. God begins to really go to bat for his most entertaining toys.


Exodus, picks up right as God begins to undergo a major change, still just as wrathful but now reluctant to wipe out the entire population of the planet. The toys in the toy box he enjoys most have been enslaved by the Egyptians. God’s favorite of all his toys, Moses, he begins to speak directly to, has long conversations with, shows burning bushes to, but Moses keeps denying the charge that he should become the leader of his people and break them loose from captivity. He says to God, who am I? I’m a humble guy, I stutter, I get nervous. Please pick someone else. God says no, you’re the guy and your older brother will be your prophet who will speak of your word to the people you will lead them all and you will threaten the Pharaoh, and I will bestow superpowers onto you to scare the shit out of the Pharaoh.


God is doing something specific here, putting on a show of power so the people of earth will become aware and begin to worship God. But what’s most interesting is that God hardens the Pharaoh’s heart so the Pharaoh has no free will to let the Israelites go. His wants to demonstrate to everyone alive just how powerful they are so they’ll become famous for these feats of wonder/terror.

Each time Moses and Aaron come and warn if the Israelites are not released an increasingly brutal sign and wonder will happen, a new plague unto Egypt, the Pharaoh is forced by god to deny the release. So here come the terrors. Beginning with rivers of blood and then endless frogs and so on all through locusts and the murder by God of every first born child currently alive in Egypt.


God has gotten so jealous that people are worshipping golden gods and other little Gods that are beneath God … it’s time to have a big super bowl show and make the earth aware that they are the biggest God of all and all others are false and Moses’ people have been picked to be his first worshippers. God is even going to specifically tell Moses’ people how to worship them.

A great escape ensues. The Israelites flee into the wilderness. And here comes the parting of the Red Sea. It’s easy actually to see why some ppl call Exodus the greatest story ever told. It’s so personal and so epic. Personal not only for Moses but for God themselves who is just learning to be the God of a specific people. If we are going to make a case for dropping thousands of other Gods and just worshipping the One, then the God we’d want to stick with would be the one who’d work hard to try and meet us in the middle. The one who would change enough for us to want to worship them, make us feel special, all that.


Once freed from the Egyptians we get out into the dusty wilderness and God appears on Mt. Sinai and gives Moses the rule book on stone tablets … at first the rules are a little longer but Moses smashes them in disgust seeing the Israelites worshipping a golden calf when he finally comes down off the mountain (after conferring for 40 days and 40 nights, just like Noah’s flood-time) and the rules get a little more succinct.


My coworker Todd asked me how anybody would know about what happens in Genesis. I figure if Moses goes up the mountain and hangs out for forty days, God finally gets to talking, finally has a toy he likes to talk to enough that the history of earth itself would spill out. Forty days is a long time to tell your story. There’s a lot more to say about the first two Books of Moses, Genesis and Exodus, but I’ll wait till I finish the other three Books of Moses and probably I won’t bother saying it publicly.

Myths and origin books of worship are fascinating and show so much about the people who we live with, not as faithful or unfaithful but as flawed humans capable of great things as well as terrible things. The King James Bible is something I’m thrilled to read and to think about, to begin to understand the people who are on this earth with me, lots of them either influenced by this book or by the culture that has multiplied out from it and made art that points back at the Bible, often misunderstanding what is written in it because so many just do not read anything first hand and think about what it says, for themselves and for their own life. Not that I claim to do that. I just know so very little about what is actually in the Old Testament that I feel I can see it fresh, despite having encountered pieces of the story piecemeal.

[Guillermo Escalona]

Solid sequel to genesis but the pacing is all over the place. Might or might not finish the series

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exodus is such a foundational piece. It establishes God's expectations for the people of Israel after He brings them out of the land of Egypt. But what's really intriguing to me is what's left in the footnotes. I recently read that understanding Hebrew is so beneficial to reading the Bible, and that becomes apparent in said footnotes. There, you find translations of what words mean in Hebrew compared to what you're likely reading in English. It's been super insightful for me, and if you happen to be on a Bible reading journey, I highly recommend doing research on Hebrew words in the Bible! There are quite a lot, of course.

A fun fact I learned while reading Exodus was about Yahweh's origins, correctly spelled as YHWH. First and foremost, YHWH is a term meant to reference God. It is derived from the Hebrew word for "I am" and is most nearly believed to mean "He Brings into Existence Whatever Exists." The vowel signs were added as the original text of the Hebrew Bible was being reproduced. Just in case anyone wanted to fact-check me on this information or do a deeper dive, I found the information about YHWH's origins in a Britannica topic: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yahweh

I'm being slightly stingy with my rating because I know the early books of the Bible so well. However, I want to branch out and understand other books of the Bible as well as I do the first ones. Perhaps it's not even just the early books, but the ones people love teaching to kids. Not to say that those aren't absolutely essential, but it's time for me to get an even deeper understanding of the Word. :)

[Laura and Literature · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friend and I did a little deep dive into Gods character from verses 1-6.

He knows, he sees, he remembers, he redeems.

Although he allowed his people to go through harsher prosecution, he had the promise of redemption!

[Maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book houses the Ten Commandments

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exodus is one of my favorite books of the Bible.

[Lizzie S]

The first half of Exodus is definitely a faster read than the second. The beginning focuses, as the name would suggest, on the Israelites exodus from Egypt, and is an entertaining recounting of the plagues and of the escape through the Red Sea. The latter portions of Exodus focus more on the laws given by God to the Israelites - the ten commandments, a detailed overview of how specific misdoings should be responded to, and a very, very thorough description of how specific aspects of the tabernacle should be built. While important, this section was just a little bit harder to work my way through.

On to Leviticus!

[Brian O'Connor]

While Moses saw some exciting times, Exodus didn’t grip me quite the same way as Genesis did.

Needlessly detailed and repetitive at times. To be honest I’m not quite sure that I needed to know exactly how to build an altar, exactly what size the curtains needed to be and exactly how to construct a tabernacle.

I am quite sure, however, that I didn’t need to be told all of this twice.

With that said, there were a few good parts. The 10 plagues on Egypt, god providing manna from the heavens, the war with the amaleks & the 10 commandments stood out. Even the parts describing some of the legal system were quite good.

Also it turns out God’s name is Jealous. Who knew?

[Hannah:) · Rating 4 out of 5]

one of my less favourite books of the Bible because it's so technical... but yeah still finished... also pretty powerful in how God acts with Moses n them

[Marlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

1/30/2025-2/12/2025 with The Bible Recap
1/30/2024 - 2/12/2024 with The Bible Recap
2/1/2024 - 2/29/2024 with the kids (The Message)

[Sol Harris · Rating 2 out of 5]

The second book in God’s long-running Bible series is a big improvement over Genesis.

It’s more narratively-focused upfront as it deals with the story of Moses v Pharaoh. This stuff is actually quite entertaining if you can ignore how God is a complete and total sociopath who happily kills the firstborn of everyone and everything in Egypt (unless they paint a blood cross on their doors). Even the firstborn animals are killed and they couldn’t possibly be expected to paint a blood cross on their doors given that God didn’t give them the ability to think and reason on that level or, indeed, opposable thumbs. The most fucked up thing here though is that God is killing people in order to punish OTHER people. Think about that for one second. This isn’t capital punishment — it’s quite genuinely the most evil, vindictive behaviour I can think of. Anyone who reads this and comes away on the side of God has something wrong with them.

Unfortunately, the book then swiftly descends into long, long lists of laws (The Ten Commandments being the famous ones but there are countless lesser commandments that follow).

In fact, they’re IMMEDIATELY followed by the rules of slave ownership — namely that you’re allowed to buy slaves, but you have to let them go after seven years of servitude. If they come packed with a wife when you buy them, they get to keep their wife when they go free (women are also property, but that doesn’t count as slavery). If, however, you gave your slave a wife as a gift, then you get to keep the wife when the slave goes free. It’s a bit like a company car.

If your slave sires any children then you get to keep those as well. They’re basically bonus slaves. This is a bit like how you can regrow spring onions if you don’t use the whole thing when you’re cooking. Just buy one slave, make sure they have children and then those kids can take over as slaves afterwards. Rinse repeat. If you think that sounds fucked, well I don’t know what to tell you. It’s in The Bible.

You’d think that this slavery stuff immediately following The Ten Commandments might undermine their importance a little bit. Obviously we don’t put any weight in these 11th-20th commandments so why are we supposed to take the first ten seriously?

Other insane rules laid out in Exodus include very, very pernickety instructions for how you absolutely MUST eat a lamb before Passover and you HAVE to be gluttonous about it. But I know what you’re thinking — don’t you dare boil that lamb in its mother’s milk. The book repeatedly tells us that that’s bang out of order. I think it’s probably a bit like eating chicken and eggs together. Or feeding sausages to a pig. It’s just a bit weird.

While slavery is morally sound, eating leavened bread at the wrong time is punishable by being exiled from Israel and working on The Sabbath Day is punishable by death. God clearly has his priorities in order. Turn a light on on a Saturday (God says Sunday is the start of the week like an American. He probably uses the insane mm/dd/yy date formate too) and you get stoned.

After all these rules, we’re treated to reams of instructions regarding how to build an ark. Not a boat this time, though. This ark is the one out of Indiana Jones, but it isn’t a cool Nazi face-melter. It’s just something to keep some records in.

I looked up what the word “ark” actually means, assuming it must be something like “container” or “vessel”. Apparently, it specifically means either “Noah’s boat” or “that box God told them to make with records in it”. I know language is stupid sometimes but this is particularly egregious. Why have we decided to give two proper nouns the normal noun treatment when The Bible is so keen on us capitalising words that aren’t supposed to be capitalised like “He”?

Just like Genesis, Exodus is pretty terribly written. God has no sense of pacing or story structure. The book is rambling and frequently repeats the same points it made several pages ago almost verbatim as though it were written by a drunk harassing someone at the bar.

It continues God’s bizarre obsession with circumcision from Genesis, with Moses repeatedly referring to his “uncircumcised lips” whatever the hell that means. Like no one chopped his lips off?

Most bizarrely, the book features a musical number after the bit where Moses parts the sea and then it comes back together, drowning all the Egyptians in the process. It’s the better part of a page long. It’s kind of like those completely inane songs you get throughout The Hobbit. Except, at least there, it sort of makes sense that the characters would break into song. This is a completely non-diegetic sequence where everyone just knows a song out of nowhere and they decide to perform it, like in a musical. It’s the most batshit thing I’ve come across in The Bible so far which is saying something.

Also of note: this is the book that introduces the concept of manna. I’ve always been under the impression that manna from Heaven was this mystical, unknown food that God created for everyone to sustain them, but as it’s written in the book, it practically comes with the recipe attached. It’s described as “like wafers made from honey” that taste like white coriander seed. Gee, anyone tried making a honey wafer and putting some white coriander seed in it? I’ve got a hunch.

Anyway, this book is dumb but the more narratively-driven stuff with Moses is about as good as any old fantasy bullshit like, say, Lord of the Rings.

3/10

[Mariè]

Exodus is all about moses, the flood, the plagues and the ten commandments. Where people purposefully defy the word of god and go against everything moses and aaron showed them. I find it as a sort of on the flip side to Genesis and after a few hours of contemplating it (eventhough at first i had negative feelings towards that) was a sort of revelation moment. I understood more of humanity because of the opposites and schism of humanity and the LORD between genesis and exodus. A very fascinating read whether you follow the book or not

[Alicia McCallum]

Well, it took me a year and a month to read through Exodus, but to be fair we moved cities during that time. I am so glad I read it. I want to find a better way to phrase this, but can’t think of how to, so I’ll just use the cliche line - I got so much out of reading this. So much.

Down the road I want to read through the bible again with commentary and explanations in more of a bible study way, but right now I am loving just reading through it plain and simple.

[Annabel Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half of it was carrying on in the narrative style of Genesis and was more enjoyable and the second half after the 10 commandments was boring and detailed and confusing. Old Testament is a sloggg, I know it’s going to get worse before it gets better but watching the Bible Project videos helps to give context.