Exodus

Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Tremper Longman III, David E. Garland

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9780310531739
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

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• Reflections to give expanded thoughts on important issues

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Text and Exposition

I. DIVINE REDEMPTION (1:1–18:27)

A. Fulfilled Multiplication and Forced Eradication (1:1–22)

OVERVIEW

Exodus opens with the phrase, “And these are the names.” These words remind us that the book of Exodus is connected to the book of Genesis with its promise made to the patriarchs that God would increase the twelve sons of Jacob by multiplying their “seed.” Thus this population explosion points back to the divine promise in Genesis as much as it points forward to what is to come. However, three hundred silent years have passed between the end of the story of Joseph in Genesis 37–50 and its resumption here is Exodus(c.1800–1400 BC).

1. The Promised Increase (1:1–7)

OVERVIEW

The three prominent subjects of Exodus are (1) God’s plan for deliverance (Ex 1–19), (2) God’s guidance for morality (Ex 20–24), and (3) God’s order for worship (Ex 25–40). As the writer begins his work, however, another prominent fact that governs the whole theology of Exodus is immediately set forth: vv.1–7 are a virtual commentary on the ancient promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that their seed would be as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands of the sea (e.g., Ge 15:5; 22:17). In fact, as though to underscore this connection with Genesis, vv.1–4 virtually repeat Genesis 35:22–26; v.5 is a reiteration of Genesis 46:27; v.6 of Genesis 50:26; and v.7 of Genesis 1:28.

There are, however, new features in these verses. The reference to “families” or “households” in v.1 is new, as is Joseph’s being treated separately from his brothers in v.5. So also is the notice in v.6 that “all that generation” along with Jacob’s twelve sons had died.

History, at once the scandal and the uniqueness of biblical faith, is the sphere of God’s revelation. While heathenism and modern scientific naturalism affirm that only nature is ultimately real, Greek philosophy and Oriental mysticism attempt to extricate humanity from both nature and time. In Exodus, both nature and time are real and not nuisances; they are participants in the fabric of God’s revelation. Thus our book begins with a list of names and takes us to real places and persons in the Near East.

1These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: 2Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; 3Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; 4Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. 5The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.

6Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.

COMMENTARY

1 The Hebrew title for “Exodus” (w^e ʾēlleh š^emôt, lit., “And these are the names of”) is the same phrase that appears in Genesis 46:8. This is the first example of a literary practice that appears in almost all the historical books of the OT: the use of the simple copulative “and” to begin a book (cf. Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, 2 Chronicles). This feature indicates that the writer is conscious of the fact that he is contributing to an ongoing sequence of revelation and narration. (On this issue, see A. van Selms, “How Do Books of the Bible Commence?” in Biblical Essays: Proceedings of the Ninth Meetings Held in July 1966, ed. A. H. van Zyl [Stellenbosch: Univ. of Stellenbosch Press, 1966], 132–41.)

2–4 The sons of Jacob’s wives, Leah and Rachel, are placed in order of their seniority ahead of the sons of his two concubines—with the exception of Joseph, who is omitted because of the phrase in v.1: “who went to Egypt with Jacob.” They are arranged in three series that are marked off by “and” in the Hebrew text: (1) the first four sons of Leah (Ge 29:31–35) are linked together in v.2; (2) the last two sons of Leah (30:18–20), after she had temporarily ceased bearing children, along with Benjamin, the second son of Rachel (35:18), are separated by an “and” in v.3; and (3) the sons of the handmaid Bilhah and the sons of the handmaid Zilpah (30:6–13) are each joined by “and” in v.4.

5 It is unnecessary to understand the number “seventy” as a symbol of perfection (so Cassuto) or with the misunderstood phrase in Deuteronomy 32:8, that the total number of the nations should be “according to the number of the sons of Israel” (i.e., the seventy in the table of nations of Ge 10). Instead, the family list in Genesis 46 gives this tally: the six men of Leah had twenty-five sons and two grandsons totaling thirty-three; the two sons of Rachel had twelve sons totaling fourteen; Bilhah’s two sons had five sons, contributing seven to the sum, and Zilpah’s two sons had eleven sons, one daughter (apparently counted here), and two grandsons, making sixteen; therefore, thirty-three plus fourteen plus seven plus sixteen equals seventy.

Genesis 46:26–27 starts with the figure of sixty-six (apparently dropping out Er and Onan, since they died in Canaan, as well as deleting Joseph and his two sons, since they were already in Egypt, but adding Dinah so as not to overlook her). To this total of sixty-six are added Joseph, his two sons, and Jacob himself, for a total of seventy. The LXX, however, adds the names of Joseph’s three grandsons and two great-grandsons in Genesis 46:20, for a total in 46:27 of seventy-five. Interestingly enough, the LXX version for Exodus 1:5, Acts 7:14, and one Hebrew manuscript from Qumran (Frank M. Cross, Jr., The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1958; rev. ed., Anchor Books, 1961], 137) all have seventy-five as a total here as well. Regardless of which figure is used (seventy or seventy-five), the number is actual, not figurative. Houtman (Exodus, 1:66) expresses the commonly held view that seventy expresses the “notion of ‘perfection,’ ‘completeness,’ . . . the ideal number of descendants.” (See also comments on Ge 46:8–27.)

6–7 With the vocabulary of God’s promised blessing of multiplication and increase as given to Adam (Ge 1:28), Noah (8:17; 9:1, 7), Abraham (17:2–6; 22:17), Isaac (26:4), and Jacob (28:3, 14; 35:11; 48:4), Moses records that God had been fulfilling his plan during the 430 years that Israel was in Egypt. Verse 7 is unique, for only in this text are the five verbs for growth and increase of the people of Israel used together. Elsewhere, at most only three of these verbs occur together. The author truly wants to emphasize this point.

NOTES

5

(kol-nepeš yōṣ^e ʾê yerek-yaʿ^aqōb) is literally, “all the soul [collective singular] of the ones going out of the thigh of Jacob”—the usual expression for physical generation. The solidarity of the group is clear from the collective singular. The word “soul” here means “person.”

7

(wayyišr^eṣû, “multiplied,” lit., “bred swiftly”) is usually used only of the prolific marine life (Ge 1:20) and insects (Ge 7:21).

2. The First Pogrom (1:8–14)

8Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. 9“Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. 10Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

11So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13and worked them ruthlessly. 14They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Exodus
• Introduction
• I. DIVINE REDEMPTION (1:1–18:27)
• II. DIVINE MORALITY (19:1–24:18)
• III. DIVINE WORSHIP (25:1–40:38)