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Part One
Israel in Egypt (1:1–13:16)
I. The Progeny of Israel, the Persecution, and the Deliverer (1:1–2:25)
II. The Call of the Deliverer, His Commission, and His Obedience (3:1–7:7)
III. The Ten Mighty Acts and the Exodus: The Proof of Yahweh’s Presence (7:8–13:16)
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I. The Progeny of Israel, the Persecution, and the Deliverer (1:1–2:25)
“And These Are the Names” (1:1–7)
Bibliography
Albright, W. F. “Northwest-Semitic Names in a List of Egyptian Slaves from the Eighteenth Century B.C.” JAOS 74 (1954) 222–33. Coats, G. W. “A Structural Transition in Exodus.” VT 22 (1972) 129–42. Cross, F. M., Jr. The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980. Klein, R. W. Textual Criticism of the Old Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974. Noth, M. Die israelitischen Personennamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung. BWANT III, 10. Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1928. Vriezen, Th. C. “Exodusstudien Exodus I.” VT 17 (1967) 334–53.
Translation
1Anda these are the names of the sons of Israel, the ones who went down into Egypt with Jacobb—to a man they went, each with his family: 2Reuben (“Behold, a son!”), Simeon (“He Surely Heard!”), Levi (“Joined”) and Judah (“Object of Praise”), 3Issachar (“There is recompense”), Zebulun (“Honored”) and Benjamin (“Son of the Right Hand”), 4Dan (“Judge”) and Naphtali (“My Wrestling”), Gad (“Good Fortune”) and Asher (“Happy One”).a 5Thus was the full issue of the loins of Jacob seventya souls, since Joseph (“Increasing One”) was already in Egypt.b
6In time, Joseph died, and his brothers and indeed that entire generation as well.
7But the sons of Israel were fertile, and so they became a teeming swarm. Indeed, they became so many they were a strength to be reckoned with by their numbers alone. The land was simply filled with them.
Notes
This opening passage of Exodus functions as a compact transitional unit that summarizes that part of the preceding Genesis narrative that is essential to what follows, states a new and discontinuous situation, and anticipates the progress of the family of Jacob/Israel toward their birth, in exodus and at Sinai, as the people of God.
Source critics have tended to favor the assignment of v 6 to the Yahwist, because of a supposed connection with the final verse of Genesis (Fohrer, 9), or with Exod 1:8 (Vriezen, VT 17 [1967] 335). There is no convincing reason for such a division of this unit, however. It is better taken as a carefully composed introductory section from the Priestly source (Noth, 20; Coats, VT 22 [1972] 133), strategically placed to afford an ingenious bridge (see Comment below).
As such, this passage links both person and purpose in the patriarchal history to person and purpose in the story of the exodus, and it connects the promise of progeny to the patriarchs with the fulfillment of that promise in the patriarchs’ greatly multiplied descendants in Egypt. Above all, it combines these themes to impel the narrative forward into the next stage of its development and into the fulfillment of the second part of the promise to the fathers, the promise of land.
Comment
1 The Book of Exodus opens with a phrase that serves also as its Hebrew name:
“And these are the names.” This phrase is a carefully chosen and precisely placed connecting link, a bridge from the promise of descendants to Jacob and his sons to a reality of descendants that makes an exodus from Egypt a necessity. Indeed, the first six words of Exod 1:1 are in the Hebrew text an exact quotation of the first six words of Gen 46:8, a clear rhetorical indication of the continuity intended not only in the narrative, but in the underlying theological assertion.
The author of the opening lines of the Book of Exodus quite probably had at hand, in some form, the genealogical list of Gen 46:8–27. There is good reason to suggest that these two passages have the same author, and that an original sequence may have included at least Gen 46:8–27 followed by 47:6–12, 27b–28; then 48:3–7; 49:28–33; 50:12–13; then Exod 1:1–5, 7. The canonical Exodus thus opens with a listing of the essential names of the detailed genealogy of Gen 46:8–27 (the first substantial passage in the patriarchal history from this author after Gen 36:1—37:2a), continues the account of the settlement in Egypt begun in Gen 47:6–12, and amplifies (v 7) the theme of fertility in Egypt introduced in Gen 47:27b and referred to in prospect in Gen 48:3–7.
The narrative regarding Jacob’s desire to be buried in Canaan (Gen 49:28–33 and 50:12–13) and the account of the population explosion in the Egyptian delta (Exod 1:7) both point forward to what is to come, just as the summary of the genealogy of Gen 46:8–27 points backward to what has been promised and thence to what has already com...
