Old Testament
Exodus
Exodus tells the founding story of Israel, rescued from slavery in Egypt, led through the sea, and met at Sinai. It shows a God who hears, comes down, and makes a way out, and who longs to dwell among his people.
Exodus 2
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 2:24
God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
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Exodus 3
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 3:14
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
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Exodus 4
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 4:10
Moses said to the LORD, “O Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before now, nor since you have spoken to your servant; for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.”
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Exodus 5
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 5:6-18
The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying, “You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick, as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. You shall require from them the number of the bricks which they made before. You shall not diminish anything of it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, saying, ‘Let’s go and sacrifice to our God.’ Let heavier work be laid on the men, that they may labour in it. Don’t let them pay any attention to lying words.” The taskmasters of the people went out with their officers, and they spoke to the people, saying, “This is what Pharaoh says: ‘I will not give you straw. Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it, for nothing of your work shall be diminished.’” So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. The taskmasters were urgent saying, “Fulfil your work quota daily, as when there was straw!” The officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and were asked, “Why haven’t you fulfilled your quota both yesterday and today, in making brick as before?” Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, saying, “Why do you deal this way with your servants? No straw is given to your servants, and they tell us, ‘Make brick!’ and behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people.” But Pharaoh said, “You are idle! You are idle! Therefore you say, ‘Let’s go and sacrifice to the LORD.’ Go therefore now, and work; for no straw shall be given to you; yet you shall deliver the same number of bricks!”
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Exodus 6
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 6:6-7
Therefore tell the children of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgements. I will take you to myself for a people. I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
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Exodus 12
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 12:3-10
Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household; and if the household is too little for a lamb, then he and his neighbour next to his house shall take one according to the number of the souls. You shall make your count for the lamb according to what everyone can eat. Your lamb shall be without defect, a male a year old. You shall take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at evening. They shall take some of the blood, and put it on the two door posts and on the lintel, on the houses in which they shall eat it. They shall eat the meat in that night, roasted with fire, with unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs. Don’t eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire; with its head, its legs and its inner parts. You shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; but that which remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire.
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Exodus 13
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 13:19
Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had made the children of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones away from here with you.”
Discussed in: - Exodus 13:21
The LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them on their way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light, that they might go by day and by night:
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Exodus 14
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 14:14
The LORD will fight for you, and you shall be still.”
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Exodus 16
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 16:4
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from the sky for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.
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Exodus 19
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 19:4
‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to myself.
Discussed in: - Exodus 19:16-18
On the third day, when it was morning, there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain, and the sound of an exceedingly loud trumpet; and all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the lower part of the mountain. All of Mount Sinai smoked, because the LORD descended on it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.
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Exodus 20
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 20:2
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
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Exodus 24
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 24:18
Moses entered into the middle of the cloud, and went up on the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
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Exodus 27
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 27:20-21
“You shall command the children of Israel, that they bring to you pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually. In the Tent of Meeting, outside the veil which is before the covenant, Aaron and his sons shall keep it in order from evening to morning before the LORD: it shall be a statute forever throughout their generations on the behalf of the children of Israel.
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Exodus 32
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 32:12
Why should the Egyptians talk, saying, ‘He brought them out for evil, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the surface of the earth?’ Turn from your fierce wrath, and turn away from this evil against your people.
Discussed in: - Exodus 32:28
The sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. About three thousand men fell of the people that day.
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Exodus 33
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 33:2-3
I will send an angel before you; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Go to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up amongst you, for you are a stiff-necked people, lest I consume you on the way.”
Discussed in: - Exodus 33:3-5
Go to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up amongst you, for you are a stiff-necked people, lest I consume you on the way.” When the people heard this evil news, they mourned; and no one put on his jewellery. The LORD had said to Moses, “Tell the children of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go up amongst you for one moment, I would consume you. Therefore now take off your jewellery from you, that I may know what to do to you.’”
Discussed in: - Exodus 33:7
Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far away from the camp, and he called it “The Tent of Meeting.” Everyone who sought the LORD went out to the Tent of Meeting, which was outside the camp.
Discussed in: - Exodus 33:15
Moses said to him, “If your presence doesn’t go with me, don’t carry us up from here.
Discussed in: - Exodus 33:18
Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”
Discussed in: - Exodus 33:19-20
He said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the LORD’s name before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” He said, “You cannot see my face, for man may not see me and live.”
Discussed in: - Exodus 33:20
He said, “You cannot see my face, for man may not see me and live.”
Discussed in: - Exodus 33:22-23
It will happen, while my glory passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you will see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”
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Exodus 34
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 34:6
The LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, “The LORD! The LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth,
Discussed in: - Exodus 34:6-7
The LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, “The LORD! The LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth, keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the children’s children, on the third and on the fourth generation.”
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Exodus 40
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Exodus 40:34-35
Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the LORD’s glory filled the tabernacle. Moses wasn’t able to enter into the Tent of Meeting, because the cloud stayed on it, and the LORD’s glory filled the tabernacle.
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More about Exodus
Exodus is the story Israel never stopped telling about itself. A people enslaved in Egypt, crying out under the weight of it, and a God who hears and comes down to do something. If Genesis is about beginnings, Exodus is about rescue: the night they were spared, the sea that opened, the long walk into freedom, and the mountain where God gave them a way to live. Much of the rest of the Bible looks back to this moment as the proof of what God is like. He is not distant. He notices suffering, and he acts.
At the heart of the book is a strange and wonderful exchange between God and Moses. Having brought the people out, God proposes to lead them, and Moses will not settle for anything less than God's own presence going with them. In Exodus 33:16 he presses the point: what would set this people apart from every other nation, if not that the Lord himself goes with them? It is a bold prayer, and God says yes. That longing, for God to lead us himself rather than just point the way, is something many of us carry. Moses simply put words to it.
Exodus is also where law enters the story, and that can feel off-putting at first. But the commandments come after the rescue, not before it. God does not say obey me and then I will save you. He saves first, freely, and then teaches a freed people how to live as his own. The order matters enormously. Grace comes before the rules, which means the rules were never meant to earn anything. They were a way of staying close to the God who had already come close to them.
If you read Exodus today, watch for how often God repeats that he has heard, he has seen, he has come down. It is easy to feel unseen, stuck in something you cannot get yourself out of. The God of this book specialises in exactly that situation. He does not promise an easy road; the wilderness is right there in the second half, with all its complaints and failures. What he promises is his presence, going with us, making a way where there was none. Take it slowly, and let the rescue reassure you.
Questions about Exodus
- What does the Exodus story mean for us today?
- At its simplest, Exodus says that God hears people who are trapped and suffering, and that he acts to set them free. For Israel it was deliverance from slavery in Egypt; for Christians it became a picture of a deeper rescue from everything that holds us. The pattern is what carries across the centuries. God notices, God comes near, and God makes a way out where there seemed to be none. If you feel stuck, the Exodus is a reminder that being unseen is not the same as being forgotten.
- Why did Moses ask for God's presence to go with them?
- In Exodus 33 God offers to send an angel ahead of the people rather than going himself, and Moses refuses to accept it. In 33:16 he asks what could possibly mark this people out as God's own if the Lord's own presence did not go with them. It is one of the most moving prayers in Scripture, because Moses understood that the gift was never the land or the success. The gift was God himself. Many of us pray something like it without realising: lead me, but only if you come too.
- Did the Exodus really happen, and who wrote the book?
- Tradition ascribes Exodus to Moses, and that is how it comes to us in the Bible, though the book does not set out its own authorship in detail and scholars debate the history. We would rather be honest than overclaim. What we can say is that the Exodus sits at the very centre of Israel's memory and worship, retold at every Passover, and that the New Testament treats it as real and meaningful. Its truth as Scripture has never depended on settling every historical question.
Topics in Exodus
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