ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK EXODUS DR. DAVID ADAMS #23 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 10 E. 22nd Street Suite 304 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> When I heard that we were going to be studying the books of Moses, I was excited because Genesis is my favorite book. Why are we studying Exodus as well as Genesis? >> Well, that's a really good question, Josh. And it really -- I think it's important as we begin to turn to the book of Exodus now to realize that when we approach the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses as we call them today, that the book of Exodus and the book of Genesis are really components in what is ultimately a single literary work. You know, when we look at these books in our Bible, we see five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. But when the Old Testament talks about this book, it refers to them as a single literary work called the torah by a singular noun in Hebrew. It never refers to the five books of Moses. That's a later distinction. And we know for some books, I and II Kings, that they were originally one book and were simply put on multiple scrolls because they were too big to conveniently read in a synagogue. We don't know really whether the book of -- the Pentateuch was a single book or not at any point in its history. I'm inclined to think that it probably was originally conceived of as a single book. And that it was later divided into five different books for the ease of handling. But we don't know that for sure. And there's no way that we will ever know for sure. But one thing is clear. It's a single literary piece in the sense that it tells a single story and presents a single message. And so whether it was ever a single book or not is really almost an irrelevant question except that we should realize that even when we talk about the book of Genesis and the book of Exodus, one way or another we're talking about a piece of a larger whole. And so when we look at these books as we see them today, we need to recognize the function that they play in the literary whole that we call the Pentateuch or the Old Testament calls the torah. And so the easiest way to answer your question is to take a look at that literary whole. What is this book that we call the torah as a whole? How do -- how does the book of Exodus fit into that whole literary work? And I think if we do that and see how the message as a whole unfolds, then we'll see why we want to study the book of Exodus in this class. The central story of the torah is the account of the redemption of the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt and their establishment as the people of God. This is the message of the Pentateuch as a whole. Now, let's look at how each of the five books contributes to that whole. First, how does Genesis contribute to that whole? Well Genesis is kind of the Old Testament of the Old Testament. In other words, if the central theological events that the Pentateuch relates are found in the book of Exodus, the foundations for that, both literary and historical and theological, are laid in the book of Genesis. Just like the Old Testament lays the foundation for the New Testament. You really couldn't understand the New Testament without knowing the theological and literary and historical foundation of the Old Testament. In the same way, you really can't understand the message of the book of Exodus without the foundation that exists in the book of Genesis. But having said that, it's also easy to see that the book of Genesis is laying the foundation. It's not ultimately the core. It looks forward. You know, in the book of Genesis God gives a lot of promises. But he doesn't fulfill those promises until the book of Exodus and later. And the book of Exodus makes very clear that what's happening here in these events recorded in the book of Exodus is the fulfillment of the promises made in Genesis. So Genesis is foundational both for Exodus, the rest of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The rest of the books look back to what happens in the book of Exodus. You know, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are all played out to what happens in response to the book of Exodus. So they depend upon it as their starting point. So in this sense it's clear that Exodus is the central core of the Pentateuch as a whole. Genesis is the Old Testament of the torah. It lays the foundation. The book of Exodus is kind of divided into two different stories in one sense. Chapters 1 to 14 tell the story that I like to call the drama of redemption. This is the story of how Israel is redeemed. How they are delivered from slavery and bondage into -- in Egypt -- well, I blew that sentence. We'll do that one again. This is the story in -- start over. Chapters 1 to 14 tell the story that I like to call the drama of redemption. This is the story of how God delivers Israel from its bondage to slavery in Egypt. It's the story of Israel's redemption. Chapters 16 to 40 tells a different story. It tells the story of how Israel learns what it means for them to be the people of Yahweh. How they -- how Yahweh makes a covenant with them and how they learn what it means to be his people. Between those two Chapter 15 serves as a bridge. It sort of summarizes the events of Chapters 1 to 14 and then anticipates the events of Chapters 16 to 40. So the book of Exodus kind of falls needily into two major parts. And we'll come back to that when we look at Exodus in detail. The next part of the torah is the part that we call the book of Leviticus. And the book of Leviticus builds upon what happens in the book of Exodus. In the book of Exodus we get the Ten Commandments. And Chapters 21 to 23 contain a summary of the commandments and the instructions that God is going to give his people. In the book of Leviticus we get that material expanded greatly. So after Israel learns what it means to be the people of Yahweh, then they can get the full instruction from God upon how they are to live their lives as his people. So the book of Leviticus then builds upon what Israel learns about being the people of God in the book of Exodus. Then we come to the book of Numbers. In the book of Numbers the story continues. After Israel gets this instruction, they are now prepared to go on and to go to the land that God has promised them already in the book of Genesis and the promises that he renews in the book of Exodus. So once Israel learns what it means to be the people of God, now they have to start living out their lives as the people of God. And they do that as they then leave Mount Sinai and go forth and begin to move toward the land that God has promised them. So in the book of Numbers we see Israel learning to live as Yahweh's people. We see Yahweh fighting for his people and Yahweh beginning to fulfill his promises to -- you know, that he has made to them both in the book of Genesis and in the book of Exodus. Then we come to the last part of the Pentateuch, the part that we call the book of Deuteronomy. And this is sort of -- we might call this a kind of dramatic review. As we reach the end of the story, we now review everything that Israel has learned. Everything that it's learned about how it comes to be the people of Yahweh through the redemption that God has given them. And also what it means for them to live as the people of Yahweh. And they learn this through a series of sermons that Moses delivers to the people. And so the book of Deuteronomy serves to summarize everything that's gone before. Not so much the book of Genesis as the book of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. And so this is the storyline of the Pentateuch as a whole. And when you look at it as a whole literary work, you can see that the centerpiece of this work is the book of Exodus where we get the story of God's deliverance, which is promised beforehand in the book of Genesis. Israel begins to learn what it means to be his people as Yahweh makes a covenant with them. And then that's filled out later in Leviticus and Numbers. And so the reason that -- one reason that we focus on the book of Exodus in this class rather than the book of Genesis is because the book of Exodus is the centerpiece of the Pentateuch to which everything else is related as literature. Now, another reason that we focus here is that theologically the Pentateuch deals with two primary questions. And these two questions are first: Who is Yahweh? And secondly: What does it mean to be the people of Yahweh? These two questions, who is Yahweh and what does it mean to be the people of Yahweh, are explored throughout the entire Pentateuch in different ways. And I think it may be good for us at the beginning here just to summarize the answers that are found so that we'll recognize the importance of the passages as we come to them. First the question: Who is Yahweh? How is this question answered in the Pentateuch? Well, the first answer that's given is that Yahweh is the creator. And we talked in an earlier question about the difference between Israel's understanding of Yahweh as creator and the understanding of the gods as creators in other ancient near eastern religions. You know, in those religions they understood that the gods were creators but the gods were also connected to the world of matter that they had created. And so it's an important theological difference being spelled out there. And we learned that, of course, in the book of Genesis right away, in the first two chapters of the book of Genesis. But it's also repeated throughout the rest of the Pentateuch, as well. The second thing that we learn about Yahweh is that he is the redeemer. And the third thing that we learn about Yahweh is that he is one who acts according to ***kesid. Now, I apologize for using a Hebrew term here. The Hebrew term kesid. But I am going to use this term throughout the course because it's a very important theological word in the book of Exodus. And the problem with it is there's no one good translation in English. The right translation depends quite a bit on what's been said in the context. So there's not just one easy English word that I can substitute for that all the time. So when we come to this word, I'm just going to pronounce the Hebrew word. And then we'll talk about what it means in the context that it's being used and what understanding is being communicated by this word. So the three questions are -- three answers to the question "Who is Yahweh?" is that Yahweh is the creator. Yahweh is the redeemer. And Yahweh is the one who acts in kesid toward his people. Well, let's look at how these three answers are spelled out. How do we know that Yahweh is the creator? Well, first and foremost in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 we see it. But if I were to ask you just based on your pre-existing knowledge of the book of Exodus where in the book of Exodus do we encounter Yahweh as the creator, we might have to stop and think about that. Well, it's not immediately obvious, unless you think about the narratives that we call the plague narratives. There in that case we see Yahweh clearly controlling nature. And especially doing so in such a way as to defeat the Egyptian gods and to prove that he is the one true God and that the Egyptian gods are not the ones that actually control nature. We see it again in the crossing of the Red Sea where God as creator is able to manipulate nature to accomplish his will. In this case the redemption of his people. The second answer, Yahweh is redeemer. And this is really a very important one. Because this is key to the book of Exodus. And interestingly, it's something that we don't learn about God in the book of Genesis at all. You know, as Christians, we are so accustomed to thinking of God as the redeemer, we don't realize that there was a time in the history of God's people when they didn't know that God was the redeemer. It simply isn't mentioned in the book of Genesis. It's not something that we learn about God until we get to the book of Exodus. Now, it is, shall we say, alluded to or foretold in a sense in the book of Genesis in just a couple of places. The first of these is in Genesis Chapter 15. There we read in Genesis 15 Verses 13 to 14, "Yahweh said to Abraham, 'Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there and they will be afflicted for 400 years. But I will bring judgement on the nation that they serve. And afterward they will come out with great possessions.'" Now, this doesn't exactly employ the redeemer language because it -- it employs part of it, the fact that they are in bondage. But it simply says they will come out. It doesn't say that God will come down and deliver them. But that they will come out. And so this -- while this certainly anticipates what God is going to do in the book of Exodus, and as we read it today, it's obvious that this is talking about the book of Exodus, this doesn't exactly teach the Yahweh is redeemer message directly. A more direct expression comes in Genesis Chapter 50 Verses 24 to 25. And this is really at the very end of the book of Genesis. In one sense Genesis ends with Chapter 49 with the blessing upon the sons of Jacob. And Chapter 50 is kind of what in literary circles they might call ***danumua. It's kind of the resolution, the tying up of all the little details of the story after the climax has been reached. And there in the danumua, in this wrapping up the story, we encounter this. "Joseph said to his brothers, 'I am about to die. But God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob.'" And so here in a prophesy given by Joseph, we get the full expression of the redeemer theme. The fact that God himself will come down to his people and will bring them out. Not something that they will escape. But that he will defeat his enemies and that he will overthrow those who are holding them in bondage and deliver them from their slavery, from their bondage. So this is really the only place in the book of Genesis that we get the full-blown redeemer theme. And it's really right at the end in the transitional material between Genesis and Exodus all together. So we really don't discover that Yahweh is the redeemer until we see him fulfilling this prophesy in the book of Exodus. Now, you might ask: What about passages like, oh, say the deliverance of Isaac when Isaac was going to be sacrificed? Now, there we certainly get -- we certainly learn that Yahweh is a savior, that he saves and he delivers. And in some sense there's a kind of substitutionary atonement that takes place. The lamb is supplied as a substitution for Isaac who is going to be sacrificed. But that's not the same as the redeemer theme. You know, not all expressions of God as savior are redeemer themed. There's no God in the deliverance of Isaac. God does not himself come down and deliver Isaac. You know, cut the bonds and lift him off the altar. God himself doesn't deliver Isaac from slavery, which is always an important part of the redeemer theme. So while the deliverance of Isaac is important in the development of the idea of God as savior in general, it doesn't really take up the theme that we call the redeemer theme. That comes in the book of Exodus. And it comes especially in the first 14 chapters of the book of Exodus. There are -- in Exodus 1 to 14 the focus is on the revelation of Yahweh as the redeemer as he brings Israel out of the land of Egypt. The whole story is the story of how Yahweh redeems Israel. And then in Chapter 15 we get the psalm that Moses sings by the seashore, the psalm entitled "I will sing about Yahweh." And the first 12 verses of that song Moses then recounts and summarizes what we've learned in the first 14 chapters. That there is no God like Yahweh who delivers his people and who redeems them from bondage by defeating their enemies. And so the redeemer theme is critical. It's the central theme to the first part of the book of Exodus. Well, the third thing we learn about Yahweh is that Yahweh is one who acts with kesid, that word we were talking about before. Now, we do discover this in Genesis and in Exodus and in the rest of the books of the Pentateuch, as well. In Genesis we see Yahweh acting in kesid, in grace or mercy or faithfulness, toward his people. We see him doing it because he allows his people access to his presence. He allows them to pray to him. So he acts graciously toward them. He acts in kesid or mercy toward them when he provides for their needs. When he protects them from their enemies. When he guides them in their various travels. He is faithful when he promises future blessings and faithful when he begins to fulfill those promises as in the birth of Isaac, for example. So we see Yahweh being revealed as the one who acts in kesid already in the book of Genesis. But this becomes a special theme in the second part of the book of Exodus. And it's introduced already in the theme verse of the second part of the book of Exodus in the poem in Exodus Chapter 15 when we read "Yahweh will lead in kesid those whom he has redeemed." And that verse in a sense becomes the thematic verse of the second part of the book. Also in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 Verses 5 and 6 as Yahweh teaches his people who he is, he tells them that he is one who shows kesid or mercy or grace probably is the best translation here to thousands of generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. So again, we see it at that critical point in the second half of the book. But most importantly we will encounter this in Exodus Chapter 34 Verses 5 to 7, which is really kind of a John 3:16 of the Old Testament where Israel learns most definitively the nature of the God who has called them to be his people. And there he says, "Yahweh is a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kesid, keeping kesid to a thousand generations, forgiving inequity and transgression and sin." And we'll spend some time in the class looking at this verse in detail once we get there. But at all of the critical points in the second part of the book of Exodus, this notion of Yahweh as one who acts in kesid, in grace, in mercy, in faithfulness toward his people becomes a key theme of the book. And so really all three of the answers to the question "Who is Yahweh?" appear prominently in the book of Exodus. He's the one who is the redeemer. He's the one who is already known as creator and the one whom Israel learns to trust as merciful, as kesid, towards them, as gracious to them. Now, the second question we said is: What does it mean for Israel to be the people of Yahweh? And here I think I've just summarized this very briefly as we start to head into the book. Because this will be something we'll talk about quite often as we proceed along. Israel learns that to be the people of Yahweh is to be the redeemed people of Yahweh. And that means that -- it means to recognize that there is only one God, that Yahweh alone is the only true God, the gods of the Egyptians are powerless to oppose his will. That there is only one people of God. That despite the fact that God owns the whole earth and everything in it and controls all creation, he has called them to be his people in a unique and distinctive way for a special purpose. Namely, to be the instrument through which he will deliver his promises to all mankind. Finally, or rather, next they learn that there's -- yeah, finally, they learn there's only one way to be the people of God. Not by their keeping the law. But simply because of God's gracious disposition to them. This is the lesson that Israel learns as a result of the debacle of worshiping the golden calf. You will deal with that again in great detail when we get there. So Israel learns that what it means to be the people of God is to rest in God's grace as his redeemed people and to worship him and him alone. Israel learns that God has also called them to be his unique and distinctive people. To fulfill his intention in creation. To have a people who would represent him on the earth. To be his ***selem, his image. Initially God gave this image to Adam and Eve. They were to be his representatives on earth to accomplish his will. But they lost that selem. They lost the ability to be the image of God when they sinned. So now he has called Israel or we'll see he calls Israel and sets them apart and makes them ***kadosh. In Hebrew we usually translate the word kadosh holy. But modern Americans take that word holy to mean something like moral or pious when really the word means to be separate or set apart. Israel realizes that it is called to be kadosh. To be separate and set apart for the purpose of being God's agents in accomplishing his broader redemptive task that will ultimately lead to Christ coming as the Messiah to the whole world. So these are the central questions in the torah as a whole. And they all in a sense kind of come to roost in the book of Exodus. The foundation for all of them is laid in the book of Genesis. And we certainly wouldn't want to downplay the importance of the book of Genesis. By the way, I should tell you my PhD is in the book of Genesis, not in the book of Exodus. So when I emphasize the importance of the book of Exodus, this is not special leading on my part because it's my academic area. I understand the importance of the book of Genesis. But I realize that within the Pentateuch it is like the Old Testament, setting the stage for the redemptive drama that we might call the Gospel in the Old Testament. And that Gospel in the Old Testament is fully revealed in the book of Exodus. And so that's why we're going to focus on that book as we study the Pentateuch. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***