The second part does also include some narrative. Here we read the saddest part of the whole book, as the people indulge themselves and make a golden calf to worship. The book finishes with the construction of the tabernacle. God takes up residence and the glory comes down on his tent.
Chapters 1–18
Many perceive the first part of Exodus to be full of problems because it is such an unnatural story. There are so many extraordinary events that many people suggest that what we have here is a series of legends rather than truth. So, are the events described part of a myth or a miracle?
Myth or miracle?
1. NO SECULAR RECORD
The problem is not just with the nature of the events themselves, but also with the fact that the events are not backed up by any secular, historical record. All we have is just one mention of ‘the habiru’ in Goshen – a possible reference to the ‘Hebrews’, as the ‘children of Israel’ were known. This lack of documentation should not surprise us, however. The Exodus of the Jews was one of the most humiliating events in Egypt’s experience. They suffered severe plagues, including the death of their first-born. Their best charioteers were drowned in the Red Sea. This hardly made for comforting reflection.
2. THE NUMBERS INVOLVED
Many people find the story hard to believe due to the large numbers involved. We are told there were 2.5 million slaves who left Egypt. By any reckoning this is a huge number. If they marched five abreast, the column would be about 110 miles long, and that does not include the livestock. It would take months for them to move anywhere. It is also a huge population to keep fed and watered in a desert for 40 years.
3. THE DATE
There is also a question about the dating of the events. As we have no other record outside the Bible we cannot date the events with any certainty. So we do not know for sure which Pharaoh was involved and when it all took place. The choice seems to be between Rameses II, who had a powerful military force, who erected huge statues of himself and whose sons’ tomb has only recently been discovered, and Dudimore, according to the ‘new chronology’ of David M. Rohl.*
4. THE ROUTE
There is controversy concerning the route which the Israelites took when they left Egypt, too. There are three possibilities to consider: a route to the north, a route to the south, or one through the middle. We will come back to this question in The book.
5. THE DIVINE NAME
Other scholars find problems with God’s words to Moses in Exodus 6:3 where he says: ‘I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.’
That last phrase may either be a statement (‘…I did not make myself known…’), in which case Abraham knew him as ‘God’, but without a personal name distinguishing him from other gods; or a question (‘…did I not make myself known…?), in which case Abraham knew God by name as well as Moses. The latter is less likely.
THE FACTS
All these questions have made scholars doubt whether they are reading fact, fiction or perhaps ‘faction’. Those who do not believe the events need to ask why they cannot. Is it prejudice or a so-called scientific view of the universe which prevents them believing? At the same time we can also try to look for the most understandable explanation for the facts which are indisputable.
1 Nobody can dispute that there is a nation called Israel in the world today. So where did they come from? How did they get started? How did they ever become a nation if they were originally a bunch of slaves? We do know from secular records that they were a bunch of slaves. Something dramatic is needed to explain the existence of Israel.
2 Every year, every Jewish family celebrates the Passover. Why do they do it? This is a ritual which has survived for many thousands of years and also needs some explanation.
These two known facts at least need explanation, therefore, and it is the book of Exodus which provides the answers. So let us look at each section, following the structure laid out in the table above, and consider some of the questions surrounding the text.
1. Multiplication and murder
In this opening section we discover that the number of Hebrew slaves must have been around 2.5 million by the time the Exodus narrative starts. This may seem a large number given that they started with just the 12 sons of Jacob, their offspring and wider family. But if each family had four children (not a large number in those days) over 30 generations then this number could be achieved.
But why did they stay in Egypt for 400 years when they only went there for seven originally? They first arrived in the time of Joseph and Jacob following a famine in Canaan. (Egypt was the bread-basket of the Middle East thanks to Joseph’s judicious storing of grain during the seven years of plenty.) They arrive voluntarily, are accepted as guests of the government and are given a fertile piece of the Nile delta called Goshen to live on together. So they remain a nation during the seven years of famine. But at the end of that time why did they not go back to their own land? This is a pertinent question, given that they are eventually forced to become slaves in Egypt.
The human reason is that they were very comfortable. It was much easier to make a living in the Nile delta than it was on the hills of Judea. The land was fertile, the climate was warmer, with no snow in winter as there was in the hills of Judea. The diet was good, they could eat fish from the Nile and look after themselves far better. So they stayed because they were comfortable. It was only when they were forced to become slaves that they remembered God and started crying out to him.
There is also a divine reason. God did not do anything to encourage them to go back to their own land for 400 years. If they had returned as soon as the famine was over, they would have been only a few people, far too small a number to accomplish what God intended. For it was God’s intention to remove the people of Canaan from the land. He explained to Abraham that his descendants would stay in Egypt until the wickedness of the Canaanites was completed. God had to wait until they became so bad that it would be an act of justice and judgement to throw them out of the Promised Land and let the Hebrew slaves in. We read in Deuteronomy that it was not any virtue on the part of the Israelites which made God choose them. Indeed, if they behaved in the land like those they had expelled, they too would have to leave. To be instruments of justice they had to be righteous themselves.
But all that was to come later. As slaves in Egypt, the people of Israel faced three oppressive decrees:
1 Forced labour: the Pharaoh decided to use the Hebrews as labour for his building programmes.
2 Tougher conditions: they had to make bricks without straw (which meant the bricks were much heavier to carry). Archaeological digs within Egypt have discovered buildings made of three different types of brick: the foundations with straw, the middle with rubbish, as the Hebrews sought to continue making light bricks once denied the straw, and then on the top bricks made entirely of clay. The idea behind this harsh decree was that the extra weight of the bricks would make the Hebrews too tired for sex or mischief and so their population would decrease. It was a crude form of population control and it did not work, so the Egyptians had to introduce a third decree.
3 Death: all the baby boys born to the Hebrew slaves had to be thrown to the crocodiles in the River Nile.
2. Bulrushes and the burning bush
Most people know this story well. The River Nile was full of crocodiles and this form of genocide was considered necessary by the Egyptians if Israelite numbers were to be effectively reduced. The baby Moses should have died in this way. But we note that under God’s providence Moses, like Joseph, was brought up at court and given the best education at the