The Exodus

Next month we will host Dr. Michael Morales for our spring symposium. His topic will be Israel’s encampment in the wilderness. He is truly a worldclass expert on the tabernacle’s significance both for the writings of Moses and the entire Bible.

To prepare us for this, our blog this month focuses on the exodus event. I recently wrote the entry “The Exodus” in the new Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, edited by G. K. Beale, D. A. Carson, Benjamin L. Gladd, and Andrew David Naselli.

Below is a link to just the first part of that entry where I delineate how the exodus event was more than just getting a group of people out of bondage. I comment:

It is insufficient to define the exodus simply as Israel’s departure from Egypt, and it is an unfruitful reduction to cast it merely in political or sociological terms. Rather, the exodus is cosmic from beginning to end. The exodus is Yahweh’s quintessential act of international self-revelation and redemption that brings Israel through the wilderness to his sacred presence and forms them into a covenantal worshiping people through the blood of the Passover lamb, all in measured fulfillment of his purposes in creation and in eschatological expectation of a new world. (pg. 235)

I then explain all this by summarizing the meaning of the exodus under eight subthemes:

1.     Redemption unto life and “rest.”

2.     By the blood of the Passover lamb.

3.     Through the wilderness.

4.     To the sacred place of worship.

5.     Yahweh is the God of gods.

6.     Miracles and prophecy through Moses.

7.     Judgment on Israel’s enemies.

8.     Israel is Yahweh’s “Son.”

I hope you enjoy the part of the essay here provided, and I hope to see you at the spring symposium with Dr. Morales!

[click here for pages 235-236] These two pages are provided by Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2023. Used by permission.

·       Dr. Nicholas G. Piotrowski is the President of Indianapolis Theological Seminary.