Written by Moses
Introduction
Exodus is the book of deliverance — the story that the rest of the Old Testament will spend twenty-eight more books remembering. Israel entered Egypt at the end of Genesis as a household of seventy, preserved alive through a famine. Four hundred years later they wake up as a nation of slaves. A new Pharaoh has arisen who does not know Joseph. The people cry out under bondage so heavy they can barely lift their heads, and God hears. He remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel — and God knew. The entire rest of the book is the outworking of that seeing and that knowing.
The first half of Exodus is the showdown between the God of the Hebrews and the gods of Egypt. Moses — raised in Pharaoh’s own house, exiled for forty years in Midian, called back through a burning bush that does not consume — stands before Pharaoh and speaks the Lord’s demand: let my people go. Ten plagues follow, each one dismantling an Egyptian deity, culminating in the Passover — the night the firstborn of Egypt die and the firstborn of Israel are spared by the blood of a lamb marked on their doorposts. The sea opens. Pharaoh’s army drowns. Israel walks out into the wilderness a free people, carrying out with them the spoils of the empire that enslaved them, singing a song on the far shore that the church will still be singing at the end of Revelation.
“I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God.” — Exodus 6:6-7
The second half of the book is quieter but no less important. At Sinai, God gives the law — the ten commandments written with His own finger on tablets of stone, the framework of covenant life, the instructions for the tabernacle where His presence will dwell among His people. Israel is not merely freed from Egypt. She is freed for something: to become a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, set apart to know God and to make Him known. The book closes with the tabernacle completed exactly as commanded, and the glory of the Lord filling it so fully that even Moses cannot enter. What began with slaves crying out under the lash ends with the God of the universe pitching His tent in the middle of their camp. That is the arc of Exodus. That is the shape of redemption. And every subsequent deliverance in Scripture — every Passover remembered, every exodus from exile, every resurrection from death — traces back to this book as its template.
Chapters in Exodus
Chapter 1 – A New King Who Did Not Know Joseph
Chapter 2 – The Birth and Flight of Moses
Chapter 3 – The Burning Bush
Chapter 4 – Moses and His Objections
Chapter 5 – Let My People Go (Denied)
Chapter 6 – I Am the Lord
Chapter 7 – The Staff and the Blood
Chapter 8 – Frogs, Gnats, and Flies
Chapter 9 – Livestock, Boils, and Hail
Chapter 10 – Locusts and Darkness
Chapter 11 – The Final Warning
Chapter 12 – The Passover
Chapter 13 – Firstborn, Memory, and the Pillar of Fire
Chapter 14 – The Parting of the Sea
Chapter 15 – The Song of Moses
Chapter 16 – Manna from Heaven
Chapter 17 – Water from the Rock and War with Amalek
Chapter 18 – Jethro’s Wisdom
Chapter 19 – The Mountain of God
Chapter 20 – The Ten Commandments
Chapter 21 – Laws of Justice and Human Dignity
Chapter 22 – Property, Ethics, and the Vulnerable
Chapter 23 – Justice, Sabbath, and the Angel of the Way
Chapter 24 – The Blood of the Covenant
Chapter 25 – The Ark, the Table, and the Lampstand
Chapters 26–27 – The Tabernacle and the Outer Court
Chapters 28–29 – The Priestly Garments and Ordination
Chapters 30–31 – Incense, Craftsmen, and the Sabbath Sign
Chapter 32 – The Golden Calf
Chapter 33 – Show Me Your Glory
Chapter 34 – The Name of the Lord and the Shining Face
Chapters 35–37 – The Freewill Offering and the Sacred Furnishings
Chapters 38–40 – The Glory of the Lord Fills the Tabernacle