What does the Exodus show us about God?
In the Exodus, God hears the cries of slaves, judges Egypt and its gods, redeems His people by blood, and brings them to Himself to be His own. It became the Old Testament's defining picture of salvation, and the Passover lamb points straight to Christ, our Passover sacrificed for us.
This question arose from studying Why did God call Abraham? and What is the Bible's big story?.
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The study
What the Scripture says
God acts because He hears His people's cry
The Exodus begins in heaven's attention: God says He has seen the misery, heard the cry, known the sorrows, and come down to deliver. Salvation starts not with Israel climbing toward God but with God descending toward Israel. Every rescue since follows that pattern of grace.
God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the children of Israel, and God was concerned about them.
Yahweh said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
Redemption cost blood
The decisive night required a spotless lamb, its blood applied in faith: 'when I see the blood, I will pass over you.' Israel left Egypt bought with a death. That is why John the Baptist greets Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and why Paul says flatly, 'Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place.'
The blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and there shall no plague be on you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
The next day, he saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place.
Rescue creates worshipers, not just survivors
At the far shore, Israel saw the great work, feared Yahweh, and believed. God's stated goal was relational: 'I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God.' Deliverance was never merely escape from Egypt; it was adoption into covenant fellowship.
Israel saw the great work which Yahweh did to the Egyptians, and the people feared Yahweh; and they believed in Yahweh, and in his servant Moses.
and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God; and you shall know that I am Yahweh your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
The pattern repeats all through Scripture
The prophets appeal back to the Exodus when they describe forgiveness, as when Micah asks, 'Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity?'; Isaiah recalls the God 'who makes a way in the sea'; the Psalms sing it; and Paul says our fathers 'were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.' When Jesus set His face toward Jerusalem, Luke says that at the transfiguration Moses and Elijah spoke of His departure: literally, His exodus. The greater deliverance, accomplished at another Passover.
Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn’t retain his anger forever, because he delights in loving kindness.
Thus says Yahweh, who makes a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters;
Now I would not have you ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
As you read, you may wonder…
Scripture raises the next question
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Continue this trail
Why did God harden Pharaoh's heart?→“Yahweh said to Moses, “When you go back into Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your hand, but I will harden his heart and he will not let the people go.”Why did God give Israel the law at Sinai?→““I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”What was the tabernacle for?→“Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all of its furniture, even so you shall make it.”What did the sacrificial system teach Israel?→“For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that makes atonement by reason of the life.”Explore further
Why did Jesus have to die?→Jesus Christ trail“for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;”How do I find Christ in the Old Testament?→The Word of God trail““You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which testify about me.”Why did God spare Rahab?→The Land & the Throne trail“As soon as we had heard it, our hearts melted, neither did there remain any more spirit in any man, because of you: for Yahweh your God, he is God in heaven above, and on earth beneath.”Why did Israel keep drifting into idolatry?→The Land & the Throne trail“He received what they handed him, and fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it a molten calf; and they said, “These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.””Hold onto these
Verses to meditate on
The blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and there shall no plague be on you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
Israel saw the great work which Yahweh did to the Egyptians, and the people feared Yahweh; and they believed in Yahweh, and in his servant Moses.
and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God; and you shall know that I am Yahweh your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place.
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