Yesterday’s post (Lessons from the Exodus: Is the Exodus typological?) is here.
Brief explanation of the Exodus
1. “The exodus was a journey of deliverance from bondage to freedom and”[1] an inheritance.
2. Ancient Israel was God’s first-born son (Ex. 4:22) in bondage to the Egyptians. They were slaves in a foreign land.
3. The Exodus involves a complex of events connected to God redeeming His ancient people, Israel, from bondage and slavery in Egypt, through a human mediator (Moses), with accompanying sings and wonders (plagues), along with a catastrophic judgment in water (Red Sea), accompanied by the death of the first-born of the Egyptians, the blood of an unblemished on year-old male lamb (Passover lamb) and the establishment of a covenant and the building of the tabernacle, involving 40 years of wilderness wanderings all for the purpose of giving them their promised inheritance – the land of Canaan.
4. Words and concepts in the Exodus which are used elsewhere in the Bible include: tabernacle, altar, desert, wilderness, wandering, forty years, mountain of God, dark cloud, pillar of fire/cloud, divine warrior, arm/hand/finger of God, leading, shepherding, oppression, deliverance, judgment, miracles, mighty deeds, Passover, first-born spared, slaughter of a one year old unblemished lamb, the sprinkling of blood, banquet, the rock in the wilderness, water from the rock, manna, mediator, voice of God, covenant, and images related to law and lawgiving.
5. The Exodus is THE redemption of the OT. It sums up the story of OT redemption. The rest of the OT builds its theology of redemption utilizing motifs (words and concepts) from the literal, historical event and the NT does the same. “No other motif is as crucial to understand. No other event is so basic to the fabric of both Testaments.”[2]
How the rest of the Bible picks up on Exodus themes
Old Testament
1. The Exodus is seen as God’s greatest act of redemption for all the world to see.
Deuteronomy 4:32-35 32 “Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? 33 “Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived? 34 “Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 “To you it was shown that you might know that the LORD, He is God; there is no other besides Him.
Joshua 4:23-24 23 “For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed, just as the LORD your God had done to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed; 24 that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, so that you may fear the LORD your God forever.”
2. The Psalms pick up on the Exodus in many places.
Psalm 66:1-6 NAU Psalm 66:1 For the choir director. A Song. A Psalm. Shout joyfully to God, all the earth; 2 Sing the glory of His name; Make His praise glorious. 3 Say to God, “How awesome are Your works! Because of the greatness of Your power Your enemies will give feigned obedience to You. 4 “All the earth will worship You, And will sing praises to You; They will sing praises to Your name.” Selah. 5 Come and see the works of God, Who is awesome in His deeds toward the sons of men. 6 He turned the sea into dry land; They passed through the river on foot; There let us rejoice in Him!
3. The Prophets pick up on the Exodus and actually predict a future or new Exodus, a future or new Israel, a future or new covenant and all connected to a new mediator, a new Servant of the Lord – the Messiah, who ends up being Jesus (Is. 40:1-11)!
4. OT developing theology of the Exodus after the Exodus: “The entry into and conquest of the Promised Land in Joshua is the exodus experience of the next generation. The book of Judges is structured around cycles of oppression and deliverance for Israel by the hand of the Lord as they cried out for help. The books of Samuel-Kings can be seen as a movement from the impermanence of the exodus wanderings to a stable situation with king and temple and then the ultimate reversion back to an oppressive situation. The prophets transform the original exodus into a new exodus. In the same way that God delivered Israel from Egypt in the past, he will deliver Israel in the future from bondage in the exile.”[3] According to the OT, the Exodus sets the pattern of redemption and leaves its readers in anticipation of a greater Exodus to come.
New Testament
1. Lk. 1:67ff. John the Baptist’s father links the salvation Jesus brings with echoes from the Exodus – “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, And has raised up a horn of salvation for us…Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us…we are rescued from our enemies to serve God…And you (John the Baptist) will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways; to give His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.”
2. The name Jesus is the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew Joshua, “for He will save His people from their sins.”
3. Lk. 2:30-32 When Jesus is brought to the temple, Simeon connects Jesus to Isaiah 52:10, a second exodus passage. Simeon was one who was “looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” according to the promise of the OT (Lk. 2:38).
4. Mt. 2:13 Just as Pharaoh tried to kill Moses, so Herod tries to kill Jesus.
5. Mt. 2:14 Just as Israel went to Egypt to escape danger (famine), so Jesus went to Egypt to escape danger (Herod).
6. Mt. 2:15 Just as God called His first-born son (Israel) out of Egypt (Ex. 4:22 and Hos. 11:1) to serve Him, so God called Jesus out of Egypt to serve Him.
7. Mt. 2:16 Just as Pharaoh slaughtered male children (Ex. 1), so Herod slaughtered male children (Mt. 2:16).
8. Mt. 3:13-4:11 After Jesus passes through the waters of John’s baptism, He is “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted…” for forty days. “There can be little doubt that the forty days in the wilderness are a miniature of the forty years Israel spent in the wilderness…”[4]
9. Lk. 11:32 Jesus casts out demons by the finger of God as a sign of the presence of the kingdom of God. The first time the phrase “finger of God occurs in the Bible is in Exodus 8:19, “Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, This is the finger of God” in response to Aaron stretching out his staff and striking the dust which became gnats that covered man and beast.”
10. As Israel had twelve tribes, so Christ chose 12 apostles. As Moses chose 70 elders to help him, so Christ sent out 70 disciples.
11. In John 6 Jesus links himself with the manna in the wilderness (Jn. 6:48-50, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I give for the life of the world is My flesh.” Jesus is heaven-sent manna for the soul!
12. Just as Moses went up to a mountain with three companions (Ex. 24:1), so does Jesus (Mt. 17:1, “…Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain…”).
13. Just as Moses’ face shone with the glory of God (Ex. 34:29), so Jesus became dazzling with celestial brightness (Mt. 17:2, “…His face shone like the sun, and His garments became white as light.”).
14. Luke tells us what two glorified men talking with Jesus on the mountain were discussing. (Luke 9:30, 31, “And behold, two men were talking with Him; and they were Moses and Elijah, who appearing in glory, were speaking of His departure [lit. exodus] which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.”
15. Just as God spoke on the mountain out of a cloud with Moses (Ex. 24ff.), so God speaks on the mountain out of a cloud at the transfiguration of Jesus (Mt. 17:5, “While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him.”). This is probably a reference to Deuteronomy 18:15, which says, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.”
16. John calls Jesus the lamb of God (Jn. 1:29).
17. John makes sure we know an interesting detail connected to the death of Jesus. “…when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. …For these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture, ‘NOT A BONE OF HIM SHALL BE BROKEN.” According to Ex. 12:46, the unblemished Passover lamb was to have no broken bones. John says this fulfills the Scripture, probably referring to Ps. 34:20.
18. Paul tells us that “Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7).
19. Paul tells us that the “spiritual rock which followed [the fathers in the wilderness under Moses] was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4).
20. Paul says that believers ought to thank “the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light, who rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:12b-14). There are several echoes of the Exodus here.
21. In the book of Hebrews, Christ is depicted as being more glorious than Moses (Heb. 3:1-6).
22. In Hebrews, believers are told that they have come to something way better than the OT Israelites (Heb. 12:18-24).
23. Peter says that believers are “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood” (1 Pt. 1:1b-2). The blood of an unblemished male lamb was to be sprinkled over the doorposts of Israelite homes during the Exodus event. When God saw the blood, He passed over that home, sparing it the judgment of the death of the first-born.
24. Peter says that the believer’s “inheritance [is] imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Pt. 1:4).
25. Peter says believers have been redeemed “…with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Pt. 1:19).
26. In Rev. “15:2ff. we are given a vision of the sea of glass mingled with fire and we hear the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb. “The first triumphant Exodus has prefigured the second and we are to look ahead to its fulfillment in God’s victory at the end of time.”[5]
[1] “EXODUS, SECOND EXODUS,” in Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, 253.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., 254.
[4] Nixon, “The Exodus in the New Testament,” 13.
[5] Nixon, “The Exodus in the New Testament,” 29.
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
