The Exodus

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"Departure of the Israelites", by David Roberts, 1829

The Exodus (Greek ἔξοδος, exodos "way out", Hebrew: יציאת מצרים, Modern Yetsi'at Mitzrayim Tiberian [jəsʕijaθ misʕɾajim] Y'ṣiʾath Miṣrayim ; "the exit from Egypt") is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible. Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan described in the books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

The extant narrative is a product of the late exilic or the post-exilic period (6th to 5th centuries BC), but the core of the narrative is older, being reflected in the 8th to 7th century BC Deuteronomist documents (the history books from Joshua to Kings).^[1] A minority of scholars assumes that this has yet older sources that can be traced to a genuine tradition of the Bronze Age collapse of the 13th century BC.^[2]

Summary

See Exodus 13 and following chapters

The Book of Exodus tells how Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness to Mount Sinai, where God reveals himself and offers them a Covenant: they are to keep his torah (i.e. law, instruction), and in return he will be their God and give them the land of Canaan. The Book of Leviticus records the laws of God. The Book of Numbers tells how the Israelites, led now by their God, journey onwards from Sinai towards Canaan, but when their spies report that the land is filled with giants they refuse to go on. God then condemns them to remain in the desert until the generation that left Egypt passes away. After thirty-eight years at the oasis of Kadesh Barnea the next generation travel on to the borders of Canaan. The Book of Deuteronomy tells how, within sight of the Promised Land, Moses recalls their journeys and gives them new laws. His death (the last reported event of the Torah) concludes the 40 years of the exodus from Egypt.

Origins of the Exodus story

While the story in the books of Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy is the best-known account of the Exodus, there are over a hundred and fifty references scattered through the Bible, and the only significant body of work that does not mention it is the Wisdom literature.^[3] The earliest mentions are in the prophets Amos (possibly) and Hosea (certainly), both active in 8th century Israel; in contrast Proto-Isaiah and Micah, both active in Judah at much the same time, never do; it thus seems reasonable to conclude that the Exodus tradition was important in the northern kingdom in the 8th century, but not in Judah.^[4]

In a recent work, Stephen C. Russell traces the 8th century prophetic tradition to three originally separate variants, in the northern kingdom of Israel, in Trans-Jordan, and in the southern kingdom of Judah. Russell proposes different hypothetical historical backgrounds to each tradition: the tradition from Israel, which involves a journey from Egypt to the region of Bethel, he suggests a memory of herders who could move to and from Egypt in times of crisis; for the Trans-Jordanian tradition, which focuses on deliverance from Egypt without a journey, he suggests a memory of the withdrawal of Egyptian control at the end of the Late Bronze Age; and for Judah, where the tradition is preserved in the Song of the Sea, he suggests the celebration of a military victory over Egypt, although it is impossible to suggest what this victory may have been.^[3]

Cultural significance

The exodus from Egypt is the theme of the Jewish holiday of Passover ("pesaḥ"); the term continues to be used in the Passover Hagadah.^[5] At the beginning of the Exodus narrative the Israelites are instructed to prepare unleavened bread as they will be leaving in haste, and to mark their doors with blood of the slaughtered sheep so that the "Angel" or "the destroyer" will "pass over" them while killing the first-born of Egypt. The Hebrew name for the festival, "Pesaḥ", refers to the "skipping over", "jumping over" or "passing over" by God over the Jewish houses while killing the first born of Egypt. (Despite the Exodus story, some scholars believe that the passover festival originated not in the biblical story but as a magic ritual to turn away demons from the household by painting the doorframe with the blood of a slaughtered sheep.)^[6]

Jewish tradition has preserved national and personal reminders of this pivotal narrative into daily life. Examples of such reminders include the wearing of 'tefilin' (phylacteries) on the hand and forehead, which some Jews practice daily; the wearing of 'tzitzit' (knotted ritual fringes attached to the four corners of the prayer shawl); the eating of 'matzot' (unleavened bread) during the Pesach (Passover) holiday; the fasting of the firstborn a day before Pesach; the redemption of firstborn children and animals; and even the observance of the Sabbath.

Composition of the Torah exodus narrative

There are currently a number of competing theories on the composition of the Exodus story contained in the four books Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers-Deuteronomy. They are conventionally divided into three "models", meaning that there are three possible ways in which the books could have been composed.

The documentary model proposes that the four books (actually five - the models include Genesis) were originally four separate documents, treating the same subject (i.e. the Exodus) written at various times and combined by a series of "redactors", or editors, the last in about 450 BC. The "supplementary model" holds that that there was a single original document which was then expanded by "supplements", again with the end product emerging around 450 BC. The "fragmentary" model proposes that the four books were combined by a single author from a host of "fragments", meaning small texts as well as oral traditions (sagas and folk-tales), again c.450 BC.

The documentary model is associated today with Julius Wellhausen, a German bible-scholar of the 19th century. His hypothesis (often called simply "the documentary hypothesis") holds that the five books are a combination of four originally independent sources, called the Yahwist, the Elohist, the Priestly source, and the Deuteronomist. His theory dominated biblical scholarship for much of the 20th century and was only cast into serious doubt by a series of books which appeared in the 1970s. An influential hypothesis within the "supplementary" model was advanced by John Van Seters in the 1970s—Van Seters proposed that an author he calls the Jahwist wrote the base-story in the 6th century, and that this was later expanded by others, notably the Priestly school of writers—but what Van Seters means by "Jahwist" is very different to what the classical documentary hypothesis means. His work was influential, but scholars today tend to adopt a "fragmentary model" approach.

The most recent ideas on the origin of the five books place Deuteronomy in the late 7th century with a revised version in the 6th, and the other four books in the Persian period of the 5th century. It is generally agreed that the Exodus tradition behind the five books predates the narrative as told in Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (since it also appears in the 8th century prophets), but there is no consensus on just what might lie behind the tradition.

Historicity debate

According to biblical scholar Carol A. Redmount, the Bible's exodus story is best seen as theology told in the form of history, illustrating how the God of Israel acted to save and strengthen his chosen people, the Israelites, and it is therefore inappropriate to approach miraculous events such as the burning bush and the plagues of Egypt as history.^[7] Nevertheless, the discussion of a possible historical nucleus of the narrative has a long history, and continues to attract attention.

The following section discusses some of the more popular aspects of the Exodus story.

Numbers and logistics

According to Exodus 12:37-38, the Israelites numbered "about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children," plus many non-Israelites and livestock.^[8] Numbers 1:46 gives a more precise total of 603,550.^[9] The 600,000, plus wives, children, the elderly, and the "mixed multitude" of non-Israelites would have numbered some 2 million people,^[10] compared with an entire estimated Egyptian population of around 3 million.^[11] Marching ten abreast, and without accounting for livestock, they would have formed a line 150 miles long.^[12] Except for the Hyksos, no further evidence has been found that indicates Egypt ever suffered such a demographic and economic catastrophe or that the Sinai desert ever hosted (or could have hosted) these millions of people and their herds,^[13] nor of a massive population increase in Canaan, which is estimated to have had a population of only 50,000 to 100,000 at the time.^[14] Some scholars have interpreted these numbers as a mistranslation—reading the Hebrew word eleph as "600 families" rather than 600,000 men, reduces the Hebrew population involved to roughly 20,000 individuals,^[15][16]—but the view of mainstream modern biblical scholarship is that the Exodus story was written not as history, but to demonstrate God's purpose and deeds with his Chosen People, Israel; the essentially theological motivation of the story explains the improbability of the scenario described above.^[17] It has also been suggested that the 603,550 people delivered from Egypt (according to Numbers 1:46) is not simply a number, but contains a secret message, a gematria for bnei yisra'el kol rosh, "the children of Israel, every individual;"^[18] while the number 600,000 symbolises the total destruction of the generation of Israel which left Egypt, none of whom lived to see the Promised Land.^[19]

Archaeology

The archaeological evidence of the largely indigenous origins of Israel is "overwhelming," and leaves "no room for an Exodus from Egypt or a 40-year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness."^[20] For this reason, most archaeologists have abandoned the archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus as "a fruitless pursuit."^[20] A century of research by archaeologists and Egyptologists has found no evidence which can be directly related to the Exodus narrative of an Egyptian captivity and the escape and travels through the wilderness,^[17] and it has become increasingly clear that Iron Age Israel - the kingdoms of Judah and Israel - has its origins in Canaan, not Egypt:^[21][22] the culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult-objects are those of the Canaanite god El, the pottery remains in the local Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet used is early Canaanite. Almost the sole marker distinguishing the "Israelite" villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones, although whether this can be taken as an ethnic marker or is due to other factors remains a matter of dispute.^[23]

Anachronisms

Several details also point to a 1st millenium date for the Book of Exodus: Ezion-Geber, (one of the Stations of the Exodus), for example, dates to a period between the 8th and 6th centuries BC with possible further occupation into the 4th century BC,^[24] while the place-names on the Exodus route which have been identified - Goshen, Pithom, Succoth, Ramesses and Kadesh Barnea - point to the geography of the 1st millennium rather than the 2nd.^[25] Similarly, Pharaoh's fear that the Israelites might ally themselves with foreign invaders seems unlikely in the context of the late 2nd millenium, when Canaan was part of an Egyptian empire and Egypt faced no enemies in that direction, but does make sense in a 1st millennium context, when Egypt was considerably weaker and faced invasion first from the Persians and later from Seleucid Syria.^[26]

Chronology

The chronology of the Exodus story likewise underlines its essentially religious rather than historical nature. The number seven, for example, was sacred to God in Judaism, and so the Israelites arrive at Sinai, where they will meet God, at the beginning of the seventh week after their departure from Egypt,^[27] while the erection of the Tabernacle, God's dwelling-place among his people, occurs in the year 2666 after God creates the world, two-thirds of the way through a four thousand year era which culminates in or around 164 BC, the year of the rededication of the Second Temple.^[28][29]

Route

Possible Exodus Routes. In black is the traditional Exodus route; other possible routes are in blue and green.

The Torah lists the places where the Israelites rested. A few of the names at the start of the itinerary, including Ra'amses, Pithom and Succoth, are reasonably well identified with archaeological sites on the eastern edge of the Nile delta,^[30] as is Kadesh-Barnea,^[31] where the Israelites spend 38 years after turning back from Canaan, but other than that very little is certain. The crossing of the Red Sea has been variously placed at the Pelusic branch of the Nile, anywhere along the network of Bitter Lakes and smaller canals that formed a barrier toward eastward escape, the Gulf of Suez (SSE of Succoth) and the Gulf of Aqaba (S of Ezion-Geber), or even on a lagoon on the Mediterranean coast. The biblical Mt. Sinai is identified in Christian tradition with Jebel Musa in the south of the Sinai Peninsula, but this association dates only from the 3rd century AD and no evidence of the Exodus has been found there.^[32]

The most obvious routes for travelers through the region were the royal roads, the "king's highways" that had been in use for centuries and would continue in use for centuries to come. The Bible specifically denies that the Israelites went by the Way of the Philistines a northerly yet coastal route along the Mediterranean (the purple line on the map to the right indicates the Way of Shur which goes inland towards Shur, Asshur or Syria). The Arabian Trade Route (green) and the Way of Seir (black) are improbable routes, the former having the advantage of heading initially toward Kadesh-Barnea but swinging east towards Petra north of Aqaba/Eilat.

Date

The Seder Olam Rabbah (ca. 2nd century AD) determines the commencement of the Exodus to 2448 AM (1313 BC). This date has become traditional in Rabbinic Judaism.^[33]

In the first half of the 20th century the Exodus was dated on the basis of 1 Kings 6:1, which states that the Exodus occurred 480 years before the construction of Solomon's Temple, the fourth year of Solomon's reign. Equating the biblical chronology with dates in history is notoriously difficult, but Edwin Thiele's widely accepted reconciliation of the reigns of the Israelite and Judahite kings would imply an Exodus around 1450 BC, during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III (1479-1425 BC).^[34] By the mid-20th century it had become apparent that the archaeological record made this date impossible. The mummy of Thutmoses III had already been discovered in 1881,^[35] and Egyptian records of that period do not mention the expulsion of any group that could be identified with over two million Hebrew slaves, nor any events which could be identified with the Biblical plagues. In addition, digs in the 1930s had failed to find traces of the simultaneous destruction of Canaanite cities c.1400 BC—in fact many of them, including Jericho, the first Canaanite city to fall to the Israelites according to the Book of Joshua, were uninhabited at the time.

The lack of evidence led William F. Albright, the leading biblical archaeologist of the period, to propose an alternative, "late" Exodus around 1200-1250 BC. His argument was based on the many strands of evidence, including the destruction at Beitel (Bethel) and some other cities at around that period, and the occurrence from the same period of distinctive house-types and a distinctive round-collared jar which, in his opinion, was to be identified with in-coming Israelites.

Albright's theory enjoyed popularity around the middle of the 20th century, but has now been generally abandoned in scholarship.^[36] The evidence which led to the abandonment of Albright's theory include: the collar-rimmed jars have been recognised as an indigenous form originating in lowland Canaanite cities centuries earlier;^[37] while some "Joshua" cities, including Hazor, Lachish, Megiddo and others, have destruction and transition layers around 1250-1145 BC, others, including Jericho, have no destruction layers or were uninhabited during this period;^[14][38] and the Merneptah Stele indicates that a people called "Israel" were already known in Canaan by the reign of Merneptah (1213-1203 BC).^[39]

Modern theories on the date - all of them popular rather than scholarly - tend to concentrate on an "early" Exodus, prior to c.1440 BC. The major candidates are:

• The 2006 History Channel documentary The Exodus Decoded revived an idea first put forward by the 1st century AD Jewish historian Josephus, identifying the Israelites with the Hyksos, the non-Egyptian rulers of Egypt expelled by the resurgent native Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, c.1550-1530 BC. However, there are numerous difficulties with the theory, and it is dismissed by scholars.^[40][41]
• David Rohl's 1995 A Test of Time attempted to correct Egyptian history by shortening the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt by almost 300 years. As a by-result the synchronisms with the biblical narrative have changed, making the 13th Dynasty pharaoh Djedneferre Dudimose (Dedumesu, Tutimaos, Tutimaios) the pharaoh of the Exodus.^[42] Rohl's theory, however, has failed to find support among most scholars in his field.^[43]
• From time to time there have been attempts to link the Exodus with the eruption of the Aegean volcano of Thera in c.1600 BC on the grounds that it could provide a natural explanation of the Plagues of Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea. This theory was discussed in the History Channel documentary, and also covered in the 2009 book by geologist Barbara J Sivertsen, The Parting of the Sea: How Volcanoes, Earthquakes, and Plagues Shaped the Story of the Exodus.^[44]

Extra-Biblical accounts

The earliest non-Biblical account of the Exodus is by Hecataeus of Abdera (late 4th century BC): the Egyptians blame a plague on foreigners and expel them from the country, whereupon Moses, their leader, takes them to Canaan, where he founds the city of Jerusalem.^[45] although this is disputed.^[46] More than a dozen later stories repeat the same basic theme, most of them with a marked anti-Jewish tendency.^[45]. The most famous is by the Egyptian historian Manetho (3rd century BC), known from two quotations by the 1st century AD Jewish historian Josephus. In the first, Manetho describes the Hyksos, their lowly origins in Asia, their dominion over and expulsion from Egypt, and their subsequent foundation of the city of Jerusalem and its temple. Josephus (not Manetho) identifies the Hyksos with the Jews.^[47] In the second story Manetho tells how 80,000 lepers and other "impure people," led by a priest named Osarseph, join forces with the former Hyksos, now living in Jerusalem, to take over Egypt. They wreak havoc until eventually the pharaoh and his son chase them out to the borders of Syria, where Osarseph gives the lepers a law-code and changes his name to Moses.^[48] Manetho differs from the other writers in describing his renegades as Egyptians rather than Jews, and in using a name other than Moses for their leader;^[45] many scholars regard the identification of Osarseph with Moses as a later addition, although the question remains open.^[48][49]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Exodus

• Ipuwer papyrus
• Torah portions telling the Exodus story: Va'eira, Bo, and Beshalach

Notes

Bibliography