Exodus is the second book of the Jewish Torah and of the Christian Old Testament. It tells how Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the wilderness to the Mountain of God Sinai. There YHWH, through Moses, gives the Hebrews their laws and enters into a covenant with them, by which he will give them the land of Canaan in return for their faithfulness. The book ends with the construction of the Tabernacle.

According to tradition, Exodus and the other four books of the Torah were written by Moses in the latter half of the 2nd millennium BC. Modern biblical scholars see it reaching its final textual form around 450 BC.

Title

The English name of the book is derived from the , exodos, "departure"; its name in the Hebrew Bible is שמות "Shemot".

Bondage in Egypt

The Egyptian king (pharaoh), fearful of the Hebrews' numbers, orders that all newborn Hebrew (Israelite) boys be thrown into the Nile. A Levite woman saves her baby by setting him adrift on the river in an ark of bulrushes. The pharaoh's daughter finds the child, and names him Moses, and brings him up as her own. But Moses is aware of his Hebrew origins, and one day, when grown, kills an Egyptian overseer who is beating a Hebrew man, and has to flee into Midian There he marries, and while herding the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro on Mount Horeb, encounters God in a burning bush. God reveals his name, Yahweh, to Moses, and tells him to return to Egypt and lead the Hebrews into Canaan, the land promised to Abraham.

Moses returns to Egypt, and God instructs him to appear before the pharaoh and inform him of God's demand that he let God's people go. Moses and his brother Aaron do so, but the pharaoh refuses. God causes a series of plagues to strike Egypt, but the pharaoh does not relent. God instructs Moses to institute the Passover sacrifice among the Hebrews, and kills all the firstborn children and livestock throughout Egypt. The pharaoh then agrees to let the Hebrews go. Moses explains the meaning of the Passover: it is for Israel's salvation from Egypt, so that the Hebrews will not be required to sacrifice their own sons, but to redeem them.

Journey through the wilderness to Sinai

The Exodus begins. The Hebrews, 600,000 men plus women and children and a mixed multitude, with their flocks and herds, set out for the mountain of God. The pharaoh pursues the Hebrews, and Yahweh destroys the Egyptian army at the crossing of the Red Sea (Yam Suf). The Hebrews celebrate. At Repidim, he provides water miraculously from the rock of Meribah. The Hebrews arrive at the mountain of God, where Moses' father-in-law Jethro visits Moses; at his suggestion Moses appoints judges over Israel.

At Sinai: Covenant and laws

The Hebrews arrive at the mountain of God. Yahweh asks whether they will agree to be his people, and the people accept. The people gather at the foot of the mountain, and with thunder and lightning, fire and clouds of smoke, and the sound of trumpets, and the trembling of the mountain, God appears on the peak, and the people see the cloud hear the "voice" of God The Hebrew word used here normally means voice, but a few verses earlier (Exodus 19:16) it has been used to mean "thunder", in the context of the thunder and lightning from the mountain. It is therefore not clear exactly what "beqol" means in this instance. The implication of Exodus 20:18-19 is that the people hear only thunder and trumpets and for this reason appoint Moses as their mediator with God: "And the people saw the thunder and the lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking...And they said Moses, "You speak with us, so we may listen, but let God not speak with us or we will die." Some translations therefore have "thunder" instead of "voice". Moses and Aaron are told to ascend the mountain. God pronounces the Ten Commandments (the Ethical Decalogue) in the hearing of all Israel.