Group Bible Study

This Week

Exodus

How this journal is arranged

The forty chapters of Exodus are read in eight sessions of five chapters each. Before each session: two Thoughts before Reading, then an expanded Theological Summary, Main Point, Minor Points, and Symbolism for Christian reading. Then the five chapters in the World English Bible. After the five chapters: five questions with areas to write that are only saved on your device.

Questions 1–2 press the doctrine. Questions 3–4 press the text the way a careful historical reader would—authorial intent, what the first hearers could have understood, what the wording actually does. Question 5 asks for three practical steps and requires doing the shadow work and turning the mirror inward.

How to use this Journal on your Journey

Answer the two preparing questions before anyone reads the session’s chapters. The point is to notice what you already assume about bondage, rescue, law, worship, and God’s timing. Then read the theological pages slowly. They are a map of how the church has received these texts. They are not a substitute for Exodus.

Read the five chapters. Hearing them aloud is part of receiving them. Consider reading the upcoming chapters before Thursday Night so that you'll have your answers and our group can grow and learn from one another. Sharing is encouraged, but not required. It is recommended you answer them honestly for yourself, whether you share with the group or not.

The biblical text is the World English Bible, which its translators dedicated to the public domain. “World English Bible” is a trademark of eBible.org. The study notes are original to this journal.

Session 1 · Exodus 1–5

A people enslaved. A name revealed. A first refusal.

Thoughts before reading

Answer these two questions before the chapters are read.

Question A · Before the reading

Before you read these five chapters: when you suffer or watch someone suffer under a power that will not listen, what do you assume God is doing—absent, delayed, testing you, or already moving in a way you cannot see?

Question B · Before the reading

Moses will spend these chapters arguing with God about his mouth, his past, and his adequacy. What excuse is already forming in you before the text even names it?

Theological summary

Exodus does not open with a technique for getting free. It opens with a God who already bound Himself by oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and who therefore cannot treat Israel’s misery as someone else’s problem. The midwives fear God. A princess of Egypt has compassion. A bush burns and is not consumed. None of that is Israel organizing a revolt. It is the holy God remembering a covenant, naming Himself, and stepping onto a stage Pharaoh thought he owned. Classic Christian theology has read this as the grammar of redemption: God sees, God hears, God comes down, God sends. The initiative is His. The bondage is real. The name is not a slogan.

These chapters also refuse a tidy hero. Moses kills a man, flees, sits by a well, and when God actually calls him answers with “Who am I?” and “send someone else.” The church has never needed Moses to be psychologically impressive. It has needed him to be the kind of instrument God uses: marked by failure, slow of speech, and still commissioned. Pharaoh’s question—“Who is the LORD, that I should listen?”—is the human question underneath every refusal of the Word. The section ends with things worse, not better. That is not a narrative accident. Deliverance that begins with God’s name will unmask the old master before it breaks him.

Main point

The main point of Exodus 1–5 is that the God of the fathers is not a tribal memory. He is the living LORD who hears groaning, remembers covenant, reveals His name, and begins a deliverance that Pharaoh cannot negotiate and Moses cannot manage. Oppression is not evidence that the promise has failed. It is the dark in which the name is about to be displayed. When God says “I AM WHO I AM,” He is not offering Moses a philosophy seminar. He is pledging presence: the One who is will be with the one He sends.

Christian reading has received this as the Old Testament’s first long demonstration that salvation is God’s work from first sight to first confrontation. Augustine, the Reformers, and the broader catholic tradition agree on the order: God knows His people before they know how to ask; He names Himself before they have a liturgy; He sends a mediator before they have a law. The hardness that meets the Word is already in view. So is the cost. “Israel is my son, my firstborn” is spoken while Egypt still holds the whip. The gospel is already audible: a firstborn claimed by God will not remain a slave, and the opposing firstborn will not go unjudged.

Minor points

First, hidden faithfulness matters more than court power. Shiphrah and Puah fear God and refuse a royal murder order. Jochebed hides a child. Miriam watches. An Egyptian daughter pays a Hebrew mother to nurse her own son. The text is not embarrassed by the fact that the early resistance is female, ordinary, and costly. God is already working through people who will never stand before Pharaoh with a staff.

Second, the mediator is made, not discovered fully formed. Forty years in Pharaoh’s house and forty in Midian do not produce eloquence. They produce a man who knows he is not enough. God’s answer is not “you are enough.” It is “I will be with your mouth.” The signs—staff, leprous hand, Nile water as blood—are given because unbelief is expected, not because God is insecure. Even the strange lodging-place confrontation over circumcision insists that the messenger cannot carry the covenant while neglecting the covenant sign.

Third, first obedience often makes the bondage feel worse. Pharaoh’s “Who is the LORD?” is followed by bricks without straw. Israel turns on Moses. Moses turns on God: “You have not rescued your people at all.” The section teaches the church not to treat intensification of pressure as proof the call was fake. It is often the old master answering the first appearance of another Lord.

Symbolism for Christian reading

Egypt is, in Christian reading, more than a ZIP code. It becomes a picture of the world-system and of sin’s bondage: a power that uses people, fears their fruitfulness, and calls worship “idleness.” Bricks without straw picture fruitless labor under a master who inflates the quota when you ask to serve God. The picture is not a license to ignore the historical Egypt of the text. It is what the church has seen when it reads its own slavery in this story.

The bush that burns and is not consumed has long pictured the holy God drawing near without annihilating the one He calls—and, in later reflection, the mystery of the divine presence in frail humanity. Holy ground is not a mood. It is a location God names. Sandals come off because the I AM is there, not because Moses achieved a spiritual state.

Moses drawn from the water, raised in the enemy’s house, and sent back as deliverer is a type the New Testament is willing to use: a greater Moses, a better exodus (Hebrews 3; Luke 9:31). Blood in the promised sign of the Nile is already a shadow. Deliverance will not be cheap. I AM WHO I AM will later be heard in Jesus’ “I am” (John 8:58). The symbol only holds if the history holds. Types grow out of what God actually did.

The reading · Exodus 1–5

Exodus 1

Israel multiplies in Egypt. A new king who does not know Joseph enslaves them and orders Hebrew boys killed. The midwives fear God and refuse.

  1. 1Now these are the names of the sons of Israel, who came into Egypt (every man and his household came with Jacob):
  2. 2Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,
  3. 3Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,
  4. 4Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.
  5. 5All the souls who came out of Jacob’s body were seventy souls, and Joseph was in Egypt already.
  6. 6Joseph died, as did all his brothers, and all that generation.
  7. 7The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.
  8. 8Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who didn’t know Joseph.
  9. 9He said to his people, “Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we.
  10. 10Come, let’s deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it happen that when any war breaks out, they also join themselves to our enemies and fight against us, and escape out of the land.”
  11. 11Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses.
  12. 12But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out. They started to dread the children of Israel.
  13. 13The Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel serve,
  14. 14and they made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and in brick, and in all kinds of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.
  15. 15The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah,
  16. 16and he said, “When you perform the duty of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.”
  17. 17But the midwives feared God, and didn’t do what the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the baby boys alive.
  18. 18The king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said to them, “Why have you done this thing and saved the boys alive?”
  19. 19The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women aren’t like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”
  20. 20God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied, and grew very mighty.
  21. 21Because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.
  22. 22Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “You shall cast every son who is born into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”

Exodus 2

Moses is born, hidden, and drawn from the Nile. As a man he kills an Egyptian, flees to Midian, and marries Zipporah. God hears Israel’s groaning.

  1. 1A man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi as his wife.
  2. 2The woman conceived and bore a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months.
  3. 3When she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him, and coated it with tar and with pitch. She put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river’s bank.
  4. 4His sister stood far off, to see what would be done to him.
  5. 5Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe at the river. Her maidens walked along by the riverside. She saw the basket among the reeds, and sent her servant to get it.
  6. 6She opened it, and saw the child, and behold, the baby cried. She had compassion on him, and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”
  7. 7Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you?”
  8. 8Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” The young woman went and called the child’s mother.
  9. 9Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away, and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” The woman took the child, and nursed him.
  10. 10The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, and said, “Because I drew him out of the water.”
  11. 11In those days, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his brothers and saw their burdens. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his brothers.
  12. 12He looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no one, he killed the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.
  13. 13He went out the second day, and behold, two men of the Hebrews were fighting with each other. He said to him who did the wrong, “Why do you strike your fellow?”
  14. 14He said, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you plan to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses was afraid, and said, “Surely this thing is known.”
  15. 15Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and lived in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.
  16. 16Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.
  17. 17The shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.
  18. 18When they came to Reuel, their father, he said, “How is it that you have returned so early today?”
  19. 19They said, “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and moreover he drew water for us, and watered the flock.”
  20. 20He said to his daughters, “Where is he? Why is it that you have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.”
  21. 21Moses was content to dwell with the man. He gave Moses Zipporah, his daughter.
  22. 22She bore a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, “I have lived as a foreigner in a foreign land.”
  23. 23In the course of those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.
  24. 24God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
  25. 25God saw the children of Israel, and God understood.

Exodus 3

God calls Moses from a bush that burns and is not consumed, and names Himself I AM WHO I AM. He sends Moses to bring Israel out of Egypt.

  1. 1Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to God’s mountain, to Horeb.
  2. 2The LORD’s angel appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the middle of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
  3. 3Moses said, “I will go now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”
  4. 4When the LORD saw that he came over to see, God called to him out of the middle of the bush, and said, “Moses! Moses!” He said, “Here I am.”
  5. 5He said, “Don’t come close. Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.”
  6. 6Moreover he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
  7. 7The LORD 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.
  8. 8I 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.
  9. 9Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. Moreover I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
  10. 10Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
  11. 11Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
  12. 12He said, “Certainly I will be with you. This will be the token to you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
  13. 13Moses said to God, “Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?”
  14. 14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
  15. 15God said moreover to Moses, “You shall tell the children of Israel this, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations.
  16. 16Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and tell them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt.
  17. 17I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey.”’
  18. 18They will listen to your voice. You shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and you shall tell him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD, our God.’
  19. 19I know that the king of Egypt won’t give you permission to go, no, not by a mighty hand.
  20. 20I will reach out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders which I will do among them, and after that he will let you go.
  21. 21I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and it will happen that when you go, you shall not go empty-handed.
  22. 22But every woman shall ask of her neighbor, and of her who visits her house, jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and clothing. You shall put them on your sons, and on your daughters. You shall plunder the Egyptians.”

Exodus 4

God gives Moses three signs. Moses objects; Aaron is appointed to speak. Moses returns to Egypt with the staff of God in his hand.

  1. 1Moses answered, “But, behold, they will not believe me, nor listen to my voice; for they will say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’”
  2. 2The LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A rod.”
  3. 3He said, “Throw it on the ground.” He threw it on the ground, and it became a snake; and Moses ran away from it.
  4. 4The LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand, and take it by the tail.” He stretched out his hand, and took hold of it, and it became a rod in his hand.
  5. 5“This is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”
  6. 6The LORD said furthermore to him, “Now put your hand inside your cloak.” He put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, as white as snow.
  7. 7He said, “Put your hand inside your cloak again.” He put his hand inside his cloak again, and when he took it out of his cloak, behold, it had turned again as his other flesh.
  8. 8“It will happen, if they will not believe you or listen to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.
  9. 9It will happen, if they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, that you shall take of the water of the river, and pour it on the dry land. The water which you take out of the river will become blood on the dry land.”
  10. 10Moses said to the LORD, “O Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before now, nor since you have spoken to your servant; for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.”
  11. 11The LORD said to him, “Who made man’s mouth? Or who makes one mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Isn’t it I, the LORD?
  12. 12Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall speak.”
  13. 13Moses said, “Oh, Lord, please send someone else.”
  14. 14The LORD’s anger burned against Moses, and he said, “What about Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Also, behold, he is coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.
  15. 15You shall speak to him, and put the words in his mouth. I will be with your mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do.
  16. 16He will be your spokesman to the people. It will happen that he will be to you a mouth, and you will be to him as God.
  17. 17You shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs.”
  18. 18Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said to him, “Please let me go and return to my brothers who are in Egypt, and see whether they are still alive.” Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”
  19. 19The LORD said to Moses in Midian, “Go, return into Egypt; for all the men who sought your life are dead.”
  20. 20Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them on a donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt. Moses took God’s rod in his hand.
  21. 21The LORD 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.
  22. 22You shall tell Pharaoh, ‘The LORD says, Israel is my son, my firstborn,
  23. 23and I have said to you, “Let my son go, that he may serve me;” and you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’”
  24. 24On the way at a lodging place, the LORD met Moses and wanted to kill him.
  25. 25Then Zipporah took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet; and she said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.”
  26. 26So he let him alone. Then she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.
  27. 27The LORD said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” He went, and met him on God’s mountain, and kissed him.
  28. 28Moses told Aaron all the LORD’s words with which he had sent him, and all the signs with which he had instructed him.
  29. 29Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel.
  30. 30Aaron spoke all the words which the LORD had spoken to Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people.
  31. 31The people believed, and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.

Exodus 5

Moses and Aaron tell Pharaoh, “Let my people go.” Pharaoh refuses and makes the brickwork crueler. Israel turns on Moses.

  1. 1Afterward Moses and Aaron came, and said to Pharaoh, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’”
  2. 2Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should listen to his voice to let Israel go? I don’t know the LORD, and moreover I will not let Israel go.”
  3. 3They said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the LORD, our God, lest he fall on us with pestilence, or with the sword.”
  4. 4The king of Egypt said to them, “Why do you, Moses and Aaron, take the people from their work? Get back to your burdens!”
  5. 5Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens.”
  6. 6The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying,
  7. 7“You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick, as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves.
  8. 8You shall require from them the number of the bricks which they made before. You shall not diminish anything of it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, saying, ‘Let’s go and sacrifice to our God.’
  9. 9Let heavier work be laid on the men, that they may labor in it. Don’t let them pay any attention to lying words.”
  10. 10The taskmasters of the people went out with their officers, and they spoke to the people, saying, “This is what Pharaoh says: ‘I will not give you straw.
  11. 11Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it, for nothing of your work shall be diminished.’”
  12. 12So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw.
  13. 13The taskmasters were urgent saying, “Fulfill your work quota daily, as when there was straw!”
  14. 14The officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and were asked, “Why haven’t you fulfilled your quota both yesterday and today, in making brick as before?”
  15. 15Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, saying, “Why do you deal this way with your servants?
  16. 16No straw is given to your servants, and they tell us, ‘Make brick!’ and behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people.”
  17. 17But Pharaoh said, “You are idle! You are idle! Therefore you say, ‘Let’s go and sacrifice to the LORD.’
  18. 18Go therefore now, and work; for no straw shall be given to you; yet you shall deliver the same number of bricks!”
  19. 19The officers of the children of Israel saw that they were in trouble when it was said, “You shall not diminish anything from your daily quota of bricks!”
  20. 20They met Moses and Aaron, who stood along the way, as they came out from Pharaoh.
  21. 21They said to them, “May the LORD look at you and judge, because you have made us a stench to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to kill us!”
  22. 22Moses returned to the LORD, and said, “Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Why is it that you have sent me?
  23. 23For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people. You have not rescued your people at all!”

Questions after Exodus 1–5

Write first. Discuss second. Leave the lines used.

Question 1 · Theological depth

God “remembered” His covenant (2:24) and yet Israel’s cry had already gone on “those many days.” If divine remembrance is not God recovering a forgotten fact, what is it—and what does that do to the accusation that delay means neglect?

Question 2 · Theological depth

Pharaoh asks, “Who is the LORD, that I should listen to his voice?” (5:2). Moses has just been told the Name. Is Pharaoh’s question ignorance, defiance, or a claim that no god outranks the throne? How do you tell those apart in your own refusals of a clear word?

Question 3 · Text and history

In 3:14 God says “I AM WHO I AM” (Hebrew ehyeh asher ehyeh) and then “I AM has sent me to you.” The same chapter also gives the memorial name “the LORD, the God of your fathers” (3:15). What is the text actually doing—revealing a new metaphysical title, tying the God of the burning bush to the God of Abraham, or both? Why would a first hearer in slavery need that double answer?

Question 4 · Text and history

Exodus 4:21 says the LORD will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and 5:2 shows Pharaoh already refusing. The writer does not treat those as a later theological patch. How does the narrative itself hold human stubbornness and God’s judicial act in one story without making Pharaoh a puppet or God a reactor?

Question 5 · Walk and practice

From 3:10–12, 4:10–12, and 5:22–23: name three practical steps you will take this week to obey a word you have been postponing because you feel inadequate or because first obedience made life harder. Then name two behaviors you know you could change that would bring you closer to God on the basis of these chapters—using weakness as a veto, treating intensified pressure as proof God is absent, negotiating the quota with the old master, or refusing holy ground. Be specific enough that someone could ask you next week whether you did it.

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