Exodus

Exodus 1-15 deals with a young boy growing up in palace life while his people are suffering in slavery under the reign of the King of whom the boy, Moses, lives with at the palace.  Chapter one begins with this dualistic struggle between the Egyptians and the Israelites.  The book is written from the Jewish perspective as it was authored by Moses over 3200 years ago.  The Pharoah of Egypt is the key protagonist in this story as he attempts to wipe out the Jewish male children by throwing them in the Nile.  However, a miracle is worked as a mother places her little boy in a reed basket and sends him down the river praying that somehow he will survive.  A miracle was worked indeed in the narrative of this story as Pharoah's daughter sees the little boy in the reed basket while she is bathing at the Nile.  She then takes the son home.  There, he is raised as a prince of Egypt as the son of Pharoah.  Through a sequence of events. Moses becomes the hero in this story.  It all starts with Moses coming to the realization of where he came from.  Then, he realizes what the man who raises him was doing to the people from whence  he came.  Moses first act of heroism starts as he stands up for one of his fellow Hebrews who is being beat up by an Egyptian.  Moses kills the Egyptian for beating the Hebrew.  After Moses kills the Egyptian, the man whom he knew as his father his whole life because enraged with Moses and tries to kill him.  Moses therefore runs for his life to Midian.  There he maries the daughter of a priest as he would live there for a good number of years.  At age 80, the angel of the Lord, believed to be the manifest presence of the Messiah in Old Testament writings, speaks to Moses through a burning bush and tells him that he has called him to be the deliverer of his people the Hebrews.  This was a hard task for Moses to grasp a hold of because in order to lead his people out of slavery, he would have to apeal to the Pharoah of Egypt whom he grew up knowing as his brother.  This Pharoah, Rameses II, had continued in the deeds of his father.  He oppressed the Hebrew people by overloading them with a burden of work.  Moses's appeal to Pharoah seemed at first to only make things worst as Pharoah tripled the load of work that was being placed upon the Hebrews.  However, God promised he would move and he moved through ten plagues to bring judgment on the Egyptians and their gods.  Each plague that ocurred had something to do with an Egyptian God.  For instance, the plague of livestock was a plague to mock the Cow like God Horus.  The plague of darkness mocked the sun god.  The plagues eventually end up in the final plague of the firstborn.  This occurs when Moses instructs the Israelites to put blood over their house and when the plague comes by it will pass over the houses that have blood on the door post.  Pharoah's firstborn son was killed by this plague.  This is what led him to let the Israelites go free.  As they are on their march out of Egypt, Pharoah who is the antagonist of this story changes his mind and sends his army after them.  Moses and the Israelites come to the Red Sea and there cuaght up in a snare God commands Moses to part the waters.  The waters are parted and the Israelites cross.  The Egyptian army tries to cross also but they are drowned.  The best way that the story fits in with the exegesis of Biblical literature is that the parting of the Red Sea is an event that points more towards the timing that it parted.  It has parted more than once throughout history.  Napolean recorded that it parted when he came to it during one of his campaigns and Julius Caesar also records that it parted with him in his campaign.  Thus, the timing in which the Israelities crossed was perfect.  In the same way, the timing in which we cross the parted waters of our sin is just perfect timing enough so that we will not be drowned in our sin.  Exodus 16-40 involves the giving of God's laws to the Israelites through the ten commandments and additional laws for living in the land that would help the Israelites to communally respect each other.  Exodus 25-40 deals with the building of the tabernacle by Bezalel from the tribe of Judah and is representative of Christ who would built a tabernacle through the church which is the believers.  The Tabernacle has unique items like the ark of the covenant and all places and altars of sacrifice in it that are set up.  Tabernacle literally means "the meeting tent of God."  The Holy of Holies is the place where once a year the ultimate once a year sacrifice was made of a lamb.  In Exodus 12 Moses was required to take a lamb without blemish.  The lamb without blemish represents Christ as a passover lamb with no sin who offers the once for all sacrifice for our sins.  But it's our choice whether or not we want to carry out this sacrifice in the Holy of Holies of our body which is our heart.  Take the dimensions of the tabernacle, compare them to the dimensions of the bdy permutate the figure and you get the exact same dimension for the heart in the body as you get for the site of the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle.  Thus, the heart is the place where people would have to chosse to offer up a sacrifice and throguh that sacrifice they repent of their sins and reconcile with God meaning that they will turn from their old lifestlye.  A lesson is found in Exodus 32 that without a good spiritual leader, a nation will become weak as Moses while on the mountain talking with God becomes aware that the people have created a golden calf as their God.  In the last twenty-five chapters of Exodus, it is clearly the people that Moses is leading that are the antagonists because they constantly dwell on the false security of being in Egypt just like we as Christians often dwell on the thought of the false security of being in sin.  Nevertheless, the campaign to reach the Promised Land is also a theme of Exodus as Moses advances the Israelites against the Amalekites in order that the Lord could bring judgment upon the neigboring nations because the cup of their wrath is full.  This is a clear demonstration that you do reap what you sow and God may let you shine in the sun for a while, but once you get out of his will he will enact his authority as a judge upon you and give your land to a different people.  Another theme introduced in Exodus is the Year of Jubilee.  This uniquely fits in with the exegesis of scripture which has brought about the millenial-day hypothesis which states that because a day is as a thousand years with the Lord, then he will let the earth continue under the power of the dark prince Satan until the seven thousandth year of humanity.  The Year of Jubilee fits in with this exegetically because that is the seventh year in which those who have been slaves for six years get to go free unless they choose to remain with their master.  Now, if the millenial day hypothesis is true, then the Genesis creation account would have to take six thousand years and then a 1000 year period of rest because one rule of exegetical parallelism is that when comparing two scriptures in combining them in such a manner like this, then the only way they can be theologically sound and accurate is if everything that applies at x also applies at y.