Notes on Exodus 

The name, “exodus,” indicates a departing and as its name suggest, God has given us detail of the departing of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt where they found themselves in bondage.  However, the book is more than just a detailed description of the departing of the children of Israel from Egypt, but it also teaches us about the establishment of Israel as a nation in the wilderness and of the establishment of the Old Covenant law service, including the building of the tabernacle and the establishment of the Levitical priesthood.   

The book of Exodus also details an integral chapter of God’s fulfillment of a covenant promise to Abraham.  Among the many promises that God made to Abraham, he told Abraham: Gen. 15:13, 14, “And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.”  The beginning of their departure from Egypt and their ultimate inheritance of the land of Canaan is detailed for us in the book of Exodus. 

The book of Exodus like all the scriptures is a continual testimony of Jesus as Jesus told us in John 5:39 “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”  Thus it is important for us to remember that the book of Exodus has an overriding testimony and that is that it along with all the books of the bible testifies of Jesus.   

There are many things in the book of Exodus that are presented to us in figures: 

    1.   Heb. 9:9 “Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;” 

    2.  Heb. 9:24 “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:” 

    3.  Heb. 11:19 “Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.” 

Moreover, there are patterns developed in the book of Exodus that point us to heavenly things: 

    1.  Heb. 8:5 “Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.” 

    2.  Heb. 9:23 “It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.” 

Moreover, God uses shadows in the book of Exodus to point us to better and heavenly things:

    1.  Col. 2:17 “Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” 

    2.  Heb. 8:5 “Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.” 

    3.  Heb. 10:1 “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.”