The ending of the book of Genesis set the stage for the book of Exodus and tells us that worldwide famine and Joseph, who was second to Pharaoh, brought the Israelites to Egypt. 

While in Egypt the children of Israel multiplied and prospered. A new King arose who did not know Joseph. He feared the Israelites might join forces with Egypt’s enemies or rise up against them so they turned them into slaves. As their numbers grew, the King ordered the midwives to kill their first born sons. Moses was born and hidden by his mother and found by an Egyptian who adopted him.

When Moses was older he killed an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite and he fled to Midean and eventually the Egyptian King died. While Moses was tending his father- in- law’s flock, God appeared to him in a burning bush and called him to deliver the children of Israel from their bondage and lead them to Israel-the land he promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. At Moses reluctance, He provides him Aaron as his spokesperson.

Moses goes to Pharaoh who will not release the Israelites. God sends ten different plagues on the land of Egypt: water becomes blood, frogs, lice, flies, livestock die, hail, locusts and darkness, and finally the death of first born, which included Pharaoh’s son. God commanded the Israelites to kill a Passover lamb and put a little blood on their doorposts so that the destroyer would not kill their first born. God commanded Passover as both a feast and memorial.

Pharaoh freed the Israelites but after freeing them he pusues them. God divides the Red Sea for the children of Israel to pass through. When they crossed it, God worked a miracle through Moses to refill the path with the parted sea and it drowned the army pursuing them.

In the wilderness God provided the children of Israel with water and manna; a heavenly food to sustain them. Amalekites came to fight with Israel and Joshua defeated them.

On Mount Sinai, the Lord issued the ten commandments and wrote them on two tablets of stone, which Moses broke when he came down from the mountain and saw that the Israelites made a golden calf and worshiped it with drink and dance.

God tells Moses that when the Israelites go to the land flowing with milk and honey, He will drive out the various inhabitants of the land. They are not to make friends with these people or make any kind of covenant with them. God commands the Israelites to destroy their alters, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images. God gave instructions for the Meeting Tent, Tabernacle and Ark of The Covenant, which the Israelites built and where the Cloud of the Lord stood above and accompanied them on their journeys.