Exodus as a Theme

According to the Hebrew Bible’s exodus tradition, the Israelites went free from Egyptian slavery, witnessed the destruction of the Egyptians in a final confrontation at the Reed Sea, and journeyed from Egypt to the land promised to their ancestors. The story is told most expansively in the book of Exodus, which also commands the Israelites to tell the story to one another (Exodus 13:8). Outside of the narrative itself, the Hebrew Bible refers to the exodus well over a hundred times, most often using short formulae (e.g., 1 Kings 12:28). The exodus is one of the Bible’s best-known and most-loved stories. In this brief bibliographic survey, I will point to some of the more important and accessible resources for understanding how the themes of the exodus tradition relate to Levantine history, how they drew on ancient Near Eastern literary motifs and forms, how they developed in the Iron Age in ancient Israel and Judah, how they were expressed in the book of Exodus, in what contexts they were invoked in other biblical literature, and how they were received in post-biblical literature.