The name Exodus means departure. This is an important book because it describes how God established the Hebrew people as God's chosen people to be the nation of Israel.

Chapters 1-15 describe the Hebrews' deliverance from Egyptian slavery under Moses.

Chapters 16-40 describe their journey to Mt. Sinai, the giving of the law there, and the building of the tabernacle.

The Hebrew people had been living relatively well in Egypt until a new Pharaoh came to power who did not know Joseph and all that he had done to keep Egypt from starving during a famine.

Instead, the new Pharaoh was fearful that the Israelites would become so numerous that they might take over Egypt. Therefore, this new Pharaoh enslaved Israel and subjected them to hard labor.

But then God raised up Moses to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt through a long journey through the desert on their way to a new promised land. But Pharaoh refused go allow the Hebrew people to leave, until God brought a series of ten plagues upon Egypt that ultimately forced Pharaoh to concede and let them go.

During their escape from Egypt, God invoked a miracle that allowed the Hebrew people to pass through the midst of the Red Sea on dry land.

After they arrived at Mt. Sinai, God gave the Ten Commandments, plus detailed instructions for building a tabernacle, plus additional very detailed instructions and ordinances concerning how the Hebrew people were to live and worship. All of this was to teach them to have faith and trust in their God and to understand what He requires of His people. The overriding purpose of the Exodus is to prepare the Hebrew people to become the independent nation of Israel, and to lead them to eventually enter Canaan, a land that God promised to give them as their Promised Land.

The laws that God prescribed to the Hebrew people are challenging for us to understand today, but they were all important for establishing the nation of Israel.

Israel began its journey as a fledgling nation but over time two central components of faith would come to dominate the remainder of the Old Testament: right behavior and right worship. Israel's repeated failure to live up to God's standard would become a common theme throughout the Old Testament. The golden calf episode was a preview of the difficulty that the Hebrew people would have learning and remembering that their God, Yahweh, was their Creator and Deliverer.