How Does the JPS Torah Commentary Cover the Book of Exodus?

Present-day editions divide the Book of Exodus into 40 chapters. This practice is not rooted in Jewish tradition but was borrowed from Christian Bibles. In the late Middle Ages, the Church forced Jews to engage in disputations, which usually focused upon the interpretation of scriptural passages. This necessitated a common, standardized system of reference, and so the Christian chapter and verse numberings were introduced into the Hebrew manuscript Bibles by Rabbi Solomon ben Ishmael (ca. 1330).¹

Editorial Note: This is an authorized excerpt from “The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus” published by the Jewish Publication Society.

Don’t Miss Our Latest Interviews!

Be part of a growing community exploring topics like Robert Alter’s Hebrew Bible and Melchizedek in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The JPS Torah Commentary on Exodus is one of several volumes exploring the words and ideas of the Torah.

The Torah Readings

This innovation displaced an earlier Jewish system based upon the weekly Torah readings.

In Palestine and Egypt, the entire Pentateuch was originally completed in triennial, or three-year, cycles. The Book of Exodus was variously divided into 29 or 33 such sedarim, as the weekly Sabbath meetings were called.

Eventually, the Babylonian practice of completing the entire Torah in the course of a single year became universal. In this system, the Book of Exodus is divided into 11 sections, each known as a parashah (pl., parashot or parshiyyot) or sidra (h) (pl., sedarot).

Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Contain the New Testament?

The Contents and Character

Geography of Exodus

Using the criterion of geographic location, one may divide Exodus into three parts:

Chapters 1:1 to 15:21, which describe the oppression of Israel as well as the struggle for liberation and its final attainment, obviously have as their setting the land of Egypt.
The events recorded in chapters 15:22 to 18:27 take place on the way from the Sea of Reeds to Sinai, although the location of chapter 18 is debatable.
For the rest of the book, chapters 19 to 40, the scene of action is Sinai.

Such a simple locational classification, however, obscures the richness and variety of the subject matter, which a glance at the Table of Contents will immediately reveal.

Central Theme: God’s Redemption of His People From Egyptian Bondage

The Book of Exodus is the great seminal text of biblical literature. Its central theme, God’s redemption of His people from Egyptian bondage, is mentioned no less than 120 times in the Hebrew Bible in a variety of contexts.²

Second Temple Literature with Malka Simkovich

Impact on Culture and Religion

This event informed and shaped the future development of the culture and religion of Israel. Remarkably, it even profoundly influenced ethical and social consciousness, so that it is frequently invoked in the Torah as the motivation for protecting and promoting the interests and rights of the stranger and the disadvantaged of society.³

This pervasive and sustained impact of the Exodus drama is not limited to the period of the Bible itself.

It continued throughout history down to the present time and in recent years has been a source of inspiration for the “theologies of liberation” movements.⁴

Not a Straightforward Account of a Historical Event

If it has so profoundly affected peoples of widely different cultures, this is hardly because the biblical narrative is a straightforward account of an historical event; it is not.

The Book of Exodus must be understood on its own terms.

Rather, this influence is due to the special orientation and perspective of Exodus. It is a document of faith, not a dispassionate, secular report of the freeing of an oppressed people.

The Book of Exodus possesses a character all its own and must be understood on its own terms.⁵

“The Bible Says So”: An Interview with Dan McClellan

Episodic Accounts Within a Limited Time Frame

A close examination of the constituent elements of the Book of Exodus determines at once that we do not have a comprehensive, sequential narrative, only an episodic account.

Moreover, the time frame in which the varied episodes are placed is extremely limited.

The afore-cited passage from the Dikdukei Ha-Te’amim’ adduces a tradition that 140 years elapsed between the death of Joseph (1:4)—the first event recorded in the book—and the construction of the Tabernacle almost exactly one year after the Exodus, the last dated occurrence (40:2).

Selective and Sparing Details

Yet, the narrative is most sparing of detail relating to the period of the oppression. Neither the duration of the sufferings of the Israelites nor anything about their inner life and community existence is mentioned.

Only incidentally do we learn that the period of Egyptian enslavement lasted at least 80 years.

We are told that Moses, who was born after the king’s genocidal decree, was 80 years old when he first presented himself before the pharoah as the leader of the people.

It suggests a high degree of deliberate selectivity.

Further investigation reveals that the book really covers the events of just two years: the year-long diplomatic activity as well as the coercive measures taken against the Egyptians and a few incidents from the year in the wilderness following the Exodus.

This limitation, together with the paucity of historical data, suggests a high degree of deliberate selectivity.

Who Is Melchizedek in the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Culling Historic Events to Project Israelite Concepts of God

Both the selectivity and the disposition of the featured material stamp the Book of Exodus as falling into the category of historiosophy rather than historiography: Not the preservation and recording of the past for its own sake but for the culling of certain historic events for didactic purposes is the intent.

The entire narrative is God centered. Its focal points are God’s mighty deeds on behalf of His people in times of oppression, in the act of liberation, and in the course of the wilderness wanderings. God is the sole actor, the only initiator of events.

The various episodes, therefore, project Israelite concepts of God and His relationship to the world; that is, they embody the fundamental tenets and crucial elements of the religion of Israel and of its world view.

Don’t Miss Our Latest Interviews!

Stay connected with fresh content and scholarly insights every week.

God as Described in Exodus

The different aspects of the divine personality, as revealed in Exodus, express a conception of God that is poles apart from any pagan notions. There is but a single Deity, who demands exclusive service and fidelity.

Being the Creator of all that exists, He is wholly independent of His creations, and totally beyond the constraints of the world of nature, which is irresistibly under His governance.

This is illustrated by the phenomena of the burning bush, the ten plagues, and the dividing of the Sea of Reeds.

The biblical polemic against idolatry appears here for the first time.

As a consequence, any attempt to depict or represent God in material or pictorial form is inevitably a falsification and is strictly prohibited. The biblical polemic against idolatry appears here for the first time in the context of the Exodus.

Although the nature of God must be beyond the scope of human imagination, the texts affirm, as one of their principal teachings, that He is nevertheless deeply involved in human affairs.

Interpreting History

History, therefore, is not a procession of causeless, undirected, meaningless happenings but is the deliberate, purposeful, unfolding plan of the divine intelligence.

God chooses to enter into an eternally valid covenantal relationship with his people, Israel; this legal reality entails immutable and inescapable obligations on their part.

Let’s Talk About Temples and Ritual

Divine Law

The Decalogue and the legislative sections of Exodus thereby constitute divine law. They are not, as is the case with the Near Eastern law collections, the fruit of human wisdom or royal sagacity.

From this flows another credo, first explicated in Exodus, which thereafter animates all of biblical literature: that the welfare of society is conditional upon obedience to God’s law.

God is deemed to be absolutely moral, and He correspondingly demands moral standards of behavior from human beings. He delivers the faithful from injustice and oppression and ensures the ultimate and inevitable downfall of the wicked.

Religious Calendar

The religious calendar of Israel became transformed by the Exodus experience. Formerly tied to an expression of the rhythms of the seasons, the sacred times were reinterpreted in terms of that great historical event.

They became commemorations of God’s benefactions upon Israel and in the wilderness and were emancipated from phenomena of nature.

Origins of Hereditary Priesthood and Prophetic Office

Finally, two of the most important institutions of biblical Israel find their origins in this book.

The account of the organization of the cult around a central place of worship with a hereditary priesthood occupies nearly one-third of the entire book; 13 of its 40 chapters are concerned with this topic.

And the prophetic office, of seminal importance for the national history of faith and later also for some of the world’s other major religions, is initiated through the person of Moses.

He is the archetypal prophet whose mission epitomizes the distinguishing features of later classical apostolic prophecy.

How Did the Urim and Thummim in the Bible Work?

The Setting in Time

A clear distinction must be made between the special literary mold in which the narrative is cast—with its particular selectivity, emphases, and teachings—and the historical background of the Exodus.

Missing Data Needed to Establish Chronology

This last issue is complicated by the absence from the biblical accounts of certain data essential to establishing chronological patterns:

The names of the reigning Egyptian kings are not given.
We do not know how long after Joseph’s death the reversal in the fortunes of the Israelites occurred.
And we have no extra-biblical documentation that directly refers to Israel in Egypt, to the Exodus, or to the conquest of Canaan.

Certain Biblical Texts Have Not Yet Yielded Their Secrets

In addition to these matters, there is the problem that certain biblical texts have not yet yielded their secrets. For instance, Genesis 15:13 foretells that Abraham’s offspring “shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed for 400 years.”

This time span is there coordinated with just four generations.

Exodus 12:40-41 states that the Israelites resided in Egypt for 430 years. We are not told when this period is thought to have commenced; hence one cannot work backward to the patriarchal era in order to fix the date of Israel’s departure from Egypt, not to mention the fact that the dates of the patriarchs are still a matter of scholarly dispute.

Evaluating a 15th-Century B.C.E. Chronology

The one apparently unambiguous chronological note is in 1 Kings 6:1, according to which 480 years intervened between the building of Solomon’s Temple and the Exodus. The king’s project can be reliably dated to around 960 B.C.E.

This would place the great event at about the middle of the 15th century B.C.E. Unfortunately, this dating cannot be reconciled with many other details of the biblical narrative.

Thus Moses, who lived in the Nile Delta, is easily and frequently in touch with the ruling pharaoh, who must also have had his residence in the area.

This situation would hardly have been conducive to Israel’s departure from Egypt.

But in the 15th century B.C.E., the Egyptian capital and royal palace were located at Thebes, a distance of more than 400 miles (ca. 650 km) to the south of the Delta.

Moreover, commencing about 1550 B.C.E. and for the next few hundred years, energetic and powerful Egyptian monarchs maintained a tight grip on Canaan. This situation would hardly have been conducive to Israel’s departure from Egypt and its conquest of Canaan in this period, especially as Egypt never figures in the biblical account of Joshua’s campaigns.

Evaluating a 13th-Century B.C.E. Chronology

On the other hand, a 13th-century B.C.E. dating would seem to be far more satisfactory:

It was then that the royal capital was situated in the Nile Delta.
It was in this period that archaeological evidence shows the towns of Pithom and Ramses to have been built, and the Bible ascribes their erection to Israelite slaves.
It was then that frenetic construction of activity took place in the Nile Delta, which would have required the conscription of large numbers of laborers.
The end of the 13th century was a period of Egypt’s decline and loss of its Canaanite province.
The invasion of the Sea Peoples and the Libyans occurred; there was a power vacuum in the East; and generally it was a period of turmoil and upheaval.

Although a mid-13th-century B.C.E. dating for the Exodus presently appears to accommodate more facts than a dating two centuries earlier, it is not without its own difficulties.

True, it is reinforced by the Stele of Merneptah, the inscribed monument set up in western Thebes by the pharaoh of that name (ca. 1224 to 1211 B.C.E.) to celebrate his victory over the invaders of Egypt.

The Stele of Merneptah mentions “Israel” as a people in Canaan during the life of the Pharaoh Thebes (ca. 1224 to 1211 BCE). Credit: The Land of Israel / Palestine: Image Database.

This stele mentions “Israel” as a people in Canaan but apparently not yet settled down within fixed borders.

Nevertheless, the Exodus and conquest in the 13th century cannot be reconciled with the above-cited biblical chronology if it is to be taken literally.

Moreover, the archaeological data collected from numerous sites in the area do not always fit in with the biblical reports of the towns in Transjordan that the Israelites encountered on their way to Canaan nor of the places that Joshua conquered and destroyed in the course of his campaigns inside Canaan, if a 13th century B.C.E. time frame be insisted on.

Only future research will be able to solve the problem.

Remembering What Exodus Is

In the meantime, it must always be remembered that the biblical narrative is a theological exposition—a document of faith, not a historiographic record.

Excerpted from The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus by Nahum M. Sarna, published by The Jewish Publication Society. Minor modifications have been made for online reading, including bolding, paragraph spacing, and the insertion of subheaders. Copyright © 1991 by The Jewish Publication Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Want More Scholar Interviews in Your Inbox?

Be part of a growing community exploring history, religion, and scholarship.

About the Scholar

Nahum M. Sarna (1923–2005) was a preeminent biblical scholar and the Dora Golding Professor of Biblical Studies at Brandeis University. As the general editor of the JPS Torah Commentary and author of its Exodus and Genesis volumes, he revolutionized modern Bible study by synthesizing traditional Jewish exegesis with Ancient Near Eastern archaeology and linguistics. A key translator of the NJPS Tanakh, Sarna is renowned for making complex academic scholarship accessible and resonant for contemporary readers.

The Torah Readings

The Contents and Character

Geography of Exodus

Central Theme: God’s Redemption of His People From Egyptian Bondage

Impact on Culture and Religion

Not a Straightforward Account of a Historical Event

Episodic Accounts Within a Limited Time Frame

Selective and Sparing Details

Culling Historic Events to Project Israelite Concepts of God

God as Described in Exodus

Interpreting History

Divine Law

Religious Calendar

Origins of Hereditary Priesthood and Prophetic Office

The Setting in Time

Missing Data Needed to Establish Chronology

Certain Biblical Texts Have Not Yet Yielded Their Secrets

Evaluating a 15th-Century B.C.E. Chronology

Evaluating a 13th-Century B.C.E. Chronology

Remembering What Exodus Is

About the Scholar

Further Reading

Book of Exodus Resources

Notes to the Introduction

Table of Contents—The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus, by Nahum M. Sarna

The Commentary to Exodus

The Tabernacle

Excurses to the Exodus Commentary

Weekly Torah Readings From the Book of Exodus

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Leave a Reply