Ryken Exodus (ESV Edition)

Saved for God's Glory
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4335-4875-8
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 1200 Seiten

Reihe: Preaching the Word

In this expository commentary on the book of Exodus, Philip Graham Ryken mines the story of Israel's escape from Egypt for knowledge of God's character and instruction for his followers. Theologically instructive and decidedly pastoral, this commentary leads readers to rejoice at God's work in the life of every person who follows him on the path to spiritual freedom. Ryken skillfully relates how the Israelites' deliverance from slavery anticipated the salvation accomplished in Jesus Christ, proving that God remembers his covenant and always delivers on his promises. For those who preach, teach, and study God's Word, this book is more than just a commentary; it is a celebration of God's faithfulness. The book of Daniel abounds with powerful imagery showcasing God's unmatched glory and wise plan for the future. In this accessible commentary, pastor Rodney Stortz highlights the coming triumph of God's kingdom, offering pastors and Bible teachers a resource to help them explain and apply Daniel's message to Christians today. Stortz's careful exegesis and perceptive applications focus on personal holiness, the wisdom and power of God, and the importance of Daniel's prophecies concerning the Messiah and the Antichrist. In addition, this commentary looks to the New Testament to shed light on Daniel's prophecies about the future.  Part of the Preaching the Word series.  

Philip Graham Ryken (DPhil, University of Oxford) is the eighth president of Wheaton College. He preached at Philadelphia's Tenth Presbyterian Church from 1995 until his appointment at Wheaton in 2010. Ryken has published more than fifty books, including When Trouble Comes and expository commentaries on Exodus, Ecclesiastes, and Jeremiah. He serves as a board member for the Gospel Coalition and the Lausanne Movement.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ryken, Philip Graham

Leseproben

1

Into Egypt

EXODUS 1:1–7

EXODUS IS AN EPIC TALE OF fire, sand, wind, and water. The adventure takes place under the hot desert sun, just beyond the shadow of the Great Pyramids. There are two mighty nations—Israel and Egypt—led by two great men—Moses the liberating hero and Pharaoh the enslaving villain. Almost every scene is a masterpiece: the baby in the basket, the burning bush, the river of blood and the other plagues, the angel of death, the crossing of the Red Sea, the manna in the wilderness, the water from the rock, the thunder and lightning on the mountain, the Ten Commandments, the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, the golden calf, and the glory in the tabernacle.

Once heard, the story is never forgotten. For Jews it is the story that defines their very existence, the rescue that made them God’s people. For Christians it is the gospel of the Old Testament, God’s first great act of redemption. We return to the exodus again and again, sensing that somehow it holds significance for the entire human race. It is the story that gives every captive the hope of freedom. Thus it was only natural for African-American slaves—many of whom were Christians—to understand their captivity as a bondage in Egypt and to long for the day when they would be “free at last.” The exodus shows that there is a God who saves, who delivers his people from bondage.

Exodus and the Bible

The word exodus means “exit” or “departure.” It first appears at the beginning of chapter 19: “On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt . . .” (v. 1). When the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek, the verb used for their leaving Egypt was exodus. Eventually the word came to be used as a title for the whole book. The exodus, then, is a story of departure, an epic journey from slavery to salvation. As we study this book, the journey out of Egypt becomes part of our own spiritual pilgrimage. So how shall we make the journey? What is the best way to study Exodus?

First of all, our approach must be Biblical, which means that we must study the book of Exodus itself. We must study it chapter by chapter and verse by verse, seeking to understand the plain meaning of the text. And we must study the book as a complete literary whole. Some scholars view Exodus as a complicated web of human traditions that must be disentangled to be understood. Others argue that it is really two books in one. Chapters 1–14 contain the original story of Israel’s salvation, they say, while the rest of the book consists of material that was added later, somewhat haphazardly.

It is probably true that Exodus was not written at a single sitting. Some parts of the book—especially the stories and songs—may have been passed down by oral tradition. Yet much of the epic seems to have been written by Moses himself. On several different occasions, God told Moses to write down his experiences: “Write this as a memorial in a book” (17:14); “Write these words” (34:27). Moses knew how to write, of course, because he had been trained in Pharaoh’s court. So he was able to do as he was told, to write “down all the words of the LORD” (24:4). Some parts of Exodus may have been written down by someone else, especially the parts that describe Moses in the third person. Yet when Jesus quoted from Exodus (e.g., Mark 7:10; 12:26), he attributed what he was quoting directly to Moses, and we should do the same.

The important thing is to receive the book of Exodus as it has been given, which means studying it as one complete story. Like every other book in the Bible, Exodus is the living Word of God. It was breathed out by the Holy Spirit and written down by Moses for our spiritual benefit. What God has given us is not a random collection of documents, but a single book with a unified message.

Taking a Biblical approach also means reading Exodus in the context of the whole Bible, starting with the Pentateuch, “The Five Books of Moses.” Exodus often looks back to the promises God made in Genesis. Whereas Genesis tells of the creation of the world, Exodus recounts the creation of a nation. The book also stands in close relation to the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. This is how one scholar explains the connection:

In the Pentateuch, considered as a whole, there are only five major themes: God’s promise to the patriarchs; the exodus; God’s Self-revelation in covenant and law at Sinai; the wandering in the wilderness; the entrance into Canaan. Three of these five major themes are treated at length in the book of Exodus and, in addition, it looks back to the first theme and on to the last. Moses’ vision and call at Mount Sinai are deliberately shown as a fulfilment of God’s promise to Israel’s forefathers, while the book ends with a promise of God’s leading till Canaan is reached. Therefore, while Exodus is only part of a wider and far larger whole, it is a real part and, in a sense, enshrines the heart of the whole pentateuchal revelation.1

Beyond the Pentateuch, the book of Exodus has wider connections with the rest of the Old Testament. The exodus was the great miracle of the old covenant. Thus many passages in the Psalms and the Prophets look back to it as the paradigm of salvation. The people of Israel always praised God as the One who had brought them out of Egypt. The New Testament writers worshiped the same God, and thus they often used the exodus to explain salvation in Christ. Indeed, a complete understanding of the gospel requires a knowledge of the exodus. As we study the book of Exodus, therefore, we must follow the Reformation principle of allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture. In some ways the whole Bible is an extended interpretation of the exodus. Thus the way to understand Exodus is to study the book itself, in the context of the entire Bible.

The Exodus in History

Our approach to Exodus must also be historical. This book is more than merely a story; it presents itself as history, and thus the only proper way to interpret it is to accept it as a true account of the history of God’s people.

Many objections have been raised to the historicity of Exodus. Some of these objections surround the date of the exodus. The Bible says that Solomon began to build the temple in Jerusalem “in the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt” (1 Kings 6:1). We know that Solomon built the temple in or around 962 BC, which would place the Exodus around 1440 BC. The problem with that date is that it may not fit everything we know about ancient history, either in Egypt or in Israel. Other questions surround the miracles of Exodus. Did the Nile turn into blood? Did the Egyptians lose all their firstborn sons? Still other questions surround the journeys of the Israelites. Did they cross the Red Sea or the Reed Sea? Did they wander around Arabia or travel directly to Canaan?

Adding to the historical difficulties is the fact that Egyptian records make no mention of the exodus. One writer explains that “archaeologists to date have found no direct evidence to corroborate the biblical story. Inscriptions from ancient Egypt contain no mention of Hebrew slaves, of the devastating plagues that the Bible says preceded their release, or of the destruction of Pharaoh’s army during the Israelites’ miraculous crossing of the Red Sea (or perhaps the Sea of Reeds). No physical trace has been found of the Israelites’ forty-year nomadic sojourn in the Sinai wilderness. There is not even any indication, outside of the Bible, that Moses existed.”2 Some scholars doubt whether Israel was ever in Egypt at all. In the words of one professor, “the actual evidence concerning the Exodus resembles the evidence for the unicorn.”3

Some people don’t think it matters very much whether the exodus happened or not. The history of Exodus, they say, is “less important . . . than the quest for the moral and spiritual values that we might extract from this biblical story.”4 This attitude calls to mind a scene from E. L. Doctorow’s City of God in which two men are discussing the relationship between God and history. “God is ahistorical,” one of them argues. He then proceeds to ask, “Do you believe God gave Moses the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, on Mount Sinai?” After thinking for a moment, his friend replies, “Well it’s a great story. I think I’m a judge of stories and that’s a great story.”5

It is a great story, one of the greatest ever written. But is it also history? If not—if the exodus never happened—then the book of Exodus has little or no claim on our lives today. If there was no exodus, then there is no reason to believe in a God who has the power to save and no need to obey his commandments. This problem led the Jewish scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel to ask a provocative question: “If Moses . . . failed to find out what the will of God is, who will?” Heschel concluded, “If God had nothing to do with the prophets, then He had nothing to do with mankind.”6

The truth is that God had everything to do with the prophets, and because he had everything to do with them, he has everything to do with us. One good reason to believe in the prophet Moses is that the book of Exodus fits everything we know about ancient history. Start with the date of the exodus. It is important to realize that the Israelites did not have an absolute calendar in the time of the patriarchs, and that the Bible’s method of chronological reckoning sometimes involved some approximation. When the Bible says that Solomon...