Israel out of Egypt--opens upon a scene of oppression very different
from the prosperity and triumph in which Genesis had closed. Israel
is being cruelly crushed by the new dynasty which has arisen in
Egypt (i.) and the story of the book is the story of her redemption.
Ultimately it is Israel's God that is her redeemer, but He operates
largely by human means; and the first step is the preparation of a
deliverer, Moses, whose parentage, early training, and fearless love
of justice mark him out as the coming man (ii.). In the solitude and
depression of the desert, he is encouraged by the sight of a bush,
burning yet unconsumed, and sent forth with a new vision of God[1]
upon his great and perilous task (iii.). Though thus divinely
equipped, he hesitated, and God gave him a helper in Aaron his
brother (iv.). Then begins the Titanic struggle between Moses and
Pharaoh--Moses the champion of justice, Pharaoh the incarnation of
might (v.). Blow after blow falls from Israel's God upon the
obstinate king of Egypt and his unhappy land: the water of the Nile
is turned into blood (vii.), there are plagues of frogs, gnats,
gadflies (viii.), murrain, boils, hail (ix.), locusts, darkness
(x.), and--last and most terrible of all--the smiting of the first-born,
an event in connexion with which the passover was instituted. Then
Pharaoh yielded. Israel went forth; and the festival of unleavened
bread was ordained for a perpetual memorial (xi., xii.); also the
first-born of man and beast was consecrated, xiii. 1-16.
[Footnote 1: The story of the revelation of Israel's God under His
new name, Jehovah, is told twice (in ch. iii. and ch. vi.).]

Israel's troubles, however, were not yet over. Their departing
host was pursued by the impenitent Pharaoh, but miraculously delivered
at the Red Sea, in which the Egyptian horses and horsemen were
overwhelmed, xiii. l7-xiv. The deliverance was celebrated in a