Exodus (Believers Church Bible Commentary | BCBC)
Overview
The Believers Church Bible Commentary Series is published for all who seek more fully to understand the original message of Scripture and its meaning for today—Sunday school teachers, members of Bible study groups, students, pastors, and other seekers. The series is based on the conviction that God is still speaking to all who will listen, and that the Holy Spirit makes the Word a living and authoritative guide for all who want to know and do God’s will.
Each volume illuminates the Scriptures; provides historical and cultural background; shares necessary theological, sociological, and ethical meanings; and, in general, makes "the rough places plain." Critical issues are not avoided, but neither are they moved into the foreground as debates among scholars. The series aids in the interpretive process, but it does not attempt to supersede the authority of the Word and Spirit as discerned in the gathered church.
The Believers Church Bible Commentary is a cooperative project of Brethren in Christ Church, Brethren Church, Church of the Brethren, Mennonite Brethren Church, and Mennonite Church.
Overall Outline
The commentaries are organized into sections according to the major divisions of the text. Each section comprises five parts:
- An introductory preview
- A summary outline of the section
- Explanatory notes
- The text in its biblical context
- The text in the life of the church
Exodus
Waldemar Janzen (Mennonite Church) offers a fresh approach to the book of Exodus. The liberation from Egypt is a prelude to Israel's unique calling to model before the nations a new life of service under God. Exodus portrays how God, through his servant Moses, wages a dramatic battle with Egypt's mighty ruler for the release of enslaved Israel.
After wresting Israel from Pharaoh's enslavement, God fights for the soul of his doubting and resistant people. Even after Israel's covenant commitment to be God's "priestly kingdom and holy nation," Israel breaks away again.
God's grace wrests Israel away once more, this time from captivity to its own doubts, fears, and self-centeredness. In the last chapters, Exodus portrays a people focused in faith on the imageless presence of God in its midst.
Top Highlights
“God is the one who takes the initiative to relate the new to the familiar.” (Page 60)
“It seems preferable, however, to translate God’s answer with the future tense: I will be who/what I will be. It is grammatically more straightforward (Gowan: 83; W. H. Schmidt: 176f.), and it accords with the future meaning of the promise I will be (’ehyeh) with you (3:12), identical in its opening verb form with the name given here: I will be (’ehyeh) who I will be. In part, God’s ‘answer’ constitutes a refusal to answer rather than an answer, in keeping with other instances where God maintains divine otherness and mystery by refusing a request for his name (Gen. 32:29; Judg. 13:17–18; cf. Exod. 33:17–23).” (Page 64)
“The refusal of the midwives to carry out these royal orders—their civil disobedience, as we would say—is motivated by their fear of God (1:17). For the first time in Exodus, God is mentioned directly. God initiates the first and subtle countermove against Pharaoh. God’s agents are two women, a small force indeed when arraigned against the absolute ruler of an empire. Here, as throughout the Bible, victory does not depend on numbers and strength, but solely on alignment with God’s will [Yahweh War].” (Page 38)
“The text immediately makes clear that this is not a matter of mere human planning, but of God’s leading (13:17)” (Page 173)
“We have no story in the O T reporting the execution of a son or daughter guilty of these offenses. On the contrary, David attempted to preserve the life of his son Absalom, who went to war against him, and deeply mourned his death (2 Sam. 18:5–33). We can assume that these laws served more to indicate the gravity of the offense than to prescribe actual punishment.” (Page 294)
Overall, Janzen’s commentary on Exodus offers lucid and balanced guidance for reading Exodus, a book that is so central to the thought and witness of Christian faith.
—Review of Biblical Literature
Janzen's sensitivity to the theological texture and narrative drama of Exodus, coupled with his engaging, personal style of presentation, makes his commentary eminently useful as a source of theological reflection for pastors and lay people of all faith traditions.
—William P. Brown, Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia
- Title: Exodus
- Author: Waldemar Janzen
- Publisher: Herald Press
- Publication Date: 2000
- Pages: 480