60 Fun Facts About Exodus

Exodus is which book of the Bible?

It follows Genesis and picks up with the descendants of Jacob multiplying in Egypt.

The English title Exodus comes from a Greek word meaning what?

The Hebrew title is different altogether: Shemot, meaning 'Names', from the book's opening words.

What is the traditional Hebrew title of the Book of Exodus?

Each book of the Torah takes its Hebrew name from a word in its first verse; Exodus opens 'These are the names of the sons of Israel'.

According to Exodus, the enslaved Israelites were forced to build which two store cities?

Rameses is one reason Ramesses II is the pharaoh most often proposed for the story, though the Bible never names any pharaoh.

Who found the infant Moses hidden in an ark among the reeds of the Nile?

She named him for having drawn him out of the water, and his own mother was hired to nurse him.

Why did Moses first flee Egypt for the land of Midian?

He hid the body in the sand, but the killing became known and Pharaoh sought his life.

What was the name of Moses' wife?

She was one of the seven daughters of a Midianite priest, and their first son was named Gershom.

Moses' father-in-law, the priest of Midian who later advised him to appoint judges, was called what?

He is also called Reuel in the text and is revered by the Druze as their chief prophet.

What was Moses doing when he encountered God in the burning bush?

The bush was on fire but not consumed, and he was told to remove his sandals because he stood on holy ground.

On which mountain does Exodus place the burning bush?

Horeb is generally identified with Sinai, and the monks of Saint Catherine's Monastery still show visitors a bush they hold to be the original.

What name does God give when Moses asks who is sending him?

The Hebrew phrase is linked to the divine name YHWH, built from the verb 'to be'.

Because Moses protested that he was not a good speaker, who was appointed to speak for him?

The elder brother went on to become the first hereditary high priest of Israel.

How many plagues did God send on Egypt according to tradition?

Oddly, the book never adds them up; the number ten comes from counting the narrative, and Psalms list them differently.

What was the first plague on Egypt?

The fish died and the river stank; the Egyptian magicians managed to copy this one.

Which plague followed directly after the river was struck?

They came up into houses, bedrooms and kneading bowls, and when they died the land was piled with heaps of them.

How long did the plague of darkness last?

It was a darkness that could be felt, yet the Israelites had light where they lived.

What was the tenth and final plague?

Egyptian households from Pharaoh's to the prisoner's lost their firstborn, and Pharaoh finally sent the Israelites away that night.

How were the Israelites told to mark their homes so the final plague would pass over them?

The lamb was to be chosen on the tenth day of the month and sacrificed on the fourteenth, and eaten that night in haste.

Which Jewish festival commemorates the escape from Egypt described in Exodus?

It begins on the 15th of Nisan and runs seven days in Israel, eight in most of the diaspora.

Why is unleavened bread eaten during the spring festival that commemorates the escape from Egypt?

Possessing or eating leavened food, chametz, is forbidden for the whole festival.

What is the name of the book read at the Seder meal that retells the story of Exodus?

The word means 'telling', and the meal itself follows a fixed order — 'seder' means order.

How many Israelite men on foot does Exodus 12:37 say left Egypt?

Numbers later gives a census figure of 603,550 men aged twenty and up, before women and children are counted.

According to Exodus 12, how long had the Israelites lived in Egypt when they left?

Genesis had foretold four hundred years of affliction, and the departure is dated 'to the very day'.

In what form did God lead the Israelites through the wilderness by day?

By night it became a pillar of fire, so the people could travel at any hour.

The Hebrew name of the sea the Israelites crossed, Yam Suph, is often translated as what?

That reading has led scholars to look at marshy lakes along the Suez isthmus rather than the Red Sea proper.

In the crossing account, what natural force does God use to drive the sea back overnight?

Moses stretched his staff over the water, and the Israelites walked through on dry ground with walls of water on either side.

Which of Moses' siblings led the women in song with timbrels after the sea closed over the Egyptians?

The Torah calls her 'the prophetess', and later she was struck with a skin disease for speaking against her brother.

What food did God provide each morning in the wilderness when the people complained of hunger?

It came with the dew and had to be gathered before the sun melted it, and it stopped once the Israelites reached settled land.

Exodus says the wilderness bread was white like coriander seed and tasted like what?

A double portion was gathered on the sixth day so no one had to collect on the Sabbath, and unlike other days it did not spoil overnight.

The Hebrew name of the wilderness bread is traditionally explained as a question meaning what?

Israelites reportedly asked 'man hu?' when they first saw the flakes on the ground, and the name stuck for forty years.

For how many years did the Israelites eat the wilderness bread, according to Exodus?

A jar of it was kept before the Testimony as a memorial for later generations.

What accompanied God's appearance on Mount Sinai when the Ten Commandments were pronounced?

The mountain itself trembled, and the people begged Moses to speak to them instead of God.

The Ten Commandments are said to have been written on the stone tablets by what?

Moses smashed that first set on seeing the golden calf and had to cut a second pair himself.

Besides Exodus 20, in which other book does the Ten Commandments text appear in full?

A third, quite different 'Ritual Decalogue' also appears in Exodus 34.

What is the traditional Hebrew term for the Ten Commandments?

'Decalogue', from the Greek for ten words, is the same idea; the Bible never calls them 'commandments' in that verse.

Who fashioned the golden calf while Moses was on the mountain?

He collected the people's gold earrings to make it and later claimed he threw the gold in the fire 'and out came this calf'.

What did Moses do with the golden calf after destroying it?

About three thousand people were killed by the Levites that day for the idolatry.

What did God instruct Moses to build so that He could dwell among the people?

It was a portable tent sanctuary, and Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem eventually took its place.

What does the Hebrew word for the portable sanctuary, mishkan, literally mean?

Its inner room, the Holy of Holies, held the Ark behind a veil hung on four pillars.

Which craftsman is named in Exodus as the chief builder of the sanctuary tent and its furnishings?

He was filled 'with the spirit of God' in wisdom and craftsmanship, and his name means 'in the shadow of God'.

The Ark of the Covenant was made from which wood, overlaid with gold?

It measured two and a half cubits long by a cubit and a half wide and high, with two cherubim on its lid.

Which national church claims to hold the actual Ark of the Covenant today, in the city of Axum?

It is kept under guard in a treasury by the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, and only one monk is permitted to see it.

Which of Moses' relatives became the first hereditary high priest of Israel?

The priestly line ran through his descendants, while the rest of the tribe of Levi served the sanctuary.

Where does the Bible say Moses died, having seen but never entered the Promised Land?

He was 120 years old, and Deuteronomy says no one knows where he was buried.

Jewish and Christian tradition credits which figure with writing the Book of Exodus?

Modern scholarship treats the Torah as a composite work assembled over centuries, but the traditional view held for two millennia.

Who played Moses in Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 epic The Ten Commandments?

Yul Brynner played Rameses, and the film has aired on US network television every Passover-Easter season since 1973.

The 1956 Ten Commandments won its only Academy Award in which category?

John P. Fulton's parting of the Red Sea, done with dumped water tanks run in reverse, was the showpiece.

Which song from The Prince of Egypt won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?

Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey recorded the pop version, and Val Kilmer voiced both Moses and, uncredited, God.

Ridley Scott's 2014 film Exodus: Gods and Kings starred which actor as Moses?

The film was banned in Egypt and dedicated to Scott's brother Tony, who had died in 2012.

Otto Preminger's 1960 film Exodus, about the founding of Israel, was adapted from a novel by whom?

Preminger openly credited blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, which along with Spartacus helped end the Hollywood blacklist.

Which artist's 1977 album Exodus was named the best album of the 20th century by Time magazine?

It was recorded in London after a gunman tried to kill Marley in Jamaica, and includes 'Jamming' and 'Three Little Birds'.

What is the name of the Levite woman who set the infant Moses adrift on the Nile in an ark of bulrushes?

Pharaoh had ordered every newborn Hebrew boy killed, fearing the numerous Israelites could become a fifth column.

On the journey back to Egypt, God seeks to kill Moses; what does Zipporah do to stop the attack?

The strange episode is known as 'Zipporah at the inn' and has puzzled commentators for centuries.

Which spring month does God command Moses to fix at the head of the Hebrew calendar?

The Israelites were to take a lamb on the 10th of that month and sacrifice it on the 14th, keeping the Passover meal under the full moon.

What must Moses do after coming down Sinai the second time, transformed by God's presence?

He then assembles the Hebrews and repeats the commands to keep the Sabbath and to build the Tabernacle.

The story of baby Moses saved from the Nile is thought to echo an earlier legend about which ruler?

Scholars also compare the Covenant Code to the Laws of Hammurabi and Moses' flight to Midian to the Egyptian Story of Sinuhe.

The Israelites' reply 'na'aseh v'nishmah' in Exodus 24:7 is usually translated how?

Jewish commentators read it as a willingness to obey God's commands before fully understanding them.

Which weekly Torah portion covers Exodus 13-17, including the parting of the sea and the manna?

Yitro follows with Jethro's advice and the Ten Commandments, and Mishpatim contains the Covenant Code.

Which archaeologists argued digs found 'not even the slightest evidence' of Israelites wandering in Sinai?

They see continuity between Canaanite and Israelite settlements, though most scholars still think the story has some historical core.

Which biblical scholar, in her Exodus commentary, calls it arguably the most important book in the Bible?

She argues it presents Israel's defining features: hardship and escape, a binding covenant, and the guidelines for community life.