The book of Exodus tells the story of Israel's liberation from Egyptian bondage and its formation as a nation. Though at one level an epic of origins for a nation, Exodus transcends its time and place as it bears witness to God's desire to fashion a people who can live sane and holy lives in community with each other and in harmony with God.

Yet Exodus recognizes that this reality is hard-won and always precarious. Making it real requires more than the overthrow of empires. It requires also that freed people live meaningful, committed, and responsible lives. To enable this, God makes covenants with people, not on the basis of their merits but as a way of helping them become meritorious. God gives freedom so that a people can become what they were intended to be all along: responsible, creative, life-giving men and women.

So the story of the exodus is not just a tale of a long-dead past, but the drama of a living present. Mark Hamilton, in this brief book, seeks to capture its bold and timeless vision of human freedom, divine mercy, and responsible community for believers today. Includes discussion questions to use in a Bible class setting.

Mark W. Hamilton (Ph.D., Harvard University) served as Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Theology and is currently the Robert and Kay Onstead Professor of Old Testament at Abilene Christian University, Abilene, Texas. He has co-authored God's Holy Fire: The Nature and Function of Scripture (2002), authored The Body Royal: The Social Poetics of Kingship in Ancient Israel and the Levant (2005), and served as General Editor for The Transforming Word One-Volume Commentary on the Bible (2009).

ISBN: 9780891126386

Pages: 136

Dimensions (inches): 8.5 x 5.5

Weight (pounds): 0.4