Lost In Translation: Exodus 1-19
A guide to understanding the most difficult passages of Exodus 1-19.
Video transcript of Lost in Translation: Exodus 1-19, created by Church of the City:
Welcome back to Lost in Translation!
The Bible was written in cultures and times and languages very different from ours—so it’s no surprise that sometimes we can feel a little lost when we’re reading it. In this video series, we’re learning tools and strategies for navigating the most challenging parts of the Bible together. Today, we’re exploring the parts of Exodus that have raised the most questions.
Covenant & Name
Two key ideas can really help us find our bearings in this book: covenant and name. Once we understand these key concepts, so much of Exodus—and really, the whole Old Testament—begins to make more sense.
Let’s start with covenants. In the ancient Near East, a covenant was a formal partnership. Treaties were a common type of covenant. Those covenants established a partnership between a powerful ruler, called a suzerain, and a weaker nation, called a vassal. These covenants often followed a rescue. The suzerain might defeat the vassal’s enemy or provide food during a famine. In return, the vassal would pledge loyalty, obedience, and pay tribute. The suzerain, in turn, promised protection and provision. But if the vassal broke the covenant, the consequences could be severe—sometimes even deadly.
The majority of scholars think this is the kind of covenant God makes with Israel in Exodus. God, the suzerain, rescues Israel from slavery in Egypt and establishes a covenant partnership with them. He promises to bless them, live among them, and make them His representatives to the world. Israel, as the vassal, agrees to follow God’s instructions, remain loyal to Him, and reflect His character to others.
That brings us to God’s name, which keeps showing up in Exodus. In the ancient world, a name often reflected someone’s character. In Exodus 3, God reveals His name to Moses: “I am Who I Am.” This tells us something profound about God—God is alive, present, uncreated, and eternal. A name, then, conveys character.
But “name” is also a synonym for reputation. In Exodus 9:16, God tells Pharaoh that he’ll be used to make God’s name known throughout the earth. In this context, God’s name refers to His reputation—His reputation for power, justice, and mercy.
Reputation and character mattered deeply in the honor-shame cultures of the ancient Near East. In Exodus, God entrusts His name—His reputation—to Israel. That’s a huge responsibility. Israel is called to live in a way that displays God’s character and spreads God’s good reputation. When they’re warned not to take God’s name in vain, it literally means, “Don’t carry God’s name lightly.” Representing God is a serious task, and God takes it seriously too.
This covenant partnership with Israel is like God’s partnership with Adam and Eve. Just as they were created to be His image-bearers—His representatives in the world—God now calls Israel to fill that same role.
Of course, Iike Adam and Eve, Israel will fail to live up to their end of this covenant partnership, but God’s response to their failure will also reveal something about God’s character.
Now, let’s explore some of the most challenging passages in Exodus and see how these ideas of covenant and name can help us when we feel lost.
The Hardening of Pharoah’s Heart (Exodus 4-14)
The story about God hardening Pharaoh’s heart raises a lot of important questions: Does God make people sin? How can God hold someone accountable if they’re not truly free to make their own choices?
A lot changes from the beginning of Pharaoh’s story to the end, and noticing those changes can help us make sense of what’s happening.
Early in the story, Pharaoh hardens his own heart. The Hebrew word used here is ḥāzaq, which means “strong” or “resolute.” In Egyptian culture, this kind of hardness was seen as a virtue in leaders. A good ruler was expected to be ḥāzaq—strong-willed, confident, and firm in their decisions, even under pressure. It’s a morally neutral word. Someone can be resolute in doing good or evil.
But Pharaoh is resolute in rebelling against God, refusing to release the Israelites. Even as God sends the first few plagues his way, Pharaoh digs in his heels and refuses to change course.
At this point in the story, something very important changes. God now begins to harden Pharaoh’s heart, and a new Hebrew word for “harden” is introduced: kābēd, which means “heavy.” In Egyptian religion, a person’s heart was weighed against a feather in the afterlife. A light heart was innocent, while a heavy heart was guilty.
So, what does it mean for God to make Pharaoh’s heart heavy? A minority of scholars think it means God caused Pharaoh to sin. But most scholars interpret this differently. They suggest that making Pharaoh’s heart heavy either means God declared Pharaoh guilty or allowed him to follow through on his bad decisions, experiencing the full weighty consequences of his rebellion.
But wait — there’s one more word for “harden” used in the story: qāšâ, which means “stiff” or “stubborn.” It only appears once in this story, in Exodus 7:3, where God says He will qāšâ Pharaoh’s heart.
Some scholars connect this word to an earlier use in Exodus 4. In that passage, Moses picks up a snake by the tail, and it stiffens—qāšâ—becoming a staff. The stiffened snake becomes a useful tool for demonstrating God’s power and authority.
This might suggest that when God says He will qāšâ Pharaoh’s heart, He is announcing His intention to use Pharaoh’s stubbornness as a tool for demonstrating His power and authority.
And that’s exactly what happens. In Exodus 9:16, God tells Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
The mighty, stubborn Pharaoh is like a snake taken by the tail and used by God to make His name known to the nations.
God Trying to Kill Moses (Exodus 4:24-26)
Now, let’s look at one of the more bizarre passages in all of the Bible and, this time, we’ll lean on what we know about covenants to make sense of it. The story is found in Exodus 4:24-26. It looks like God is about to kill Moses. His wife Zipporah steps in, circumcises their son, and touches Moses with the child’s foreskin, which somehow saves Moses’ life. What on earth is going on here?
To understand this, we need to go back to the origins of circumcision. In Genesis 15, God promises Abraham and Sarah that He will give them a massive family, one that will become a nation through which the whole world will be blessed. But in Genesis 16, when Sarah hasn’t become pregnant yet, she forces her Egyptian servant Hagar to have a child with Abraham. Instead of trusting God, they take matters into their own hands and abuse the vulnerable and less powerful.
In Genesis 17, God reaffirms His promise to Abraham and Sarah and establishes a covenant partnership with them. Circumcision becomes the sign of this covenant—marking Abraham’s body as a reminder of his agreement with God. It’s also a kind of confession and repentance—cutting off the old way of living and committing to live God’s way instead.
From that time on, circumcision was a physical, visible sign of belonging to God’s covenant family known as Israel. Genesis 17:14 is clear: anyone who refuses circumcision will be “cut off” from God’s people. It’s non-negotiable for those who want to be part of this partnership.
Fast forward to Exodus 4. Moses hasn’t circumcised his own son. That’s a huge problem! How can he lead Israel to be a faithful covenant partner with God when he’s broken the covenant like this? His wife, Zipporah, is a Midianite and not even an Israelite, but she understands the gravity of the situation. She circumcises their son and touches the foreskin to Moses and saves his life. Keeping a covenant with a suzerain is a matter of life and death.
But there’s even more going on here. Exodus uses a literary device called prefigurative typology: Moses is a type of Israel. His personal experiences in Exodus 1-6 foreshadow what the whole nation of Israel will go through later on.
For example, Moses is saved as a baby when Pharaoh tries to kill all the Hebrew boys, just as Israel will be rescued from Pharaoh. Moses is drawn out of the waters of the Nile, and later, Israel will pass through the waters of the Red Sea. Moses meets God on a mountain at the burning bush and hides his face in fear, foreshadowing Israel meeting God at a mountain and being too afraid to go up and meet with him. God provides a well for Moses when he’s on the run in the wilderness just as God will later provide for Israel in the wilderness.
This circumcision story in Exodus 4 fits into that pattern. Seeing what it foreshadows helps us make sense of it. Zipporah’s act of circumcision prefigures the Passover. If we know what Passover is about we can work backward to better understand what Exodus 4 is about.
At Passover, God warns that He will strike down the firstborn in every household—no one is exempt. But anyone who signals their trust and allegiance to God by “touching” the blood of a lamb to their doorframe will be spared. In both stories, death is the consequence of disobedience to God and blood is the visible sign of obedience and trust that turns away death and preserves life.
The Death of the Firstborn (Exodus 12)
Speaking of the Passover, let’s talk about what, for me, is the most difficult part of Exodus: God killing the firstborn. I’m reluctant to even tackle this question. Any answer we come up with won’t make this story any less troubling. Life is sacred; the loss of life is tragic, always. I think God sees it that way too. If God values life so much, why would God take the lives of the firstborn?
We find this story in Exodus 12. But way back in Exodus 4 God refers to Israel as His "firstborn son.” This is significant. In our culture, in a healthy family, every kid is equally important and treasured. But in the ancient Near East, the firstborn son was uniquely important. He inherited not only the family’s wealth but also its responsibilities, commitments, and authority. The firstborn was the continuation of the family’s legacy—its future and reputation. He represented the family in the broader community and often took over as the family leader once the father was no longer able to fulfill that role.
Losing a firstborn son wasn’t just a personal tragedy; it was a devastating blow to the family’s very survival and standing in society.
Pharoah enslaved God’s firstborn son and, even worse, issued a decree to murder every Hebrew baby boy by throwing them into the Nile. In the legal codes of the Ancient Near East, like Hammurabi’s Code, justice demanded that the punishment mirror the crime: an eye for an eye.
In Exodus 4:22-23 we read the message from God that Moses delivered to Pharoah: “Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go, so he may serve me.’ But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’” According to ancient laws, this was justice.
But God isn’t only just—He’s also merciful. Pharaoh’s slaves had no way out, and the Hebrew babies thrown into the Nile had no hope. Yet God provided a way for anyone—Israelite or Egyptian—to be spared.
God instructed each household to sacrifice a lamb and place its blood on the doorframes of their home. He promised, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you” (Exodus 12:13).
This was an invitation for anyone, regardless of nationality or status, to trust God and be saved—even Pharaoh. God’s judgment always comes with an opportunity to turn back, trust Him, and receive mercy and life.
This event shapes God’s name or reputation. Word spreads beyond the people of Israel that God is just and merciful — the God of all people, who brings life to anyone who trusts him. Some Egyptians came to believe this.
Exodus 12:38 tells us that when the Israelites were finally set free, “a mixed multitude” also left Egypt with them. God’s name spread among the nations.
Recap & Conclusion
So, today we got a clearer picture of what an ancient covenant was and why God’s name or reputation matters so much. We’ve seen how these ideas are key to understanding so much of the book of Exodus. Plus, we learned a big new word: prefigurative typology—how events in one story often foreshadow what’s coming later. Recognizing these patterns can help us find the main idea and deeper significance of confusing passages in Exodus and the rest of the Bible.
In our next episode, we’ll learn about the Law and ask if Christians have to obey it. We’ll discover something fascinating in all those boring construction plans for the tabernacle. And we’ll find out if God punishes kids for the stuff their parents do. All of that in our next video. See you then.
