The word Exodus means “going out” or “departure.” It is the second of the five books of Moses, and it picks up where Genesis ended — with Jacob's family in Egypt. Seventy people went down to Egypt, and there “the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.” God's promise to Abraham was coming true.
Then the Scripture says, “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” Afraid of Israel's numbers, Pharaoh set taskmasters over them and made them build supply cities with hard bondage. Yet “the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.” When Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill the baby boys, “the midwives feared God,” and they saved the male children alive.
A Levite mother hid her baby son for three months, then placed him in an ark of bulrushes among the reeds of the Nile while his sister watched. Pharaoh's own daughter found him and had compassion on him. His sister offered to find a Hebrew nurse — and brought the baby's own mother. Pharaoh's daughter named him Moses, “Because I drew him out of the water.” The very river Pharaoh used for death became the place where God preserved the deliverer.
Moses grew up in Pharaoh's palace, yet his heart was with his people. When he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, he killed the Egyptian and had to flee to Midian, where he married Zipporah and kept sheep for forty years. Meanwhile the children of Israel groaned and cried out, and their cry came up to God. “So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant… And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them.”