The Exodus The Exodus ( from Greek ἔξοδος , exodos , " going out " ) is the story of the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt following the death of Joseph , their departure under the leadership of Moses , the revelations at Sinai , and their wanderings in the wilderness up to the borders of Canaan . Significant portions of the story told in the books of Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy may not have been intended to be historiographic , but the overall intent was historical according to the understanding of the ancient writers : to demonstrate God ' s actions in history , to recall Israel ' s bondage and salvation , and to demonstrate the fulfillment of Israel ' s covenant . No archeological evidence has been found to support the Book of Exodus , and most archaeologists have abandoned the investigation of Moses and the Exodus as " a fruitless pursuit " . The opinion of the overwhelming majority of modern biblical scholars is that the Pentateuch as we know it was shaped in the post - Exilic period , though the traditions behind the narrative are older and can be traced in the writings of the 8th century prophets . How far beyond that the tradition might stretch cannot be told : " Presumably an original Exodus story lies hidden somewhere inside all the later revisions and alterations , but centuries of transmission have long obscured its presence , and its substance , accuracy and date are now difficult to determine . " The Exodus has been central to Judaism : it served to orient Jews towards the celebration of God ' s actions in history , in contrast to polytheistic celebrations of the gods ' actions in nature , and even today it is recounted daily in Jewish prayers and celebrated in the festival of Pesach . In secular history the exodus has served as inspiration and model for many groups , from early Protestant settlers fleeing persecution in Europe to 19th and 20th century African - Americans striving for freedom and civil rights . Summary . " See Exodus 13 and following chapters " The Book of Exodus tells how Moses leads the Israelite s out of Egypt and through the wilderness to Mount Sinai , where God reveals himself and offers them a Covenant : they are to keep his " torah " ( i . e . law , instruction ) , and in return he will be their God and give them the land of Canaan . The Book of Leviticus records the laws of God . The Book of Numbers tells how the Israelites , led now by their God , journey onwards from Sinai towards Canaan , but when their spies report that the land is filled with giants they refuse to go on . God condemns them to remain in the wilderness until the generation that left Egypt passes away . After thirty - eight years at the oasis of Kadesh Barnea the next generation travel on to the borders of Canaan . The Book of Deuteronomy tells how , within sight of the Promised Land , Moses recalls their journeys and gives them new laws . His death ( the last reported event of the Torah ) concludes the 40 years of the exodus from Egypt . Cultural significance . The exodus from Egypt is the theme of the Jewish festival of Passover . The Hebrew name for this , " Pesach " , refers to God ' s instruction to the Israelites to prepare unleavened bread as they would be leaving in haste , and to mark their doors with the blood of slaughtered sheep so that the " Angel " or " the destroyer " tasked with killing the first - born of Egypt would " pass over " them . ( Despite the Exodus story , scholars believe that the Passover festival originated not in the biblical story but as a magic ritual to turn away demons from the household by painting the door frame with the blood of a slaughtered sheep . ) Jewish tradition has preserved national and personal reminders of this pivotal narrative in daily life . Examples include the wearing of " tefilin " ( Jewish phylacteries ) on the arm and forehead , the wearing of " tzitzit " ( knotted ritual fringes attached to the four corners of the prayer shawl ) , the eating of " matzot " ( unleavened bread ) during the Pesach , the fasting of the firstborn a day before Pesach , and the redemption of firstborn children and animals . Origins of the Exodus story . The Torah ( also called the Pentateuch ) tells of Israel ' s origins , their enslavement in Egypt , their escape , their meeting with their God on Sinai , and their law - codes , and their onward journey to the land promised them by God . Yet the archaeological evidence shows that the origins of Israel were in fact largely Canaanite , leaving , in the words of archaeologist William Dever , " no room for an Exodus from Egypt or a 40 - year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness . " The opinion of the overwhelming majority of modern biblical scholars is that the Pentateuch as we know it was shaped in the post - Exilic period , incorporating an original historical reality seen through the lens of communal faith . The mechanisms by which it came about remain unknown , but there are currently two important hypotheses : the first is Persian Imperial authorisation , the idea that the post - Exilic community needed a legal basis on which to function within the Persian Imperial system ; the second relates to the community of citizens organised around the Temple , with the Pentateuch providing the criteria for who would belong to it ( the narratives and genealogies in Genesis ) and establishing the power structures and relative positions of its various groups . Nevertheless , the completion of the Torah and its elevation to the centre of post - Exilic Judaism was as much or more about combining older texts as writing new ones - the final Pentateuch was based on earlier traditions . While the story in the books of Exodus , Numbers and Deuteronomy is the best - known account of the Exodus , there are over 150 references throughout the Bible . The earliest mentions are in the prophets Amos ( possibly ) and Hosea ( certainly ) , both active in 8th century BCE Israel ; in contrast Proto - Isaiah and Micah , both active in Judah at much the same time , never do ; it thus seems reasonable to conclude that the Exodus tradition was important in the northern kingdom in the 8th century , but not in Judah . In a recent work , Stephen C . Russell traces the 8th century prophetic tradition to three originally separate variants , in the northern kingdom of Israel , in Trans - Jordan , and in the southern kingdom of Judah . Russell proposes different hypothetical historical backgrounds to each tradition : the tradition from Israel , which involves a journey from Egypt to the region of Bethel , he suggests is a memory of herders who could move to and from Egypt in times of crisis ; for the Trans - Jordanian tradition , which focuses on deliverance from Egypt without a journey , he suggests a memory of the withdrawal of Egyptian control at the end of the Late Bronze Age ; and for Judah , whose tradition is preserved in the Song of the Sea , he suggests the celebration of a military victory over Egypt , although it is impossible to suggest what this victory may have been . Historicity . The consensus among biblical scholars today is that there was never any exodus of the proportions described in the Bible , and that the story is best seen as theology , a story illustrating how the God of Israel acted to save and strengthen his chosen people , and not as history . Nevertheless , the discussion of the historical reality of the exodus has a long history , and continues to attract attention . Numbers and logistics . According to Exodus 12 : 37 - 38 , the Israelites numbered " about six hundred thousand men on foot , besides women and children , " plus many non - Israelites and livestock . Numbers 1 : 46 gives a more precise total of 603 , 550 men aged 20 and up . The 600 , 000 , plus wives , children , the elderly , and the " mixed multitude " of non - Israelites would have numbered some 2 million people , compared with an entire Egyptian population in 1250 BCE of around 3 to 3 . 5 million . Marching ten abreast , and without accounting for livestock , they would have formed a line 150 miles long . No evidence has been found that indicates Egypt ever suffered such a demographic and economic catastrophe or that the Sinai desert ever hosted ( or could have hosted ) these millions of people and their herds . Some scholars have rationalised these numbers into smaller figures , for example reading the Hebrew as " 600 families " rather than 600 , 000 men , but all such solutions raise more problems than they solve . The view of mainstream modern biblical scholarship is that the improbability of the Exodus story originates because it was written not as history , but to demonstrate God ' s purpose and deeds with his Chosen People , Israel . Some have suggested that the 603 , 550 people delivered from Egypt ( according to Numbers 1 : 46 ) is not a number , but a gematria ( a code in which numbers represent letters or words ) for " bnei yisra ' el kol rosh " , " the children of Israel , every individual ; " while the number 600 , 000 symbolises the total destruction of the generation of Israel which left Egypt , none of whom lived to see the Promised Land . Archaeology . A century of research by archaeologists and Egyptologists has found no evidence which can be directly related to the Exodus captivity and the escape and travels through the wilderness , and most archaeologists have abandoned the archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus as " a fruitless pursuit " . A number of theories have been put forward to account for the origins of the Israelites , and despite differing details they agree on Israel ' s Canaan ite origins . The culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite , their cult - objects are those of the Canaanite god El , the pottery remains in the local Canaanite tradition , and the alphabet used is early Canaanite , and almost the sole marker distinguishing the " Israelite " villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones , although whether even this is an ethnic marker or is due to other factors remains a matter of dispute . Anachronisms . Several details point to a 1st millennium date for the Book of Exodus : Ezion - Geber , ( one of the Stations of the Exodus ) , for example , dates to a period between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE with possible further occupation into the 4th century BCE , and those place - names on the Exodus route which have been identified – Goshen , Pithom , Succoth , Ramesses and Kadesh Barnea – point to the geography of the 1st millennium rather than the 2nd . Similarly , Pharaoh ' s fear that the Israelites might ally themselves with foreign invaders seems unlikely in the context of the late 2nd millennium , when Canaan was part of an Egyptian empire and Egypt faced no enemies in that direction , but does make sense in a 1st millennium context , when Egypt was considerably weaker and faced invasion first from the Persians and later from Seleucid Syria . The mention of the dromedary in Exodus 9 : 3 also suggests a later date of composition – the widespread domestication of the camel as a herd animal did not take place before the late 2nd millennium , after the Israelites had already emerged in Canaan , and they did not become widespread in Egypt until c . 200 - 100 BCE . Chronology . The chronology of the Exodus story likewise underlines its essentially religious rather than historical nature . The number seven , for example , was sacred to God in Judaism , and so the Israelites arrive at Sinai , where they will meet God , at the beginning of the seventh week after their departure from Egypt , while the erection of the Tabernacle , God ' s dwelling - place among his people , occurs in the year 2666 after God creates the world , two - thirds of the way through a four thousand year era which culminates in or around the re - dedication of the Second Temple in 164 BCE . Route and date . Route . The Torah lists the places where the Israelites rested . A few of the names at the start of the itinerary , including Ra ' amses , Pithom and Succoth , are reasonably well identified with archaeological sites on the eastern edge of the Nile delta , as is Kadesh - Barnea , where the Israelites spend 38 years after turning back from Canaan , but other than that very little is certain . The crossing of the Red Sea has been variously placed at the Pelusic branch of the Nile , anywhere along the network of Bitter Lakes and smaller canals that formed a barrier toward eastward escape , the Gulf of Suez ( SSE of Succoth ) and the Gulf of Aqaba ( S of Ezion - Geber ) , or even on a lagoon on the Mediterranean coast . The biblical Mt . Sinai is identified in Christian tradition with Jebel Musa in the south of the Sinai Peninsula , but this association dates only from the 3rd century CE and no evidence of the Exodus has been found there . Date . The Seder Olam Rabbah ( ca . 2nd century CE ) determines the commencement of the Exodus to 2448 AM ( 1313 BCE ) . This date has become traditional in Rabbinic Judaism . The lack of evidence led William F . Albright , the leading biblical archaeologist of the period , to propose an alternative , " late " Exodus around 1200 - 1250 BCE . His argument was based on the many strands of evidence , including the archaeologically attested destruction at Beitel ( Bethel ) and some other cities at around that period , and the occurrence from the same period of distinctive house - types and a distinctive round - collared jar which , in his opinion , was to be identified with in - coming Israelites . Albright ' s theory enjoyed popularity around the middle of the 20th century , but has now been generally abandoned in scholarship : the collar - rimmed jars have been recognised as an indigenous form originating in lowland Canaanite cities centuries earlier ; while some " Joshua " cities , including Hazor , Lachish , Megiddo and others , have destruction and transition layers around 1250 - 1145 BCE , others , including Jericho , have no destruction layers or were uninhabited during this period ; and the Merneptah Stele indicates that a people called " Israel " were already known in Canaan by the reign of Merneptah ( 1213 - 1203 BCE ) . Extra - Biblical accounts . The earliest non - Biblical account of the Exodus is in the writings of the Greek author Hecataeus of Abdera : the Egyptians blame a plague on foreigners and expel them from the country , whereupon Moses , their leader , takes them to Canaan , where he founds the city of Jerusalem . Hecataeus wrote in the late 4th century BCE , but the passage is quite possibly an insertion made in the mid - 1st century BCE . The most famous is by the Egyptian historian Manetho ( 3rd century BCE ) , known from two quotations by the 1st century CE Jewish historian Josephus . In the first , Manetho describes the Hyksos , their lowly origins in Asia , their dominion over and expulsion from Egypt , and their subsequent foundation of the city of Jerusalem and its temple . Josephus ( not Manetho ) identifies the Hyksos with the Jews . In the second story Manetho tells how 80 , 000 lepers and other " impure people , " led by a priest named Osarseph , join forces with the former Hyksos , now living in Jerusalem , to take over Egypt . They wreak havoc until eventually the pharaoh and his son chase them out to the borders of Syria , where Osarseph gives the lepers a law - code and changes his name to Moses . Manetho differs from the other writers in describing his renegades as Egyptians rather than Jews , and in using a name other than Moses for their leader , although the identification of Osarseph with Moses may be a later addition .