Exodus Exodus 1:1-22
Exodus opens by continuing Genesis: inside Egypt, Israel fulfils the creation mandate, and when Pharaoh moves to crush that life, two midwives who feared God hold the line between the promise and its extinction.
Exodus Exodus 22:18-23:13
The heart of the Book of the Covenant is one sentence said twice: 'for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.' It brackets the whole unit and states the law's spine — Israel, the redeemed oppressed, is forbidden to become the oppressor. The verb of Pharaoh's program against Israel is the very verb God forbids Israel to use against the widow and orphan, and the release it sets in motion reaches, through Jubilee and prophecy, to the year of the Lord's favor that Jesus proclaims at Nazareth.