The second Exodus

There was an exodus from Egypt. But when Israel failed to keep the law, they went into exile — filled, all the while, with promises of their return. When the return finally came, though, they saw that nothing had really changed. The conclusion the prophets and later Jewish thought drew from this: Israel was still in exile, still waiting for a new exodus.¹ That new exodus is what arrives with Jesus.

The exodus in Mark

The opening lines of Mark’s gospel are dense with Exodus echoes:

• I will send my messenger parallels both the leading angel in the Exodus and the messenger for the Day of the Lord — in both cases, a figure whose arrival warns of judgment for disobedience.
• A voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.” picks up the prophecy of Isaiah, itself a message of restoration.
• “And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” is the fulfillment of Elijah, preparing the new Exodus before the coming of the Day of the Lord.
• “Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.” refers back to Isaiah.
• “And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’” echoes the language used for the faithful servant of the Lord in Isaiah.
• “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’” is the final announcement of a new king.

Taken together, these allusions show that the structure of Mark’s gospel mirrors the structure of Isaiah 40–66:

The new Exodus in Luke

The key to the Gospel of Luke is “As it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah: ‘A voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation.” ’” — the same reference used at the beginning of Mark.

“The way,” in both gospels, is the Exodus: it is God’s way of restoring Israel, and it runs through the church.

When Jesus read from Isaiah, he stated its fulfillment, that was the sign of the second Exodus. Fittingly, then, the Gospel of Luke ends with the fulfillment of the Scripture that refers to the restoration of Israel and the inclusion of the Gentiles in Isaiah.

The new Exodus in Acts

Luke returns to this same language of “the way” six times in the book of Acts:

• during the conversion of Saul,
• in Ephesus, in fact twice,
• in Paul’s speech to the crowd in Jerusalem,
• and in his speech to Felix, also twice.

Alongside that, Acts develops six main messages that carry forward the Exodus theme:

• the restoration of the tribes of Israel by the 12 apostles,
• Pentecost including Jews from all nations, pointing to the restoration of the Jews from exile,
• the coming of the Holy Spirit,
• the restoration of the kingdom of David,
• the inclusion of the excluded among the people of God,
• and Israel’s initial repentance — at Pentecost, in the early church, in the choosing of Stephen, and in the church at Antioch — until, finally, the book ends with the very words with which Isaiah was sent out: Israel’s rejection of the message.

A related theme running through Acts is “the word of God,” which advances after the choosing of Stephen, after the death of Herod, and during Paul’s time in Ephesus. This echoes key passages in Isaiah on the same theme: how can God be compared to anything, he is more reliable than idols, the vanity of idols, and the idols of Babel.

Taken together, this comparison shows how closely Acts follows Isaiah: God is sovereign over the idols, and yet people keep clinging to them. That comes to a head in Acts 17, where Paul stands in Athens, a city “full of idols”, and proclaims the God who made the world.

Judgment is announced with particular force whenever these idols, or the people behind them, claim divinity for themselves — as with Simon and Herod — or stand in the way of the word, as Elymas does.

The new exodus in Revelation

Revelation tells the exodus story once more, now as the church’s own story. Chapter after chapter, the pictures come from the Exodus:

• Freed by blood, made a kingdom of priests. Jesus freed us from our sins by his blood and made us to be a kingdom and priests — the very words God spoke to Israel at Sinai after the Exodus (Exod 19:6). Behind it stands Israel’s rescue by the blood of the Passover lamb. → Setting the foundation
• The Passover Lamb. The Lamb looking as if it had been slain, who with his blood purchased for God persons from every tribe, is the Passover lamb as well as the servant of Isaiah 53. → The book with the seven seals
• God’s army counted. The 144,000 are counted tribe by tribe, like the census in the wilderness, which counted the men able to fight (Num 1:2–3). → The 144,000
• The plagues. The trumpets and the bowls are modelled on the plagues of Egypt — hail, water turned to blood, darkness, sores — and, like Pharaoh, the people did not repent. → The trumpets, The bowls of wrath
• Egypt. The city where the two witnesses lie dead is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt: the world that enslaves and persecutes God’s people. → The two witnesses
• Eagle’s wings in the wilderness. The woman is given the two wings of a great eagle to fly into the wilderness, where God cares for her — the picture God used for the Exodus: I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. → A different Christmas story
• The song by the sea. The conquerors stand beside a sea of glass and sing the song of God's servant Moses and of the Lamb, as Israel sang after crossing the Red Sea (Exod 15). → God's army and the seven angels

So the second exodus the prophets promised, and the gospels see beginning in Jesus, is in Revelation the church’s own story: rescued by the Lamb’s blood, carried through the wilderness, kept safe while the plagues fall on the new Egypt, and singing on the far shore.

Summary

The new Exodus for which Israel had been waiting so long finally happens — and it is tied inseparably to Jesus. What remains open is whether Israel and the Gentiles will choose God, or keep clinging to their idols instead; the book of Acts treats that as no small question.

Read this way, the Gospel and Acts trace a single, ongoing tension: the restoration of the Israel that believes in Christ, running alongside the salvation of the Gentiles who are being drawn in together with them.

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