The creation account begins with a formless earth covered by water (Gen 1:2). The flood story begins with the chaos of sin (Gen 6:5-7) and then describes the earth’s return to the condition it was in before creation began (Gen 1:2; 7:18-20; 8:1). But in the Exodus story there is a significant difference. Instead of the waters covering the whole earth, they make up a limited body of water called the Red Sea. The waters aren’t worldwide. So the story of the Exodus would seem to be very different from Creation or the Flood at first glance.

The Hebrew version of the Red Sea crossing, nevertheless, mirrors the language of both the Creation and the Flood. The use of language is so clear that it can be seen even in English: “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left” (Exod 14:21-22).

The biblical writer carefully chose the highlighted words in the above passage to recall the account of creation. Other Hebrew words could have been chosen to describe the historical event in an accurate way. But the language chosen specifically and intentionally recalls the Creation. “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Gen 1:2) In the Hebrew, the word for “spirit” and the word for “wind” are the same. There is a “wind from God” moving over the waters in the original creation and a “wind from God” moving over the waters of the Red Sea. The result in both cases is that the “waters were divided”–the same Hebrew language as in Genesis 1:6-7.

Exodus 14 also tells us that the Israelites went through the sea on “dry ground.” There are many Hebrew words the author could have chosen to describe dry ground. The actual word used in Exodus 14 is the same word used in Genesis 1 to describe the dry land of the original creation (Gen 1:9-10). Since other Hebrew words could have been chosen to describe the Exodus, the author clearly interprets the Exodus as a mighty act of God according to the pattern of the Creation (and also the Flood). In other words, God uses the language of Creation and the Flood to describe the Exodus.

Having observed the pattern, we begin to see many other parallels between the Exodus and God’s previous acts. “Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son.’” (Exod 4:22) Who was God’s firstborn son in terms of the whole human race? Adam. But in Exodus 4, God describes the whole nation of Israel as his firstborn son. Just as the original Adam had dominion over the earth (Gen 1:26, 28), Israel is given the dominion over the land of Canaan (Exod 6:4; Lev 25:38).

Just as God created Adam and Eve in the original creation, so now God creates a people–Israel. In the original Garden, God gave Adam and Eve a Tree of Life to keep them alive and healthy (Gen 2:9; 3:22), in the Exodus story God provides the equivalent of the Tree of Life. God uses miraculous bread (manna– Exodus 16) to keep them alive in the wilderness. Just as Adam was tested by the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen 2:15-17; 3:3, 11-13), in the Exodus story He tested His people several times to see if they would be faithful to Him (Exod 16:4; 20:20; Deut 8:2, 16).

“Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”
Deut 8:2-3

There are still other parallels. Just as there was a test in both Eden and the wilderness, so there was also a serpent in both (Gen 3:1ff.; Num 21: 5-9). Just as God made covenants with the original Adam and with Noah (Gen 1:26-30, cf. Gen 9:1-3), He also made a covenant with Israel (Exodus 19-20). We see parallel after parallel between the work of God in the Exodus story and the work of God in the creation story and the flood story.

But once again there are some differences between the accounts. The exodus account, in many ways, is a spiritualization of features in the creation and flood accounts. For example, the chaos of the waters around the earth is parallel not only to the Red Sea but also to the slavery of the Israelites. The Israelite situation was a spiritual mess (Exod 1:8-22). They needed God’s creative power to get them out of Egypt (Exod 3:7-10). So the chaos of Israel’s condition was a spiritual chaos. In the story of the Exodus, the literal things of the Creation are spiritualized to show the consistency of God’s actions in both accounts. The counterpart of Adam and Eve is Israel. The Garden of Eden becomes Canaan or Palestine. In the Exodus God was leading them to a land flowing with milk and honey, well-watered, like the Garden of Eden (Exod 3:8,17; Num 13:27).

As was the case with the flood story, not all the details of the original creation are repeated in the exodus account. The wedding of Adam and Eve (Gen 2:23-25; 4:1), the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (2:9, 16-17; 3:11), the sleep of Adam that resulted in the creation of Eve (Gen 2:21-22), and the creation of sun, moon and stars (Gen 1:14-19) are all elements of the creation story that seem to find no parallel in the Exodus.

At the same time, the exodus story contains new details that set the stage for later works of God. Moses, as a child, escapes from Pharaoh’s attempts to kill him (Exod 2:1-10, cf. Matt 2:13-18). He is saved along with the people of Israel by the blood of the Passover (Exod 12:1-30; 1 Cor 5:7). God tests the Israelites for forty years in the wilderness (Num 14:34-35; Matt 4:1-10). Adam and Eve don’t themselves pass through the divided waters of the Creation (Gen 1:7-9) but Israel actually passes through the waters that are divided. And in the exodus story, there are actually two dividings of the waters–the first when they pass though the Red Sea and the second when they pass through the Jordan River. So we see in the exodus account some fascinating similarities and differences with the original accounts of Creation and the Flood. There is a clear pattern in God’s saving actions, but God is not mindlessly tied to the pattern. I will draw out the full implications of the Creation/Flood/Exodus pattern in the next blog.