Exodus

OVERVIEW: The main focus here in this second book of the Bible will be on a rarely discussed topic that first appears in the book of Exodus: the “book of life.”

It has been revealed throughout Scripture that God maintains a book on us (that is, on everyone in this world) which is located in heaven and has been variously named by different prophets of God—such as the Book of Remembrance or the Book of Life. This subject is occasionally alluded to in the OT, and Paul referred to the book of life in Philippians 4:3. However, it is within the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John where the book of life is often referenced (e.g., Revelation 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, 20:12, 20:15, and 21:27).

Then after that analysis, we will briefly consider some passages in Exodus that have brought up the subject of God’s response to human sin. There are eight chapters in Exodus (out of forty) that are likely relevant to eventually answering our main question, what happens when people die?

Section A: God’s book on each of us

When God told Abraham what would happen to him—particularly to his mind—at death, God obviously realized at the time that a more specific or complete description could have been provided to him. Because various prophets of God—as well as Abraham’s grandson, Jacob—had later relayed additional specificity to their readers and hearers about death, we can see the development of the explanation over the centuries.

Naturally, the slow process of enlightenment that God evidently had planned regarding the subjects of death and resurrection also included some details of the method God had chosen to implement these two events. In a conversation God had with Moses centuries after Abraham, God informed Moses that there is a scroll or a book in heaven that records personal information on particular individuals. Moses understood that God’s book is constantly being edited by adding and deleting information such as a person’s deeds or even the names of people.

It seems likely the basic reason for having a book, computer file, or information-retaining device/media, is to assist others in heaven at the time of divine judgement, in addition to our resurrection from the dead. We can expect to learn more about God’s book as the rest of Scripture is examined.

There are two passages in Exodus, 17:14 and 32:32-33, where this particular divine book is introduced to us, with both of them quoting Yahweh-God (i.e., YHWH, in Hebrew). We begin with the verse that quotes both Moses and God: “But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written. The Lord replied to Moses, ‘Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book.’ (Exod 32:32-33, NIV).”

Did Moses believe that the Israelites as a group generally would be erased from this divine book, or that it is done on an individual basis? To read what an expert (Stuart) has written about this point, click here (at foot-quote number 1 below).

What exactly is it that’s “blotted out” or deleted from God’s book on us? It could, in fact, be their personal name according to one expert (Durham); click here to read it (at fq 2).

Earlier in this same chapter of Exodus, at Exod 32:10, we read that God was very angry with the followers of Moses, the Israelites, to the point of bringing down on them a most severe punishment without forgiveness. What is the consequence of no longer having their own name recorded in this heavenly book? It would mean they are subject to the wrath of God according to another expert (Brueggemann); click here (fq 3).

What specifically did some of the ancient Israelites understand what would happen to a person who would be subject to God’s wrath? According to Douglas Stuart (whose highly esteemed Exodus commentary is ranked number two out of over a hundred Exodus commentaries by bestcommentaries.com), the excluded person would not obtain eternal life. Read his quote (by clicking here, fq 4) where he emphasizes it by repeating the phrase four times by saying that they would lose their own eternal life.

It seems probable that this process of deleting certain persons from God’s book—if there is an insufficient amount of divine forgiveness of sins—has continued since then to the present day. Click here to read an expert (Gowan) on this point (fq 5).

There are at least three psalms that refer to this book (with all of them attributed to King David), in addition to other writings by prophets of God such as Isaiah, Daniel, and Malachi. Click here (fq 6) to read what two experts (Kaiser and Keil & Delitzsch) have written about the point that inclusion in God’s book means eternal life for that person.

Click here (fq 7) to read what an expert (Stuart) has written regarding eternal life being the consequence for having one’s name kept in the book of life. On the other hand, how does a person get their name written in God’s book of life remembrance? Stuart reasonably asserts that everyone born starts out their life with their own name in the book; click here (fq 8).

When does this potential erasing of a person’s name actually occur? Click here (fq 9) to read what an expert (Stuart in his highly ranked commentary) has written.

Here’s the second of two passages identified above: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Write this as a reminder in a book and recite it in the hearing of Joshua: I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven’ (Exod 17:14, NRSV).”

Click here (fq 10) to read some expert commentary (from Osborn & Hatton) on one of the differences between this passage and the one above, which says, “I will blot out of my book.”

Click here (fq 11) to read the next commentator (Brueggemann) who extends this observation in his Exodus commentary (which is ranked in the top third; number 29 out of over a hundred Exodus commentaries).

Click here (fq 12) to read another expert (Kaiser) whose Exodus commentary is also ranked in the top third, and who addresses the question: what was the likely reason for this divine hostility toward the Amaleks in the context of other nations?

What exactly did God mean regarding the Amaleks: as a nation they would be eventually wiped from the face of the earth, or as individual Amaleks they would be blotted out from the divine book, or both? Perhaps God’s intention was both collectively and individually.

The next two commentaries (from Keil & Delitzsch and Osborn & Hatton), click here (fq 13), may be suggesting in their short quotes the meaning is a divine remembrance in heaven through the book of the living. It seems possible this passage is referring to them both as a group and as individuals who have their own unique personal names.

Section B: Divine punishment for unforgiven sin

There are several more passages in Exodus that focus on God’s reaction to wrong-doing and punishment for sin. However, in this second section, only a brief treatment of them is presented.

1) “I keep my promise for thousands of generations and forgive evil and sin; but I will not fail to punish (Exod 34:7, GNT).”

Immediately prior to this quote of the Lord we read a self-description that he is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth (Exod 34:6, NASB).” And in verse 5 we read that the Lord descended from heaven and stood there on Mount Sinai with Moses. From verse 7 (shown above), we understand that Moses saw the Lord God say to him that the guilty, that is, those individuals who remain unforgiven by the Lord, will not be acquitted or excused from punishment.

2) “In the day when I visit for punishment, I will visit punishment upon them for their sin (Exod 32:34, NKJV).”

What did God mean when God said that certain individual sinners who had not been divinely forgiven are to be, or were, subject to God’s punishment? One possibility is that God meant that the beginning of this particular punishment would happen in the day that God visits. The key word focused on here is visit. Click here (fq 14) to read what two experts (Kaiser and Gowan) have written about this point.

The next quote, which appears in a different type of commentary (i.e., one that assists translators of languages other than English) points out that the Hebrew word for visit itself can carry two very different meanings. Click here (fq 15) to read from the commentary by Osborn and Hatton.

3) “Whoever [disobeys God’s commandments] … must be cut off from Israel … that person, whether a resident alien or native of the land, must be cut off from the community of Israel (Exod 12:15, 19, CSB).”

The same Hebrew verb translated as “cut off” appears here in Exodus as that which appeared in Genesis’s “cut off from his people” passage. The new information here is that God is quoted as telling Moses and Aaron, while still in Egypt, that no exception will be made on the basis of someone being an Israelite. The context seen in Gen 17:12-14 relates only to “any foreigner, who is not of your descendants … or who is bought with your money … shall be cut off [for disobedience].”

4) “Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people (Exod 31:14, KJV).” The next passage is similar: “Six days shall work be done, yet on the seventh day you shall come to have a holy sabbath of cessation to Yahweh. Everyone doing work on it shall be put to death (Exod 35:2, CVOT).”

Both passages above share a similar context regarding the following: the punishment for working on the sabbath is death. However, only one of them uses the phrase, “cut off.” The Hebrew verb in Exod 31:14 translated as “cut off” is the same term used in Gen 17:14. Therefore, it can be inferred that “cut off from his people” means “put to death,” or it possibly refers to a divine action that occurs when someone is killed for covenant disobedience.

5) “That my wrath may grow hot against them and that I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation (Exod 32:10, MLV).”

Did God refer to the Israelites as a group or as individuals in this passage? It appears God had made a distinction between these two groups (i.e., those consumed versus those to become a great nation) similar to that which Moses saw when he said in Exod 32:26, “whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” Just because it was God’s intention to collectively “make a great nation” of his people does not necessarily mean that God wanted to collectively wipe out this sinful group. Click here (fq 16) to read what some experts (Stuart and Osborn & Hatton) have written about this passage.

Other translations of Exod 32:10 use the word destroy instead of consume (e.g., CSB) such as, “I’m so angry with them I am going to destroy them (GW).”  It is noteworthy that John Durham agrees with this sense of destruction regarding the fate of those particular sinners since his commentary on Exodus is ranked number six (out of over a hundred Exodus commentaries). Click here (fq 17) for his comment on this point.

However, to understand God’s intended scope of “finish off by destroying them,” it is necessary to examine all of Scripture. The question is, What specifically was, or is to be destroyed: just their lives on earth or does it mean they would not be given the gift of eternal life? Was it just their body or alternatively, both their body and their heart/mind that would be brought to an end and finished?

In our quest to better understand what Scripture as a whole is telling the reader regarding the question of, what happens to the soul/mind when people die?, we will be looking at both groups: those who are wicked or unforgiven as well as those who are righteous or forgiven. However, the emphasis in this study is not on the nature and duration of hell, but rather on other aspects, such as the creation of human beings and their deaths, that as a consequence could affect one’s study of the biblical descriptions of hell.

There are two more passages in Exodus that will be discussed in the Leviticus study rather than here, but are included here since they are not rated a 1 (but are rated 3 instead). God is quoted as saying that a person shall “not have any other god but me (Exod 20:3, NLT).” God also commanded that “death is the punishment for witchcraft (Exod 22:18, CEV).”

Ω  Ω  Ω

This concludes my study on Exodus. Regarding Bible versions used here, all eight of the primary translations appear (NIV, NRSV, GNT, NASB, NKJV, KJV, CSB, and MLV), with each used once. There are three other versions from the secondary list of Bible versions: NLT, CEV, and CVOT, with each used once.

See the end of the Genesis study for further explanation (prior to the foot-quotes) regarding these groups of translations. A total of eleven verse groupings are quoted in this Exodus study with two of them being highly-rated (both with a 4-rating). The other nine have been rated either 2 or 3, and none of the eleven passages have been rated 5.

Quoted Passages in Exodus (11 total / 2 highly rated verses):

Rating of 5:

None

Rating of 4:

Exodus 17:14

Exodus 32:32-33

Rating of 3:

Exodus 12:15, 19

Exodus 20:3

Exodus 22:18

Exodus 31:14

Exodus 32:10

Exodus 35:2

Rating of 2:

Exodus 32:34

Exodus 34:6

Exodus 34:7

Quoted Passages Not in Exodus:

Genesis 17:12-14

Footnoted Quotes from Expert Commentators of Scripture:

Foot-quote 2: “Moses asks Yahweh to forgive Israel or to erase his own name from the book Yahweh has written, a reference apparently to a register of those loyal to Yahweh and thereby deserving his special blessing (Durham, 432).” It should be noted by the reader that Durham’s Exodus commentary is ranked number six out of over a hundred Exodus commentaries by bestcommentaries.com. Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 3: “Moses wants, if God will not forgive, to be blotted out along with all the other Israelites. Moses stands in complete solidarity with recalcitrant Israel. He does not wish to be exempted from the wrath, as God has proposed in v. 10 (Brueggemann, 934).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 4: “In these verses Moses linked his appeal for forgiveness for Israel’s sin to an offer to lose his own eternal life if the people’s sin could not be forgiven. God replied that he would not give eternal life to sinners, implying both that Moses was not at fault and that he, God, was fully in charge of judging between the righteous and the wicked and would make the determination of who obtained eternal life. Thus ‘Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book’ represents a statement of divine practice, a standard of justice that God maintains— as well as a strict warning that eternal life is not automatic and that a person who tries to enter it without his sins being forgiven could not succeed. Verse 33 is, then, one of the Bible’s stronger statements about the absolute necessity for the forgiveness of sins, and therefore, for a savior (Stuart, 684-685).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 5: “Sinners will be blotted out of God’s book, yes, but not Moses (Gowan, 227).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 6: (1) “The sincerity of Moses’ devotion to his people is seen in his request: ‘Blot me out of the book.’ The ‘book’ or ‘scroll’ is called the ‘book of the living’ in Psalm 69:28 and is referred to in Isaiah 4:3: ‘recorded among the living’ (Kaiser, 481).” It is called ‘a book of remembrance’ in Mal 3:16 in the context “of those who fear the Lord (with an attitude of reverence and respect) and who esteem His name (Mal 3:16, AMP).” (2) “The book of life contains the list of the righteous, and ensures to those whose names are written there, life before God, first in the earthly kingdom of God, and then eternal life also (Keil and Delitzsch, 472).” Therefore, to have one’s name deleted or expunged from this book “is to cut off from fellowship with the living God, or from the kingdom of those who live before God, and to deliver over to death (Keil and Delitzsch, 472).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 7: “If people displease God by their sins, he can blot them out of his book, that is, see to it that they do not continue to live (i.e., to have eternal life) after the ‘first death’ and instead experience the ‘second death’ (eternal destruction) after the first. … If your name is in the Book of Life at the judgment, you will live forever in heaven. If it is not, you will be destroyed in hell—you are not listed among the living and cannot therefore live on. It is useful to note that John also called the Book of Life the ‘book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world’ (Rev 13:8) as a way of indicating that it is through Christ alone that eternal life is obtained (Stuart, 686-687).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 8: It is “important for understanding God’s purposes in judgment [and] to appreciate that everyone starts out in the Book of Life. It is a book of the living, and all who are born originally appear in it. God does not arbitrarily put some names in it and not others. All who come into the world have the potential for eternal life, according to God’s will but most ignore, reject, disdain, put off, or otherwise forfeit that potential— and so their names are eventually blotted out of the Book of Life (Stuart, 688).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 9: “One could argue that the time of blotting out would be when they died, once they no longer had any opportunity to retain their names in the Book by trusting Christ for their eternal life, but the Bible does not speak to the question of when blotting out occurs. … When they appear at the judgment and the books are opened, their names will not appear in the Lamb’s Book of Life because they chose a different direction during their lives on earth from the direction God prescribed. Their rejection of him eventually earns them rejection from being listed among the living. Their fate is then destruction, the second death (Stuart, 688).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 10: It can be seen in the Hebrew language itself. Here, God is emphasizing this action by saying,  “I will utterly blot out … is very emphatic. … [e.g.,] “I will completely blot out” (Osborn and Hatton, 422).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 11: “We are told only that from the very mouth of God comes the resolve that God has declared unending hostility toward the Amalekites. God’s decree includes an intense infinitive absolute: ‘I will utterly blot out.’ The patron and guarantor of Israel has sworn to obliterate an enemy of Israel. …  Thus the altar and the banner are to make it clear for all time to come that hostility toward Amalek is deep, for perpetuity, and authorized by Yahweh (Brueggemann, 820).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 12: “Amalek would pay dearly for its awful deed. The psalmist (Ps 83:4, 7) links Amalek’s motives with those of other nations: “‘Come,’ they say, ‘let us destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more.’” But it would be measured out to them as they had threatened to do to Israel. Elsewhere in the OT this judgment would be called a herein (‘a ban’), or an involuntary dedication of a total people for destruction after they had steadfastly resisted the goodness of God for generations. This sentence of total extinction was not carried out until Saul’s day (1 Sam 15), but Saul failed to do what God had said. David continued the action (2 Sam 1:1 – 8:12); and it may still have been going on in Esther’s day (Kaiser, 409).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 13: (1) God “would utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven (Keil and Delitzsch, 373).” (2) “The remembrance of Amalek uses a word that suggests remembering the Amalekites by name (Osborn and Hatton, 422).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 14: (1) “‘The time comes for me to punish’ is literally ‘in the day of my visitation.’ Perhaps this is the beginning of the Day-of-the-Lord warnings in the later prophets (Kaiser, 481).” (2) For the first time in Exodus and the previous thirty-one chapters in which the Hebrew word for visit appears at least four times, a new meaning for visit (regarding a positive or negative visit) is seen here in its different context. “The word ‘visit’ (paqad), which can mean to visit in order to bless or visit in order to punish, has been used in the favorable sense up to now (Ex. 3:16; 4:31; 13:19) (Gowan, 228).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 15: “The word for visit may mean ‘attend to’ in the sense of ‘observing’ (as in Ex 4:31), or it may mean ‘call to account’ in the sense of punishment (as in Ex 20:5). Here the meaning is ‘when the day comes for punishment’ (NRSV) (Osborn and Hatton, 775).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 16: (1) “Note the full wording of the context (vv. 18-20), which makes abundantly clear that the final sentence in v. 20 is speaking about exceptional Israelites who broke the covenant willingly, not the general population who might sin from time to time. The person who wishes to go his own way and not accept responsibility to keep the covenant loses its blessings and receives its curses (Stuart, 687).” (2) “‘I may consume them’ is literally ‘I will finish them off.’ The Hebrew verb means to complete or finish something, so here it means to ‘destroy’ or ‘exterminate them’ (Osborn and Hatton, 756).” Click here to go back.

Foot-quote 17: John Durham notes that the Hebrew word translated as destroy, consume, etc. means to “bring to an end, finish (Durham, 425, note 10.b).” Click here to go back.