New Exodus

The return from Babylonian exile is, Isaiah says, an exodus that so far surpasses the earlier exodus that Israel will forget Egypt and Moses and all that.

When it actually happens, everyone can see its sheen is far less brilliant than the first exodus. The new temple is a disappointing, pitiful shadow of the old, and Zerubbabel is a joke, a parody of Davidic restoration. Perhaps the most shocking thing about it is that Israel never really leaves exile. They return to the land, but they are still uner Persia. Some exodus! The second exodus is an exodus to delight the grumblers: An exodus in which no one has to leave Egypt.

Yes, Isaiah says, this is far, far greater than the first exodus. It’s marvelous, unprecedented, when Yahweh rips one goy out of another goy ; it’s more marvelous when Yahweh establishes His people as a separate people in the midst of another nation. The success of the second depends on the first. Without separation from Egypt, Israel would not have been molded into the kind of people who can survive and remain faithful in Babylon/Persia. But the second is the greater work. The first exodus is like the flood, cutting off Egypt with water so that the Noachic Israel can start over. The second exodus is like the call of Abram. The first exodus is a separation, the second an incarnation.

And perhaps this is the pattern for the reformation of the church. Separation first; but then, later, at a second stage, the second and greater exodus occurs by a quiet infusion, an imperceptible injection.