Parashat Shemot — Names
שְׁמוֹת
Shemot (שְׁמוֹת) means "names" — taken, as every parashah name is, from the portion's opening words in the Hebrew.
The Readings
Torah Exodus 1:1-6:1 Read →
Haftarah Isaiah 27:6-28:13, 29:22-23 Read →
B'rit Chadashah Matthew 2:13-23 Read →
What Happens in Shemot
These are the names — shemot — of the sons of Yisrael who came into Egypt, and with that roll call Exodus binds itself to Genesis. Yosef's generation dies, but the children of Yisrael are fruitful and increase abundantly, until the land is filled with them. Then a new king arises over Egypt who does not know Yosef, and fear becomes policy: come, let us deal shrewdly with them. Taskmasters, burdens, mortar and brick — but the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied. So Pharaoh escalates to murder, commanding the Hebrew midwives to kill every boy at birth. Shifrah and Puah fear God and refuse — the first recorded civil disobedience in Scripture — and God deals well with them and builds them houses. Pharaoh then orders every son thrown into the Nile.
Into that decree a boy is born. His mother hides him three months, then commits him to the river anyway — in a papyrus ark, daubed with pitch like Noach's, laid among the reeds. Pharaoh's own daughter draws him out, his sister Miryam brokers his own mother as nurse, and the deliverer grows up in the murderer's palace, named Moshe, 'because I drew him out of the water.' Grown, he goes out to his brothers and sees their burdens; he strikes down an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, is exposed by his own people — who made you a ruler and judge over us? — and flees to Midian, where he defends Yitro's daughters, marries Tzipporah, and shepherds flocks for forty years, a stranger in a strange land. Meanwhile the enslaved people groan, and God hears, remembers His covenant, sees, and knows.
At Horev, the mountain of God, a bush burns and is not consumed, and YHVH calls from the midst of it: Moshe, Moshe... take off your sandals, for the place where you stand is holy ground. I have surely seen the affliction of My people... and I have come down to deliver them. Moshe's five objections tumble out — who am I; who are You; they won't believe me; I am slow of speech; send someone else — and each is answered, the second with the Name itself: Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, I AM THAT I AM... YHVH, the God of your fathers; this is My name forever. Armed with signs — the staff-serpent, the leprous hand — and with Aharon appointed as his mouth, Moshe returns to Egypt. The elders believe and worship; but Pharaoh sneers, who is YHVH, that I should obey His voice?, and cancels the straw while demanding the same tally of bricks. Beaten foremen turn on Moshe, Moshe turns his anguish on God — why have You brought evil on this people? — and YHVH answers with the word the rest of the book will spend proving: now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh.
Main Themes
From family to nation under affliction Fearing God above the king — the midwives' civil courage The name of YHVH revealed at the bush The reluctant deliverer and God's sufficiency Things getting worse before deliverance
Key Events
· Israel enslaved; the decree against the boys
· The birth and rescue of Moshe
· Moshe flees to Midian and marries Tzipporah
· The burning bush and the revelation of the Name
· The signs; Aharon appointed as spokesman
· Bricks without straw — Pharaoh hardens the burden
Key People
Moshe Pharaoh Shifrah and Puah Yocheved Miryam Pharaoh's daughter Tzipporah Yitro Aharon
Key Verses
Exodus 3:14 Read →
“God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’””
Exodus 2:24 Read →
“God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.”
Exodus 1:17 Read →
“But the midwives feared God, and didn’t do what the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the baby boys alive.”
All 54 Torah portions → · Open the Torah Portion tool in Hebrew Explorer