Leviticus: how to be holy

Leviticus is known as a book of rules, but really Leviticus is a book of worship.

You could sum up the book of Leviticus with God’s repeated command: “Be holy, as I am holy.”

This book is filled with details on how the people of God should live, eat, sacrifice, celebrate, and more. (We’ll get into why Israel needed this kind of direction in a moment.)

The name “Leviticus” refers to the many laws for the priests, all of whom belonged to the tribe of Levi. If you know much about the twelve tribes of Israel, you know that Levi is kind of an oddball in the bunch (more on that here).

Leviticus is the third movement in the Pentateuch (the five books of Moses), and picks up where Exodus leaves off. The children of Israel have just built a tabernacle, a temporary temple where God can dwell among them as they journey through the wilderness.

Now the Lord is relaying specific laws through Moses to His people. There’s very little narrative in the book of Leviticus, but a few important things happen, such as Aaron’s ordination and the deaths of Aaron’s sons. The story of Israel’s journey to the promised land picks back up in the book of Numbers.

Important characters in Leviticus

God (Yahweh)—This isn’t a cop-out. This whole book is about how the nation of Israel needs to live in order to survive living in the presence of such a powerful, holy being.

Moses—He led the Israelites from Egypt to Sinai. At this point in the story, Moses has already passed along many, many laws to the people of Israel on God’s behalf. In Leviticus, Moses continues to list the ways Israel can stay pure enough to live alongside their God.

Aaron—Moses’ older brother and the high priest of Israel, Aaron is a character to keep an eye on throughout the Pentateuch. Leviticus’s narrative elements have a lot to do with Aaron. In this book, Aaron is consecrated as the high priest, but this is also the book in which God kills Aaron’s sons.

Key themes in Leviticus

I like to find a passage in each book of the Bible that sums up what that book is all about. Moses makes it easy for me:

“Thus you are to be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy; and I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine.” (Le 20:26)

You can see a piece of art for each book of the Bible here.

Holiness

“Holy” means “set apart”—but it’s a lot more involved than just being special. God is holy: far greater in love, goodness, power, and justice than humans. Until this point in the Bible, God has been a long way off from the people of earth. Although God has communicated with humans and in some cases even appeared to them privately (think Abraham’s visitors in Genesis 18), he has yet to publicly manifest his presence on earth since the garden of Eden.

But all this has changed. God has made Israel his people: a people that now represent him on earth. He has now established his presence in the tabernacle, a portable holy place where God can dwell in the midst of his new nation.

But if people are going to live in the presence of God, some things will need to change. Because God is so “other” from the world, the people associated with him must become “others” too. God is holy, and his people need to be holy as well.

Cleanliness and uncleanliness

One way that the ancients understood holiness was in terms of whether something was “clean” or “unclean.” This isn’t the same as “good” or “bad.” It’s a sense of purity. Is something aligned with the god we are approaching? Or is it unaligned?

This wasn’t specific to the people of Israel. People of most religions (past and present) have an understanding that there are ways that are appropriate and inappropriate when it comes to interacting with the divine. Those who work and live closest to a divine being are expected to abide by more stringent rules. The rules vary from religion to religion. We even see this within Christianity today: some faith traditions prefer married church leaders, others prefer celibate leaders.

This is a core theme to the book of Leviticus. When someone is operating in alignment with God’s purity laws, they are “clean.” When someone is out of bounds, they are “unclean.” The book of Leviticus has a lot to say about how to stay clean and how to become clean again.

An important thing to note: throughout the Pentateuch, Moses assumes that everyone will be unclean at some point. After all, everybody poops (Dt 23:12–14). The point is to live in a manner that respects the presence of God.

Zooming out: Leviticus in context

Leviticus is right in the middle of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. It has a reputation for being boring, harsh, and unpopular. (But it’s not the least-popular book of the Bible.)

In Genesis, we saw Israel’s origin story. At the tower of Babel, God and the other divine beings scattered the families of the world into nations with their own languages. A few generations later, God chooses Abraham as the patriarch of his own special nation.

In Exodus, Abraham’s descendants have multiplied, becoming a mighty people group cohabitating with the Egyptians. The Pharaoh enslaves the people for a few centuries until God rescues them. After a dramatic exit from Egypt, God makes a special agreement with Israel, making them his people and himself their only God. The people then build a tabernacle, and the Creator of the world begins dwelling among his people.

That’s why Leviticus is so important. It’s a new normal: Yahweh is publicly living with humans. This hasn’t happened since the Garden of Eden, when God would visit with Adam and Eve. Last time God shared a place with humans, the humans (with help from an evil serpent) messed it up. How can they get it right this time?

Not a lot of story happens in Leviticus. The people stay camped at Mount Sinai throughout the book. It’s not until the book of Numbers that they resume their journey to the promised land—and that journey isn’t completed until the book of Joshua.

Leviticus’ role in the Bible

Leviticus is about holiness (being set apart, separate)—both God’s holiness and the holiness He expects of His people.

Whereas Exodus displays God’s holiness on a cosmic scale (sending plagues on Egypt, parting the Red Sea, etc.), Leviticus shows us the holiness of God in fine detail. God spells out His expectations for His priests and people so that the congregation can appropriately worship and dwell with Him.

The call to holiness in Leviticus resounds throughout Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments. Parts of the Levitical law are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, such as distinctions between clean and unclean foods (Mark 7:18–19), but the call to holiness still stands—Peter even cites Leviticus when he encourages us to be holy in all our behavior (1 Peter 1:15–16).

Quick outline of Leviticus

1. How to give offerings (Leviticus 1–7)
2. Aaron and sons ordained (Leviticus 8–10)
3. Cleanliness laws for the congregation (Leviticus 11–15)
4. Atonement for sin (Leviticus 16–17)
5. How to be a holy culture (Leviticus 18–27)

Who wrote Leviticus?

The whole Torah is a carefully, intentionally edited work. Moses is traditionally credited as the human author of the Old-Testament book of Leviticus. This is because Leviticus is part of the Torah, which is known as the Law of Moses.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Moses penned every single word of this book. However, Moses is the main human character in these books, and since Moses is the one receiving directives from God, the books are usually attributed to him.

Exodus: God saves His people from Egypt

The book of Exodus is the story of God rescuing the children of Israel from Egypt and forging a special relationship with them. Exodus is the second book of the Pentateuch (the five books of Moses), and it’s where we find the stories of the Ten Plagues, the first Passover, the parting of the Red Sea, and the Ten Commandments.

The book gets its name from the nation of Israel’s mass emigration from Egypt, but that’s only the first part of the story. This book follows Israel out of Egypt into the desert, where the nation is specifically aligned with God (as opposed to the idols of Egypt and the surrounding nations). This is the book in which God first lays out his expectations for the people of Israel—we know these expectations as the 10 Commandments. Most of the Old Testament is about how Israel meets (or fails to meet) these expectations. So if you want to understand any other book of the Old Testament, you’ll need a basic understanding of what happens in Exodus.

Important characters in Exodus

Exodus has a tight cast of important characters to keep an eye on.

God (Yahweh)—the creator of heaven and earth and the divine being who chooses the nation of Israel to represent him on earth. God goes to war against the gods of Egypt, frees Israel from their tyranny, and then makes a pact with the new nation. While the rest of the nations serve lesser gods, Yahweh selects the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the people group that will serve him and him alone.

Moses—the greatest of the Old Testament prophets who serves as a go-between for God and the other humans in the book of Exodus. Moses negotiates with Pharaoh for Israel’s freedom, passes God’s laws on to the people of Israel, and even pleads for mercy on Israel’s behalf when they anger God.

Aaron—Moses’ brother and right hand. Aaron assists Moses as a spokesperson, and eventually is made the high priest of the nation of Israel.

Pharaoh—the chief antagonist in the Exodus story. Pharaoh enslaves the nation of Israel, commits genocide, and is generally a huge jerk.Pharaoh is worshiped as part of the Egyptian pantheon: a lesser god laying an illegitimate claim to God’s people. God defeats Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt by sending a series of ten devastating plagues, and finally destroying Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea.

Key themes in Exodus

Exodus is all about God making Israel his own. God rescues the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (whom he made some important promises to back in Genesis). Then, he gives them his expectations—a list of dos and don’ts. Finally, God sets up camp in the midst of the new nation: they are his people, and he is their God.

When God gives Israel the Ten Commandments, he frames them by stating his relationship to the Hebrews. This verse sums up the themes of Exodus nicely:

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (Ex 20:2)

(You can find more Bible verse art here.)

Let’s take a quick spin through some of Exodus’ themes.

Redemption

It’s hard to miss this one! The entire book is about God hearing Israel’s cries for help, rescuing them from their oppressors, and making them his own.

Covenant

Like the rest of the Torah, covenant is a big theme here. God makes a solemn, binding agreement with the people of Israel, establishing himself as their god and them as his people. This relationship comes with certain expectations, with benefits for the Israelites if they uphold their end of the agreement, and consequences if they do not.

God’s presence

Toward the beginning of the book, the cries of Israel rise up to God, who hears them and remembers his promises to Abraham back in Genesis. In the middle of the book, God meets Israel in the wilderness: he is high atop a mountain, and they are on the plain below. God is closer to the people, but still a ways off. However, by the end of the book, God is dwelling in the middle of Israel’s camp in the wilderness. Moses believes that it is God’s presence among the people that sets Israel apart from every other nation in the world (Exod 33:16).

Law

This is related to the theme of covenant—specifically, the expectations God has for the people of Israel. From chapter 20 onward, we start seeing more and more directives for the people on how to live as the people of God.

Zooming out: Exodus in context

Exodus is where the story of the Bible really starts picking up. God has already made his promises to Abraham: his descendants would be a mighty people, they would possess the land of Canaan, and through them the whole earth will be blessed by God. While in Genesis we see God working through a family, in Exodus we see God working with an entire nation.

Exodus is a starburst of Old and New Testament theology. God is faithful, and keeps His promise to Abraham (Gn 15:13–21) by judging the Egyptians and liberating Israel. The Lord also gives Israel the first iteration of the Law, and begins to dwell among His people in the tabernacle. God’s liberation of Israel from slavery foreshadows His work to redeem the nations (Ro 6:17–18), just as His judgment on His people serves as an example for Christians now (1 Co 10:6–13). Exodus is also where God reveals His memorial name: YHWH, or LORD (Ex 3:14; 6:3).

An overview of Exodus’ story and structure

Act 1: Prologue

(Exodus 1–2)

Exodus picks up where Genesis leaves off: the young nation of Israel is in Egypt (they were invited by Joseph, the one with the famous coat). A new Pharaoh notices the Israelites multiplying, and enslaves them. Afraid of an uprising, he orders that all Hebrew sons should be cast into the Nile at birth.

But one baby boy escapes this fate: the Hebrew Moses grows up in Pharaoh’s household. When adult Moses kills an abusive Egyptian slave driver, he flees the country.

Act 2: God saves Israel

(Exodus 3–19)

Forty years later, God appears to Moses as a burning bush and sends him to deliver Israel from the hand of Pharaoh.

Moses, with the help of his brother Aaron, confronts Pharaoh on God’s behalf: “Let My people go” (Ex 5:1). Pharaoh refuses, and so God sends those famous 10 plagues upon the Egyptians. When the last plague kills Pharaoh’s son, he finally allows Israel to leave.

The Israelites celebrate the first-ever Passover, and then set out into the wilderness. Pharaoh changes his mind and sends his army to recapture them. God saves Israel miraculously by parting the Red Sea and allowing Israel to escape their would-be captors—and then uses the sea to wash away Pharaoh’s army. The Israelites leave Egypt and make their way to the foot of Mount Sinai in the wilderness. God descends on the top of the mountain, and then, something amazing happens.

Act 3: God makes a covenant with Israel

(Exodus 20–40)

The Israelites leave Egypt and make their way to Mount Sinai, where God gives His laws to Moses. God makes a covenant with the nation of Israel and the generations to come: because He rescued them from Egypt, Israel is to observe His rules. God speaks the Ten Commandments directly to the whole nation of Israel, and He relays specific ordinances to Moses on the mountain. And the people agree to it!

After this, God makes plans for a place of worship. He’s going to come down from the mountaintop and dwell in the midst of the people of Israel—but in order for this to happen, the people need to prepare a portable tabernacle for him. God gives Moses the plans for the tabernacle, the sacred furniture, and the garments for the priests.

But already things aren’t going as planned. While God is giving Moses laws for the people, the people start worshiping a golden calf … not cool. Moses pleads with God on Israel’s behalf, and the nation is given another go at keeping God’s commands.

And so Israel builds the tabernacle: a holy tent. The book of Exodus ends with the glory of the LORD filling the tabernacle. God is now dwelling among His chosen people, Israel. However, now there’s another problem: how will the people live in the presence of such a holy and powerful being?

That’s what the next book, Leviticus is all about.

Who wrote Exodus?

The whole Torah is a carefully, intentionally edited work. Moses is traditionally credited as the human author of the Old-Testament book of Exodus. This is because Exodus is part of the Torah, which is known as the Law of Moses. That doesn’t necessarily mean Moses penned every single word of this book—but since Moses is the main human character in these books, and since Moses is the one receiving directives from God, the books are usually attributed to him. 

Genesis: the story begins

The book of Genesis is the first book of the Bible, and opens with one of the most famous first sentences of any literary work: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” It’s where we find the famous stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the ark, Abraham and Isaac, and a well-dressed dreamer named Joseph.

On its own, the book of Genesis reads like a string of epic stories: a semi-tragic saga of a world that just keeps going wrong, despite its Creator’s intentions. But Genesis isn’t a stand-alone book. It’s the first installment in the five-part Torah (or Pentateuch), which is the foundational work of the Old Testament. The Torah is Israel’s origin story: it’s the history of how the nation of Israel got its population, its land, and its religion.

Important characters in Genesis

Genesis is the second-longest book of the Bible (after Jeremiah). That means there are a lot of characters in Genesis. If you want a look at the most-mentioned characters in Genesis, Laura pulled the nerdy data together here. But in terms of getting an overview of the book, these four characters are the most important ones to know about:

God (Yahweh)—the creator of heaven and earth, including the humans Adam and Eve. God makes all things “very good,” but when both humans and divine beings rebel against God, the world slips back into chaos. The humans rebel against God, bringing a curse on the world and growing so violent that God destroys everyone but Noah and his family. God is still at work to bring the world back to “very good” status again—and chooses to begin this work through a man God names Abraham.

Abraham (formerly Abram)—a Mesopotamian whom God chooses as the patriarch of a special nation. Abraham journeys through the land of Canaan, which God promises to give to Abraham’s descendants. God makes a covenant (a special binding agreement) with Abraham—which is where Israel’s story as a nation truly begins.

Jacob/Israel—Abraham’s grandson. Jacob tricks his father and brother, finagling his way into receiving a special blessing. He has twelve sons, which the twelve tribes of Israel trace their lineage back to.

Joseph—Jacob’s favorite son, who has prophetic dreams of greatness. He is also able to interpret other people’s dreams. His brothers sell him into slavery, but through his God-given wisdom, he ascends to the position of second-in-command over all Egypt.

Key themes in Genesis

The book of Genesis is full of stories we know from Sunday school, like Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, and Jacob’s Ladder. But the story of Genesis is really all about setting the stage for the rest of the Pentateuch: it’s the long, long prologue to Israel’s beginnings as a nation. Specifically, it’s the story of the promises God made to humans—promises that God begins to carry out through the rest of the Bible.

In fact, if the main thrust of Genesis were summed up in one verse, it would be these words that God said to Abraham:

I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. (Gn 17:7, NIV)

See Bible verse art for each of the other books of the Bible.

Let’s take a quick tour of Genesis’ foundational themes:

Covenant

A covenant is a solemn, binding agreement that makes two or more parties one (you can get a more in-depth definition here). Covenants usually involve promises, conditions, blessings for keeping the covenant, and curses for breaking it. Genesis has a lot of these agreements, including God’s covenant with the post-flood world (Genesis 9:1–17) and his covenants with Abraham (Genesis 15, 17).

Covenant is what moves the story forward in Genesis. God promises the childless Abraham that he will be the father of nations, that his descendants will have a land, and that the world will be blessed through them. For 38 of Genesis’ 50 chapters, the story follows Abraham’s family as God begins fulfilling the first part of that promise: Abraham has eight children, who have children of their own, and so on and so forth. The next four books tell the story of how these descendants become a nation and make their move toward claiming their promised land.

As you read or study the book of Genesis, pay special attention to any mentions of “covenant,” “promise,” and “swear”—especially when God’s the one talking.

Blessing

In the twelfth chapter, God promises to bless Abraham, bless his allies, curse his enemies, and eventually, bless the world through him (12:1–3). This kicks the rest of the book, the rest of the Torah, and indeed the rest of the Bible into gear. From this point on, God has a special relationship with Abraham and his family. The rest of Genesis watches this promise unfold—and it involves a lot of people getting blessed.

The narrative of blessings is especially important when we get about halfway through the book, when Jacob “inherits” (i.e., tricks his dad into giving him) the blessing that God had given to Abraham and Isaac. This blessing was originally intended for Jacob’s older brother Esau. But before another Cain and Abel situation takes place, Jacob escapes to a distant land, where he starts a new life. When Jacob returns, he wrestles with God—who blesses him.

As you read and study Genesis, keep an eye on who blesses whom, and what happens when people are blessed.

Records and genealogies

A key repeated phrase in Genesis is, “this is the account of …,” or “these are the records of…,” followed by either a bunch of names or a bunch of stories. In fact, this is pretty much all of Genesis. The second chapter opens with the account of the “heavens and the earth,” (2:4). Then the book of Genesis swings us through a long series of sub-accounts:

• Adam’s family line (5:1)
• Noah’s family line (6:9)
• The nations that stemmed from Noah’s sons (10:1)
• Abraham’s family (11:27)
• Ishmael’s family (25:12)
• Isaac’s family (25:19)
• Esau’s family (36:1)
• And finally, Jacob’s family (37:2)

As you read through Genesis, pay attention to these lines—they signal that the focus of the book is shifting from one family to another. Genesis is a collection of origin stories—these genealogies feel trivial to modern readers, but they give us a good idea of how the ancient Israelites thought about the countries surrounding them.

For example, the nations of Israel and Edom don’t tend to get along in Scripture. (There’s an entire book of the Bible about how Edom did Israel dirty.) Genesis frames this rivalry: they’ve been getting each other’s goats since Jacob stole Esau’s blessing!

Promised land

One more important theme in Genesis: the land of Canaan. God promises that Abraham’s descendants will possess that land in chapter 15, but this promise is not fulfilled until the book of Joshua. Abraham wanders through Canaan, Isaac settles there, and Jacob eventually settles here, too. However, at the end of the book, the budding nation of Israel is dwelling as guests in Egypt. The next four books of the Torah tell us how they make their way back to Canaan.

As you read and study Genesis, don’t just pay attention to what is happening—pay attention to where it’s happening.

Zooming out: Genesis in context

Genesis is the first book of the Bible, but more importantly, it’s the first book of the Torah, the law of Moses. Genesis told the ancient Israelites that God had befriended their ancestors, promised them a land, and had a plan to bless the world through them. But the story of Genesis is really just the grand prologue to Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Together, these five books tell the story of how Israel became God’s special nation.

Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt as special guests. But Exodus begins with Israel being enslaved by their hosts. Through the rest of the Torah, God rescues Israel from Egypt, declares them to be his people, and leads them through the wilderness to their promised land. Genesis explains how Israel came to be in Egypt in the first place, and why, of all the places on earth, God lead the nation of Israel to that patch of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

If we look beyond the Torah (and we should!), the stories in Genesis set the backdrop for vital theological principles in the rest of the Bible. In Genesis, we see that God has authority over the world. We see that humans and other creatures (like the serpent and the Nephilim) are in rebellion against God’s order. We see the hints of God’s plan to redeem his creation back to himself.

Genesis also introduces Abraham, the ancestor of Israel through whom the whole world will be blessed. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the three chief patriarchs of the nation Israel (which gets its name from Jacob). Jacob’s sons and grandsons have their own families, which eventually become the 12 tribes of Israel.

Abraham believes God’s promises to him, and Abraham’s faith is reckoned to be righteousness (Gn 15:6)—that is, it satisfies God. The concept of righteousness by faith is repeated in the New Testament (Ro 10:10), and Paul states that all who share Abraham’s faith are the spiritual children on Abraham (Ga 3:6–9).

Genesis sets forth several biblical themes that weave across the rest of the Bible:

• God’s authority. God is the maker of all things, and He is sovereign over nature and humanity. We see His creative work in the first two chapters of Genesis, but we also see His sovereignty in choosing Abraham, blessing the Hebrews, and protecting Egypt from famine.
• Man’s rebellion. Adam and Eve disobeyed God in Eden, but that’s only the beginning. Cain presents an unacceptable sacrifice, the world becomes violent in the days of Noah, people construct the tower of Babel, and so on and so forth.
• God’s judgment. God evicts Adam and Eve, He sends a flood to destroy the earth, and He rains fire on Sodom and Gomorrah (Gn 19). God is holy, and sin must be punished.
• God’s preservation of life. God promises a descendant to Eve (Gn 3:15), He saves Noah’s family in an ark, He delivers Jacob from Esau’s wrath, and He allows Egypt to survive a harsh famine through Joseph’s wisdom.
• Blood sacrifice. God skins animals to cover Adam and Eve after they sin (Gn 3:21), and He provides a ram for Abraham to take Isaac’s place (Gn 22). The blood sacrifice motif becomes far more prominent in the book of Leviticus.

It’s a grand book with many of the Bible’s most well-known stories, but it’s only the beginning.

Overview of Genesis’s story and structure

Genesis can generally be broken into two large movements, each one the beginning of a bigger story. The first is the story of God’s relationship with the world. The second is the origin story of God’s relationship with Israel.

Movement 1: God and humanity

(Genesis 1–11)

Genesis opens with God creating the heavens and the earth, the stars, the plants, the animals, and humans: Adam and Eve. God places Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but they rebel against God, introducing a curse of sin and death to the world.

Adam and Eve have children (including Cain and Abel), and those children have children. Eventually the world becomes so violent that God sends a great flood to destroy the world, but He spares the only righteous man, Noah. Noah builds his famous ark to escape the floodwaters with his family (and many animals). After the waters recede, God promises to never again destroy the earth with a flood.

This movement culminates with the strange story of the Tower of Babel. The people of earth come together to make a great city and a name for themselves. At this time, God and the divine beings with him scatter the people of earth by confusing their languages and setting up different nations (Genesis 11, Deuteronomy 32:8).

Movement 2: God and Israel

Act 1: Abraham & Isaac

(Genesis 12–24)

Hundreds of years later, God calls Noah’s descendant, Abram, to leave his family and journey to the land of Canaan. God promises to bless Abram with many descendants, and to bless all the nations of the world through him. Abram believes God’s promise, even though he is old and childless. God considers him to be righteous, and changes his name from Abram to Abraham. Later, Abraham has a son, Isaac.

Act 2: Isaac

(Genesis 25–27)

Isaac dwells in the land of Canaan and has twin sons: Jacob and Esau.

Jacob grows up, tricks Esau into giving away his blessing, and Esau’s not too happy about this. So …

Act 3: Jacob/Israel

(Genesis 28–36)

Jacob then leaves town to live with his uncle. He marries, has 13 children, and lives with his uncle for 20 years before God calls him back to Canaan. As Jacob returns to the land of Abraham and Isaac, his name is changed to Israel (35:9–12).

Act 4: Joseph

(Genesis 37–50)

Of Jacob’s 12 sons and one daughter, Joseph is his favorite. Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery, and he becomes a prisoner in Egypt. His God-given ability to interpret dreams becomes valuable to the Pharaoh, however, and so Joseph is released from prison and made second in command of all Egypt. Joseph warns Pharaoh that a terrible famine is coming, and stockpiles food for the coming years.

Joseph’s predictions are correct: the famine reaches Canaan, and his brothers come to Egypt to buy food. The brothers reconcile, and Joseph provides for all the children of Israel to move to Egypt until the famine is over. The book of Genesis ends with the death of Joseph, whose last prediction is that God will bring the children of Israel back to the promised land. God begins fulfilling this in the next movement of the story: the book of Exodus.

Who wrote the book of Genesis?

Genesis is a carefully and intentionally crafted account of Israel’s origin story. Moses is traditionally credited as the human author of the Old-Testament book of Genesis. This is because Genesis is part of the Torah, which is known as the Law of Moses.