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Exodus is the name of the second book of the Old Testament as well as of the ‘’Torah’’ (Pentateuch, Five Books of Moses). It means ‘’going out’’ and was probably suggested by Exodus 19:1, where the Septuagint (LXX, the Greek translation of the Old Testament) uses ‘’exodou’’ (Genitive: ‘’of the going out’’), which was also taken up by the Latin Vulgate as the name of the book “Exodus.” In Hebrew, this book is called ‘’šemot’’ (‘’Names’’), following the tradition of naming biblical books by the first word, or one of the first, in the book’s opening; in this case, “These are the ‘’names’’ of the sons of Israel” (Exodus 1:1).
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| —Waldemar Janzen |
