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Exodus and Revolution
Noted political philosopher Michael Walzer offers a moving meditation on the political meanings of the biblical story of Exodus. "Walzer knows his Bible. He stands in the growing ranks of contemporary academicians who are discovering in biblical and rabbinic sources a literature rich with significance for modern man".--Chaim Potok, "Philadelphia Inquirer".
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
About the author
Michael Walzer
113 books132 followersMichael Walzer is a Jewish American political philosopher and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor of the political-intellectual quarterly Dissent. He has written books and essays on a wide range of topics, including just and unjust wars, nationalism, ethnicity, economic justice, social criticism, radicalism, tolerance, and political obligation and is a contributing editor to The New Republic. To date, he has written 27 books and published over 300 articles, essays, and book reviews in Dissent, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and many scholarly journals
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
July 5, 2017
Another reviewer has written an excellent, critical review of this book, from a (more or less) historian's perspective. But the book does have some excellent qualities, and it's worth mentioning them as well: it is extremely readable; it is enjoyable to think with; it makes reading Exodus (and the following books) even more fascinating. As a work of scholarship on Exodus, it is probably not all that great. As a work tracing the rhetoric and thought-forms of revolutionary politics in early modern Europe, it is enjoyable and convincing. As an essay that prompts engagement with the text under question, it is wonderful.
November 2, 2014
This book is an excellent (and short) discussion of how various revolutionaries over time have applied the Exodus story to their own situations.
Walzer begins by focusing on Egyptian slavery. He notes that it is not just the fact of slavery that the Torah condemns, but its oppressiveness and injustice. Slaves in the ancient world were often prisoners of war or had sold themselves into bondage. But the Hebrews were neither- instead, they were immigrants who were enslaved by a arbitrary (and thus lawless) king Because American blacks, like Hebrews, were strangers in a strange land, they saw their position as especially similar to that of the Hebrews. And because Egyptian slavery involved the abuse of state power, rebels against oppressive state power have often seen their situation as similar.
Walzer moves on to the behavior of the freed slaves in the wilderness, especially their continual backsliding and complaints against Moses, and the occasional violent responses to such behavior by both God and Moses. Walzer points that that Leninists and other political revolutionaries were especially fond of these stories, arguing that just as Moses had to purge the people to save his revolution, Lenin had to do the same. Similarly, the Torah's promise of holiness could be compared to the Marxist promise of a new society.
On the other hand, the Exodus story can be used to support more democratic, reformist policies as well. For example, Moses' delegation of authority to thousands of judges seems to be a step away from despotism, towards a republican (if not democratic) form of government.
Walzer begins by focusing on Egyptian slavery. He notes that it is not just the fact of slavery that the Torah condemns, but its oppressiveness and injustice. Slaves in the ancient world were often prisoners of war or had sold themselves into bondage. But the Hebrews were neither- instead, they were immigrants who were enslaved by a arbitrary (and thus lawless) king Because American blacks, like Hebrews, were strangers in a strange land, they saw their position as especially similar to that of the Hebrews. And because Egyptian slavery involved the abuse of state power, rebels against oppressive state power have often seen their situation as similar.
Walzer moves on to the behavior of the freed slaves in the wilderness, especially their continual backsliding and complaints against Moses, and the occasional violent responses to such behavior by both God and Moses. Walzer points that that Leninists and other political revolutionaries were especially fond of these stories, arguing that just as Moses had to purge the people to save his revolution, Lenin had to do the same. Similarly, the Torah's promise of holiness could be compared to the Marxist promise of a new society.
On the other hand, the Exodus story can be used to support more democratic, reformist policies as well. For example, Moses' delegation of authority to thousands of judges seems to be a step away from despotism, towards a republican (if not democratic) form of government.
May 14, 2014
In Exodus and Revolution, political philosopher Michael Walzer argues that the biblical book of Exodus is the literary and philosophical staring point for non-messianic revolutionary thought in the West. It’s story of oppression, march, and redemption is a “paradigm of revolutionary politics” and thus “made it possible to tell other stories” of revolution from Cromwell, to the American Revolution, to the Latin revolutions.
Walzer, a religious Jew, received his PhD from Harvard in government. He admits that he is not a scholar of ancient languages, nor has he formally studied ancient near eastern culture. However he has written voluminous amounts on political theory, war, and social theory, as well as taught at Princeton on social sciences.
From the outset, Walzer states a clear goal: that the concepts of revolution find their origins in the book of Exodus (and the whole of Pentateuch). “Revolution has often been imagined as an enactment of the Exodus and the Exodus has often been imagined as a program for revolution.” However Walzer has another goal, not so bluntly stated. His book furthers the concept of a difference—both of content and quality—between “Exodus-oriented” and “messianic-oriented” revolutions. Walzer makes it obvious that he far prefers Exodus-oriented revolutions and that revolutions propelled by messianic expectations are far inferior.
Because Walzer sees Exodus-oriented concepts of revolution as divided into three parts,—bondage, wilderness, and a promised land—that is how he divides his book as well (though dedicating two chapters to Israel’s particular wilderness experience). The numeric chapters lay relatively tame groundwork for his more provocative “Conclusion.” The chapter on bondage explores the slave-bondage that Israel found itself in, seeing Israel’s leaving behind of that bondage as “a paradigm for revolutionary defeat.” But Egypt was not only about bondage; there was a level of attractiveness to the old paradigm as well. Walzer finds comparisons between Israel’s situation and that of the United States, the Puritan revolution, even Cromwell’s revolution.
The two chapters on Israel’s wilderness experience focus on Israel’s “murmuring” and their entering into God’s covenant, thus becoming a truly free people. His primary argument is that just as Egypt served as a school for the Israelites to learn “servitude and slavishness,” the wilderness was also a school, but instead for freedom grounded in God. Though both lead to service, one is grounded in coercion, the other in covenant. Walzer sees this covenant as the predecessor for the democratic process, citing the Massachusetts constitution: “It is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people.”
The chapter on the promised land emphasizes that Israel actually went somewhere. And, even more, it was the promise of that somewhere that lead to the exodus in the first place. However—and this is where Walzer’s Exodus-versus-messianic-revolution polemic begins to come out—the promise land was not a place of instant happiness, holiness, or even milk and honey. It had to be worked for. “God promised that Israel would be holy, but He didn’t promise that it would be holy tomorrow or next Tuesday or even at the end of forty years.” This, according to Walzer, contrasts with Jewish messianic thought. While messianic thought can at times think of itself as a new exodus, it is cut from a different cloth since it emphasizes discontinuity and instantaneity.
This outworking of these assumptions by Walzer play themselves out most forcefully in his conclusion to the book. He calls political messianism a “second pattern” and “the great temptation of Western politics.” It “is very different from the [revolutionary program] adopted by Moses in the wilderness and at Sinai.” It reacts against Exodus-oriented revolutionary politics due to the “apparent endlessness of the Exodus march.” While Exodus-oriented revolution only gets us to a still-imperfect promised land, why not go with the style of revolution that guarantees escape? This political messianism desires to “force the End” and thus take deliverance into its own political hands. Walzer makes it clear that this messianism is not as desirable as Exodus-oriented revolution. Exodus-oriented revolution “makes for…cautious and moderate politics.”
Exodus and Revolution is a book with two agendas and it fails on both. The first agenda—to prove that the revolutionary pattern of “oppression, liberation, social contract, political struggle [and] new society” finds its “original version” in the Exodus of Israel from Egypt—fails due to lack of research, evidence, and proof. While the bulk of the book does a fine job of explaining the political implications of Israel’s journey out of Egypt and into the promised land, the reader is given few reasons to believe that Israel’s journey is “certainly the first description of revolutionary politics.” Most definitely the reader can find Israel’s story as exemplary and archetypical, but the first description? We are simply offered no proof. Walzer brings in no other parallel literature from the ancient near east. We are offered little historical background or primary sources. This is not entirely surprising for someone with a PhD in government (as opposed to, say, Sumerian literature); but in that case, the preface of the book should not promise the reader to show the origins of revolutionary thought, and then only offer us one example, and hope that we take its word for it that its “certainly the first.”
While it is easy to argue about whether or not something was “the first,” Walzer’s second agenda is more nuanced and thus so is my response: Is his description of messianism accurate? Is it indeed cut from a different cloth from Exodus-oriented revolution? Firstly, I cannot disagree that what Walzer describes as messianism exists. There are definitely those who belong to certain religious persuasions who long for escape; who desire immediate, no-wilderness-required change; who force to make “the End” happen by their own accord; and who even welcome the horrors that signify the End. One can think of jihadists and certain Christian end-time fanatics. Though the ills that come from those groups very greatly in extremity, they both belong to an end of the spectrum that is well defined by Walzer’s descriptions and are radically different than the Exodus-style revolution that he describes.
But that we should call this “messianism” is where I must disagree. These kinds of “bring the End now” extremists are the worst-kind of revolutionaries. And though some may identify with some sort of messiah or another, chances are thin that their self-claimed messiah would identity with them.
Creating a quite stunning gap in his argument, Walzer fails to bring to bring to light the most successful of any “messianic” movement, that of Jesus of Nazareth. While Walzer accurately posits that a true revolutionary politic requires a march—a wilderness experience—he ignores one of the longest marches in history, the wait that Christians engage in for the return of Jesus. Jesus paradigm lines up perfectly with Walzer’s proposed Exodus-paradigm (oppression, liberation, social contract, political struggle, new society). In fact, this pattern is the primary concern of the late Old Testament prophets. Israel, due to the exile, was once again in oppression: when would the new exodus and the new covenant happen? Or, as the disciples put it, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:7).
Finally, Walzer underestimates the eschatological focus of the Pentateuch, particularly in Deuteronomy (though starting as early as Genesis 3). References to God’s glory filling the earth, a “prophet like Moses,” and the covenant being written on Israel’s hearts after a return from exile all belie the fact that the concept of “the End” was not foreign to Israel’s thought life. Therefore, a messiah-driven revolution—i.e. one driven by a desire for ultimate holiness, justice, and peace—would not be completely foreign to early Hebrew thought. Yes, it was further fleshed out by the more messiah-driven prophets of the Exile, but it was not completely absent from early Hebrew thought as Walzer posits.
While this book contains worthwhile thoughts on the relationship between the Exodus, political thought, and revolution, it would be difficult to recommend this book for the simple fact that it fails to convince on any of its fronts. However, with a few small “expectation tweaks” (i.e. that Israel was at least an exemplary of revolution; that the-End-without-the-march-at-all-costs thinking is harmful) this book becomes a worthwhile read for those interested in the relationship between Scripture and politics.
Walzer, a religious Jew, received his PhD from Harvard in government. He admits that he is not a scholar of ancient languages, nor has he formally studied ancient near eastern culture. However he has written voluminous amounts on political theory, war, and social theory, as well as taught at Princeton on social sciences.
From the outset, Walzer states a clear goal: that the concepts of revolution find their origins in the book of Exodus (and the whole of Pentateuch). “Revolution has often been imagined as an enactment of the Exodus and the Exodus has often been imagined as a program for revolution.” However Walzer has another goal, not so bluntly stated. His book furthers the concept of a difference—both of content and quality—between “Exodus-oriented” and “messianic-oriented” revolutions. Walzer makes it obvious that he far prefers Exodus-oriented revolutions and that revolutions propelled by messianic expectations are far inferior.
Because Walzer sees Exodus-oriented concepts of revolution as divided into three parts,—bondage, wilderness, and a promised land—that is how he divides his book as well (though dedicating two chapters to Israel’s particular wilderness experience). The numeric chapters lay relatively tame groundwork for his more provocative “Conclusion.” The chapter on bondage explores the slave-bondage that Israel found itself in, seeing Israel’s leaving behind of that bondage as “a paradigm for revolutionary defeat.” But Egypt was not only about bondage; there was a level of attractiveness to the old paradigm as well. Walzer finds comparisons between Israel’s situation and that of the United States, the Puritan revolution, even Cromwell’s revolution.
The two chapters on Israel’s wilderness experience focus on Israel’s “murmuring” and their entering into God’s covenant, thus becoming a truly free people. His primary argument is that just as Egypt served as a school for the Israelites to learn “servitude and slavishness,” the wilderness was also a school, but instead for freedom grounded in God. Though both lead to service, one is grounded in coercion, the other in covenant. Walzer sees this covenant as the predecessor for the democratic process, citing the Massachusetts constitution: “It is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people.”
The chapter on the promised land emphasizes that Israel actually went somewhere. And, even more, it was the promise of that somewhere that lead to the exodus in the first place. However—and this is where Walzer’s Exodus-versus-messianic-revolution polemic begins to come out—the promise land was not a place of instant happiness, holiness, or even milk and honey. It had to be worked for. “God promised that Israel would be holy, but He didn’t promise that it would be holy tomorrow or next Tuesday or even at the end of forty years.” This, according to Walzer, contrasts with Jewish messianic thought. While messianic thought can at times think of itself as a new exodus, it is cut from a different cloth since it emphasizes discontinuity and instantaneity.
This outworking of these assumptions by Walzer play themselves out most forcefully in his conclusion to the book. He calls political messianism a “second pattern” and “the great temptation of Western politics.” It “is very different from the [revolutionary program] adopted by Moses in the wilderness and at Sinai.” It reacts against Exodus-oriented revolutionary politics due to the “apparent endlessness of the Exodus march.” While Exodus-oriented revolution only gets us to a still-imperfect promised land, why not go with the style of revolution that guarantees escape? This political messianism desires to “force the End” and thus take deliverance into its own political hands. Walzer makes it clear that this messianism is not as desirable as Exodus-oriented revolution. Exodus-oriented revolution “makes for…cautious and moderate politics.”
Exodus and Revolution is a book with two agendas and it fails on both. The first agenda—to prove that the revolutionary pattern of “oppression, liberation, social contract, political struggle [and] new society” finds its “original version” in the Exodus of Israel from Egypt—fails due to lack of research, evidence, and proof. While the bulk of the book does a fine job of explaining the political implications of Israel’s journey out of Egypt and into the promised land, the reader is given few reasons to believe that Israel’s journey is “certainly the first description of revolutionary politics.” Most definitely the reader can find Israel’s story as exemplary and archetypical, but the first description? We are simply offered no proof. Walzer brings in no other parallel literature from the ancient near east. We are offered little historical background or primary sources. This is not entirely surprising for someone with a PhD in government (as opposed to, say, Sumerian literature); but in that case, the preface of the book should not promise the reader to show the origins of revolutionary thought, and then only offer us one example, and hope that we take its word for it that its “certainly the first.”
While it is easy to argue about whether or not something was “the first,” Walzer’s second agenda is more nuanced and thus so is my response: Is his description of messianism accurate? Is it indeed cut from a different cloth from Exodus-oriented revolution? Firstly, I cannot disagree that what Walzer describes as messianism exists. There are definitely those who belong to certain religious persuasions who long for escape; who desire immediate, no-wilderness-required change; who force to make “the End” happen by their own accord; and who even welcome the horrors that signify the End. One can think of jihadists and certain Christian end-time fanatics. Though the ills that come from those groups very greatly in extremity, they both belong to an end of the spectrum that is well defined by Walzer’s descriptions and are radically different than the Exodus-style revolution that he describes.
But that we should call this “messianism” is where I must disagree. These kinds of “bring the End now” extremists are the worst-kind of revolutionaries. And though some may identify with some sort of messiah or another, chances are thin that their self-claimed messiah would identity with them.
Creating a quite stunning gap in his argument, Walzer fails to bring to bring to light the most successful of any “messianic” movement, that of Jesus of Nazareth. While Walzer accurately posits that a true revolutionary politic requires a march—a wilderness experience—he ignores one of the longest marches in history, the wait that Christians engage in for the return of Jesus. Jesus paradigm lines up perfectly with Walzer’s proposed Exodus-paradigm (oppression, liberation, social contract, political struggle, new society). In fact, this pattern is the primary concern of the late Old Testament prophets. Israel, due to the exile, was once again in oppression: when would the new exodus and the new covenant happen? Or, as the disciples put it, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:7).
Finally, Walzer underestimates the eschatological focus of the Pentateuch, particularly in Deuteronomy (though starting as early as Genesis 3). References to God’s glory filling the earth, a “prophet like Moses,” and the covenant being written on Israel’s hearts after a return from exile all belie the fact that the concept of “the End” was not foreign to Israel’s thought life. Therefore, a messiah-driven revolution—i.e. one driven by a desire for ultimate holiness, justice, and peace—would not be completely foreign to early Hebrew thought. Yes, it was further fleshed out by the more messiah-driven prophets of the Exile, but it was not completely absent from early Hebrew thought as Walzer posits.
While this book contains worthwhile thoughts on the relationship between the Exodus, political thought, and revolution, it would be difficult to recommend this book for the simple fact that it fails to convince on any of its fronts. However, with a few small “expectation tweaks” (i.e. that Israel was at least an exemplary of revolution; that the-End-without-the-march-at-all-costs thinking is harmful) this book becomes a worthwhile read for those interested in the relationship between Scripture and politics.
March 30, 2012
This book has launched a thousand Passover sermons—the Israelite Exodus as a guide to the moral-radical life. The Exodus narrative has been the template for revolutionary movements from the Puritans to the Civil Rights Movement and Liberation Theology. The language of liberation, the challenges of the “desert”, the temptations of “Egypt” and the vision of a “promised land” have framed modern revolutionary politics in the West. Walzer, a major intellectual figure of the American Left-of-center, combines erudition with an engaging style. Along with the unexpected reception of Exodus—Moses read as a Leninist, capitalism, the Golden Calf—the reader gets quick tutorials on Judaism, Marxism and Zionism. Even taking into account Edward Said’s famous critical piece—that Walzer has neglected the “Canaanite” implications of Promised Land colonialism—this text still inspires and stimulates. In the end, Walzer advocates an “exodus” politics of gradualism, as opposed to a “messianism” of extremism.
October 12, 2020
So this was a very good book. I purchased it after reading Bruce Fieler’s America's Prophet: Moses and the American Story because it was mentioned in his bibliography.
I finally decided to read it because I thought it would connect nicely with my knowledge of biblical literature and my current focus on the American Revolution and the writing of the Constitution.
It was much more timely than I could have imagined, as much of its writing was relevant to our current political climate. (USA 2020 Election season)
I highly recommend it for anybody familiar with old testament literature and the story at the Exodus. Or for those willing to dive deep into biblical scripture while they delve into this book.
The following (and in closing my review) is a spoiler because it’s directly from the last page of the book and hopefully entices my bible-reading friends to dig this title up. (you don’t want to borrow mine because I wrote on almost every page.)
“” Liberation is not only a movement from our fallen state to the messianic Kingdom but also from “the slavery, exploitation, and alienation of Egypt“ to a land where the people can live with human dignity. The movement takes place in historical time; it is the hard and continuous work of men and women. The best of the liberation theologians explicitly warns his readers against “absolutizing the revolution“ and falling into idolatry toward unavoidable ambiguous human achievements. This, again, is exodus politics.
So pharaonic oppression, deliverance, Sinai, and Canaan are still with us, powerful memories shaping our perceptions of the political world. The “door of hope“ is still open; things are not what they might be – even when what they might be isn’t totally different from what they are. This is a central theme in western thought, always present though elaborated in many different ways. We still believe, or many of us do, what the exodus first taught, or what it has commonly been taken to teach, about the meaning and possibility of politics in about its proper form;
- first, that wherever you live, it is probably Egypt;
- second, but there is a better place, a world more attractive, A promised land;
- and third, that “the way to the land is through the wilderness.“ There is no way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching.””
I finally decided to read it because I thought it would connect nicely with my knowledge of biblical literature and my current focus on the American Revolution and the writing of the Constitution.
It was much more timely than I could have imagined, as much of its writing was relevant to our current political climate. (USA 2020 Election season)
I highly recommend it for anybody familiar with old testament literature and the story at the Exodus. Or for those willing to dive deep into biblical scripture while they delve into this book.
The following (and in closing my review) is a spoiler because it’s directly from the last page of the book and hopefully entices my bible-reading friends to dig this title up. (you don’t want to borrow mine because I wrote on almost every page.)
“” Liberation is not only a movement from our fallen state to the messianic Kingdom but also from “the slavery, exploitation, and alienation of Egypt“ to a land where the people can live with human dignity. The movement takes place in historical time; it is the hard and continuous work of men and women. The best of the liberation theologians explicitly warns his readers against “absolutizing the revolution“ and falling into idolatry toward unavoidable ambiguous human achievements. This, again, is exodus politics.
So pharaonic oppression, deliverance, Sinai, and Canaan are still with us, powerful memories shaping our perceptions of the political world. The “door of hope“ is still open; things are not what they might be – even when what they might be isn’t totally different from what they are. This is a central theme in western thought, always present though elaborated in many different ways. We still believe, or many of us do, what the exodus first taught, or what it has commonly been taken to teach, about the meaning and possibility of politics in about its proper form;
- first, that wherever you live, it is probably Egypt;
- second, but there is a better place, a world more attractive, A promised land;
- and third, that “the way to the land is through the wilderness.“ There is no way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching.””
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 27, 2018
This book can be seen as Walzer noting two aspects of the Biblical Exodus story.
(1) It is an incredibly detailed and complex one, with plenty to reveal if we simply pay attention to it and the rabbinic commentaries, interpretations, and even criticisms associated with it.
(2) Historically, many in the West, including Cromwell in the UK and liberation theologians in Latin America, have used interpretations of Exodus for their own political movements.
Treating both of these aspects as through they're part of a single project of interpretation, Walzer provides a general template of how we can think about deliverance from oppression without giving in to political messianism:
This is a much messier version of political revolution than messianism because here the people in the wilderness have complex ties to Egypt even in the wilderness, murmur against Moses frequently, get punished for worshiping false idols, go from each individual being a priest to having Levite supervision, need to die so that people without the baggage of slavery are present, and even when they reach Canaan find a hostile place that might be better than Egypt but still is evidently imperfect. Still, this is a movement away from a view of revolutions as simple oscillations between oppression and freedom to a linear narrative of progress - that includes the "formation" of a people, their liberation from oppression/corruption, and their eventual living of materially and spiritually good lives in conscious reaction to the oppression that they always strive to not forget - even if it actually is a progress that's imperfect and constantly susceptible to backsliding.
Although he admits constantly that this is just one interpretation, one which deliberately ignores other aspects like the genocide, he finds a vision for politics that is suitable for radical but democratic revolution, a kind of democratic utopianism.
(1) It is an incredibly detailed and complex one, with plenty to reveal if we simply pay attention to it and the rabbinic commentaries, interpretations, and even criticisms associated with it.
(2) Historically, many in the West, including Cromwell in the UK and liberation theologians in Latin America, have used interpretations of Exodus for their own political movements.
Treating both of these aspects as through they're part of a single project of interpretation, Walzer provides a general template of how we can think about deliverance from oppression without giving in to political messianism:
—first, that wherever you live, it is probably Egypt;
—second, that there is a better place, a world more attractive, a promised land;
—and third, that "the way to the land is through the wilderness." There is no way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching.
This is a much messier version of political revolution than messianism because here the people in the wilderness have complex ties to Egypt even in the wilderness, murmur against Moses frequently, get punished for worshiping false idols, go from each individual being a priest to having Levite supervision, need to die so that people without the baggage of slavery are present, and even when they reach Canaan find a hostile place that might be better than Egypt but still is evidently imperfect. Still, this is a movement away from a view of revolutions as simple oscillations between oppression and freedom to a linear narrative of progress - that includes the "formation" of a people, their liberation from oppression/corruption, and their eventual living of materially and spiritually good lives in conscious reaction to the oppression that they always strive to not forget - even if it actually is a progress that's imperfect and constantly susceptible to backsliding.
Although he admits constantly that this is just one interpretation, one which deliberately ignores other aspects like the genocide, he finds a vision for politics that is suitable for radical but democratic revolution, a kind of democratic utopianism.
December 9, 2018
Walzer’s book is very interested in the type of oppression that the Israelites faced in their bondage under the Egyptians (26). He is often very interested in what is just beyond the text—the psychological impact of the bondage (46) and the motivations of the people beyond what the text implies. While Walzer’s main going isn’t to trace revolutionaries usage of the Exodus story, he does at times highlight when Exodus language and motifs have been used for revolutionary purposes. He says his main goal is to recapture the original political meaning of the story (133). He believes the thrust of the story has been domesticated and the political story lost in its popular retellings. For Walzer the main character in the story of Exodus is the people. Their action is the main driving factor of the story. God may be acting at times, but the decisive actions are done by the people (49). In the end, revolutions don’t happen except by “joining together and marching (149).” In the end the hermeneutical process of Walzer is a major gap in this work. He, to put it bluntly, does not care for the original context, the canonical context, or any context outside of what adds to his revolutionary vision of Exodus. To be sure his work helps us better see some revolutionary elements of Exodus, but this is an Exodus without the Divine. He closing remarks about the overall idea of the sat nothing of God. It is all about the people organizing and marching. Sadly, this is not the story of Exodus. Exodus is explicitly about God making Himself known to the nations through Israel.
April 30, 2019
This slim book is a gem. Tracing the historical and political impact of the Exodus and the wandering in the desert hoping for the promised land. It talks of political movements, messianism, utopian thought, Cromwell, the Puritans, liberation theology, Marxism and Leninism, the early Zionists. Are these reformations or revolutions. Are we searching for the promised land or Eden? What is the covenant (something I am especially interested in)? My one question is why not more focus on the American Revolution? This book is quoted in many contemporary haggadot. I was referred to this book by a congregant who is a PhD candidate at University of Chicago in philosophy and political science. It is a perfect pre-Passover book.
June 8, 2022
Εξαιρετικά ενδιαφέρουσα και τεκμηριωμένη παρουσίαση των πολιτικών πτυχών της βιβλικής ιστορίας της Εξόδου, πέρα από κλισέ και θρησκευτικά στερεότυπα.
July 1, 2023
Βιβλίο μάλλον για θεολόγους και για τους υπόλοιπους πηγή προβληματισμού και βιβλιογραφίας. Πολύ καλομεταφρασμένο.
May 13, 2017
Interesting, but too vague and with so many generalizations.
December 29, 2016
My professor lent me this book about seventeen years ago, and I finally read it. (You'll get it returned via mail soon, Andy, and thanks! Sorry it took so very long!).
Walzer does a fine job in this book outlining the political history of the Exodus. I had hoped that the book would focus more on how the Exodus has been used in political thought through the centuries. It does contain some of that, but it is mostly a recounting of the Exodus narrative. Ideally, I would like to use this book as part of a semester-long study on the topic of the use of Exodus in political thought.
Walzer draws some interesting distinctions between messianic thought and the coming kingdom and the Exodus and the promised land. Indeed, these ideas are often conflated. I found this thought-provoking.
I also found the repetition of the pattern of Exodus in political thought interesting. Oppression, march, murmuring, (possibly reform), liberation.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book.
"Sometimes the people seem less like a slavish rabble than like ordinary men and women recalcitrant in the face of God's demand that they be something more than ordinary."
"Tacit consent works only for men and women who really do delight in the divine gifts, who know with certainty that they have been delivered."
"Having committed themselves, of course, they are in an important sense unfree, bound to obey the law. Since they have bound themselves, however, they are freely bound."
"It is not the case that the people fulfill the covenant for the sake of the covenant, do their duty because duty ought to be done. They fulfill the covenant for the sake of God's promises. When they resume the march, it is because they are marching toward the promised land."
"So pharaonic oppression, deliverance, Sinai, and Canaan are still with us, powerful memories shaping our perceptions of the political world. The 'door of hope' is still open; things are not what they might be -- even when what they might be isn't totally different from what they are. This is a central theme in Western thought, always present though elaborated in many different ways. We still believe, or many of us do, what the Exodus first taught, or what it has commonly been taken to teach, about the meaning and possibility of politics and about its proper form:
-- first, that wherever you live, it is probably Egypt;
-- second, that there is a better place, a world more attractive a promised land;
-- and third, that 'the way to the land is through the wilderness'. There is no way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching."
Walzer does a fine job in this book outlining the political history of the Exodus. I had hoped that the book would focus more on how the Exodus has been used in political thought through the centuries. It does contain some of that, but it is mostly a recounting of the Exodus narrative. Ideally, I would like to use this book as part of a semester-long study on the topic of the use of Exodus in political thought.
Walzer draws some interesting distinctions between messianic thought and the coming kingdom and the Exodus and the promised land. Indeed, these ideas are often conflated. I found this thought-provoking.
I also found the repetition of the pattern of Exodus in political thought interesting. Oppression, march, murmuring, (possibly reform), liberation.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book.
"Sometimes the people seem less like a slavish rabble than like ordinary men and women recalcitrant in the face of God's demand that they be something more than ordinary."
"Tacit consent works only for men and women who really do delight in the divine gifts, who know with certainty that they have been delivered."
"Having committed themselves, of course, they are in an important sense unfree, bound to obey the law. Since they have bound themselves, however, they are freely bound."
"It is not the case that the people fulfill the covenant for the sake of the covenant, do their duty because duty ought to be done. They fulfill the covenant for the sake of God's promises. When they resume the march, it is because they are marching toward the promised land."
"So pharaonic oppression, deliverance, Sinai, and Canaan are still with us, powerful memories shaping our perceptions of the political world. The 'door of hope' is still open; things are not what they might be -- even when what they might be isn't totally different from what they are. This is a central theme in Western thought, always present though elaborated in many different ways. We still believe, or many of us do, what the Exodus first taught, or what it has commonly been taken to teach, about the meaning and possibility of politics and about its proper form:
-- first, that wherever you live, it is probably Egypt;
-- second, that there is a better place, a world more attractive a promised land;
-- and third, that 'the way to the land is through the wilderness'. There is no way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching."
March 24, 2015
The Exodus is everywhere. How many movies have been made about it? How many books have retold the story? But, more significantly, it has been reimagined and reenacted for centuries. Oliver Cromwell declared it to be the only historical parallel to the Puritan revolution. Franklin and Jefferson both proposed designs for the Great Seal of the United States that depicted Israel’s delivery from Egypt. The Pilgrims saw themselves as Israel escaping Egypt and making a new covenant with God. Zionists reenacted it in establishing the State of Israel and American civil rights activists recounted it over and over in their struggle for freedom. The examples are endless. This very interesting and well-written book tells how the story of the Exodus permeates western political thought. In 150 pages Walzer explains the major themes of the Exodus and how they are recounted and used in politics: bondage/slavery in Egypt, journeying and murmuring in the wilderness, the covenant of a free people, and the Promised Land. It is a great book. Scholarly but delightful to read.
January 3, 2013
A fascinating study of the Exodus as the prototype of revolutionary politics. Sources range from the Talmud to sermons of English revolutionaries in the 1640s-50s to modern Marxists and Zionists. Well worth reading and will probably need to be read more than once.
February 11, 2015
Walzer's Exodus and Revolution shows that the Exodus story, one of oppression that leads to struggle that leads to freedom (however imperfect) is the prototype for all Western revolution. He also shows that it is not necessarily the paradigm for struggles in other parts of the world.
February 20, 2008
Walzer retrofits the founding of Ancient Israel into a generic liberal narrative. Done well for something not worth doing.
May 14, 2011
An interesting analysis of Exodus in terms of its mythological worth in the realm of modern politics. I'd recommended it to political scholars, but it doesn't offer *that* much for Biblical scholars.
November 17, 2016
Great work that characterizes Moses as a political activist in addition to his religious leadership. Connects Moses to proponents of Liberation Theology and other movements.
January 20, 2015
fun fast read, thinking about justice, revolution and the story of the hebrews
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