The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Exodus — Reading Notes

The Covenant Name and the Progress of Faith

Chadwick devotes careful attention to the divine name as revealed in Exodus, noting how the text moves from abstract power to personal relationship. In his analysis of the Song of Moses (Exodus 15), he observes that the people first call the Lord “my salvation” as an appellation, a title that will endure through the Psalms and Isaiah. He traces a progression: from experience of deliverance to appropriation (“He gives Himself to me”), then to trust rooted in memory (“my father found Him the same Helper”), and finally to praise and exaltation. This sequence, he argues, is “the very spirit of evangelical obedience, the life-blood of the new dispensation racing in the veins of the old.” The covenant name thus becomes a lens for understanding how the Old Testament cultivates a relationship of love and loyalty, not hireling service.

Anthropomorphism as Preparation for the Incarnation

Chadwick confronts the charge of anthropomorphism directly, acknowledging that it can degenerate into unworthy notions of God, yet insisting that it represents a great advance toward true and holy thoughts. He points to the bold assertion “Jehovah is a man of war” as an example: in the original, this includes the statement “Jehovah is a man.” While clearly a figure, such language prepares Israel for the Incarnation by teaching that God stoops to identify with humanity. Chadwick cites Jesus’s appeal to Psalm 82 (“I said, Ye are gods”) to show that Scripture itself vindicates a degree of divine condescension. He then notes that after the Incarnation, Christians need help from the other side—from science’s expanding view of creation—to prevent over-humanizing their conceptions. This dialectic between transcendence and immanence is a recurring thread in his exposition.

The Song of Moses and the Birth of Evangelical Obedience

Chadwick’s treatment of the Song of Moses (Exodus 15) exemplifies his method of reading the Old Testament in light of the New. He highlights the word “salvation” as it first becomes an appellation for God, then traces its echoes through later Scripture. The song’s progression from gratitude to trust to praise, he argues, is the pattern of evangelical obedience: not rendered by a hireling but by a child. He connects this to God’s declaration “Israel is My son,” and shows how the song’s language of exultation naturally leads to anthropomorphic affection—a belief that God shares the best and purest in human souls. Chadwick concludes that such steps prepared Israel for the Incarnation, and that the Incarnation in turn requires a balancing perspective from science to keep our conceptions of God from becoming too human. The song thus becomes a microcosm of the entire Exodus narrative’s theological trajectory.

Chadwick’s commentary rewards readers who are interested in how a late-nineteenth-century Anglican dean navigated the tensions between historical criticism and traditional Christian doctrine. His focus on the progressive revelation of God’s character through the text’s own language—especially its bold anthropomorphisms and its development of the covenant name—offers a consistent interpretive lens. Readers should expect a work that is more homiletical than technical, but one that engages seriously with the biblical text’s own patterns and prepares the ground for Christological reading.

There are moments when Chadwick’s Exodus notes feel less like scholarship and more like a held breath before the Incarnation—that ache of a God who insists on drawing near. It reminds me of the quiet patience found in the Genesis volume, The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Genesis — Reading Companion, where the same holy thread begins, almost imperceptibly, to unravel toward light.