In Exodus Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the wilderness to the Mountain of God: Mount Sinai. There God, through Moses, gives the Hebrews their laws and enters into a covenant with them, by which he will give them the land of Canaan in return for their faithfulness. The book ends with the construction of the Tabernacle.
According to tradition, Exodus and the other four books of the Torah were written by Moses. Modern biblical scholarship is divided over the question of how the book emerged into its final form although many believe that the book had multiple authors and was a product of the Exilic and Persian periods (6th and 5th centuries BCE). For fuller discussion, see Documentary hypothesis.