Ex nihilo

“The Exodus was the time of Israel’s creation ex nihilo—that is, when God in freedom acted to constitute a people in relationship with him. It is not accidental that the Second Isaiah, whose message recapitulates the Exodus tradition, speaks of Yahweh as Israel’s creator and recalls the time when, at the Reed Sea, he acted to create.”

—Bernhard W. Anderson, Creation Versus Chaos: The Reinterpretation of Mythical Symbolism in the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), p. 37.