This close synchronic analysis of Exodus 1-2 looks at how the pericope's structure, language, focalization and management of information form its conception and judgement of its events and characters. A coherence of concerns is detectable in Exodus 1-2 with allusions to Genesis and the later chapters of Exodus. One chapter is assigned to each of seven narrative unities and deals in various ways with its narrative problems. The resulting eclectic choice of analytical tools includes the study of Proppian structural functions, repetition, public rhetoric, narrative speeds, order and symbolism.