Scripture Daily

Context No. 77 of 4322 · Exodus

Context · Reflection

Exodus 18:1-6: in context

1Now Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, how the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt. 2Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, received Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her away, 3and her two sons. The name of one son was Gershom, for Moses said, “I have lived as a foreigner in a foreign land”. 4The name of the other was Eliezer, for he said, “My father’s God was my help and delivered me from Pharaoh’s sword.” 5Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with Moses’ sons and his wife to Moses into the wilderness where he was encamped, at the Mountain of God. 6He said to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, have come to you with your wife, and her two sons with her.”

Israel is out of Egypt and camped at the mountain of God, and Moses is running the whole nation alone. This passage is the arrival of family. Jethro, priest of Midian, Moses's father-in-law, has heard what God did, and he comes bringing Moses's wife Zipporah and their two sons, whom Moses had sent back at some point during the confrontation with Pharaoh.

The names of the sons carry the story. Gershom, because Moses said, I have been a foreigner in a foreign land. Eliezer, because my father's God was my help and delivered me from Pharaoh's sword. Moses had named his children after his own displacement and his own rescue, so that the family roster is a record of what had happened to him.

Jethro is a Midianite priest, a man outside the covenant, and in the verses that follow he offers sacrifices and then gives Moses the administrative advice that reorganizes the nation: delegate, appoint judges over thousands and hundreds, you cannot do this alone. The advice of an outsider becomes Israel's judicial structure. Midian appears elsewhere in this series as an enemy in war. Here it arrives as family and counsel. Whose advice am I discounting because of the category I have put them in?

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