Jethro in Later Midrashim: Clarifications and New Problems

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CHAPTER 4 Jethro in Later Midrashim: Clarifications and New Problems

Like Tannaitic Midrashim, later Midrashim exhibit playfulness, creativity, and multivalence, all in the context of canonically-ordered biblical exegesis. As is to be expected, there are traditions in Tannaitic Midrashim that reappear in later Midrashim, with some minor additions but few major changes. We again find the teaching that Jethro was called Reuel because he was a “friend of God” Jethro continues to be identified with a variety of Kenite characters 1.(רע אל) in the Bible, including the Rechabites and the people dwelling at Jabez.2 The rabbis continue to discuss how Jethro’s descendants became members of the Sanhedrin.3 However, the later Midrashim demonstrate little interest in the apportioning of land for Jethro and his descendants.4 In addition, there are a number of significant developments that take place concerning traditions also found in the Tannaitic Midrashim, as well as some teachings that do not appear in previous Midrashic works. Ethnicity and nationality are addressed in ways that complicate Jethro’s status among the Israelites, at the same time that his spiritual nature is praised even more than in the Tannaitic Midrashim. The picture that emerges from the later Midrashim concerning Jethro and his descendants is both more inclusive and more exclusive. I will examine these developments in the treatment of Jethro throughout this chapter, but I begin with an examination of a text which does not directly discuss him. Exodus Rabbah 19:4 is a lengthy Midrash on the status of proselytes. Though it builds on other Midrashic and Talmudic texts concerning proselytes, it introduces some startling and new ideas, and the way in which it combines a series of teachings creates a composite rhetoric that is greater than the sum of its parts. Studying this Midrash is an important pre-requisite for understand- ing some of the hermeneutical maneuvers demonstrated by the rabbis of the later Midrashim, and as such, it merits a separate and thorough investigation.

1 Exodus Rabbah 1:32. 2 Pesiqta of Rab Kahana supp. 5. 3 Pesiqta of Rab Kahana 3d. 4 The one exception to this lack of interest is found in Tanhuma Yitro 4, discussed below. In that text, however, Jethro’s descendants do not settle in the land.

The Important Case of Exodus Rabbah 19:45

shall eat (בן נכר) This is the law of the Passover offering: No foreigner“ say, who (בן הנכר) of it” (Exod 12:43). It is written: “Let not the foreigner to Yhwh, ‘Yhwh will keep me apart from (נלוה) has attached himself his people’ ” (Isa 56:3). Job said: “The gēr did not lodge in the street” (Job 31:32). For God disqualifies no creature, but receives all. The gates are at all times open and anyone may enter them; hence it says “The gēr did not lodge in the street,” corresponding to the words, “And the gēr that is within your gates” (Deut 31:12). Job said: “My doors I opened to the roadside” (Job 31:32), emulating divine example by being patient with all creatures. R. Berekiah said: Why did he say: “The gēr will not lodge in the street”? Because gērim will one day be ministering priests in the Temple, with them, and they shall (נלוה) as it says: “And the gēr shall join himself ”to the house of Jacob” (Isa 14:1), and the word “cleave (נספחו) cleave ,I beseech you ,(ספחני) always refers to priesthood, as it is said: “Put me into one of the priests’ offices” (1 Sam 2:36). They will one day partake of the showbread, because their daughters will be married into the priesthood. And so Aquilas, the proselyte, once quoted to the Sages the verse: “Love the gēr, giving him food and clothing” (Deut 10:18). He asked, Are the only promises offered to the proselyte that he [God] would give them food and clothing? The reply was: Jacob, whose name was Israel, asked only this of Yhwh, as it says, “And will give me bread to eat, and clothing to put on.” (Gen 28:20) Then for you who have joined us, is it not enough that we not only make you our equal but even liken you to Jacob, God’s firstborn? Moreover, do not presume that Jacob actually asked for food and clothing; no, this is what Jacob asked for: ‘Let the Holy One, Blessed be He, promise to be with me and build up the world from me. When will I know that he is with me and guards me?

5 M. A. Mirkin, Midrash Rabbah (11 vols.; Tel Aviv: Yavneh, 1956). Exodus Rabbah 19:4 is found in Mirkin, Midrash Rabbah, 5:222–5. A critical edition exists for the first part of Exodus Rabbah: Shinan, Midrash Shemot Rabbah, Chapters I–XIV: A Critical Edition Based on a Jerusalem Manuscript, with Variants, Commentary, and Introduction (Hebr.; Jerusalem: Devir, 1984). For a translation of Exodus Rabbah, see S. M. Lehrman, Midrash Rabbah: Exodus (London: Soncino Press, 1951). Most scholars consider Exodus Rabbah to comprise two parts: the first (1–14) is an exegetical Midrash on Exodus 1–10, while the second (15–52) is homiletical in nature. Various dates have been suggested for the compilation as a whole, ranging from the 10th to the 12th centuries, based primarily on linguistic evidence. For more on the date of Exodus Rabbah, see Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 335–7; Shinan, Midrash Shemot Rabbah, 19–21; Mirkin, Midrash Rabbah 5:5–20.