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Jethro Visits Moses Exodus 18:1 Now Jethro, the Priest of Midian, Moses' Father-In-Law

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Jethro Visits Moses Exodus 18:1 Now Jethro, the Priest of Midian, Moses' Father-In-Law Exodus Chapter Eighteen Exodus 18:1 - 7: Jethro Visits Moses Exodus 18 : 1 Now 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. 2 Jethro, Mo ses’ father - in - law, took Moses’ wife Zipporah, after he had sent her away, 3 and her two sons, of whom one was named Gershom, for Moses said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.” 4 The other was named Eliezer, for he said, “The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.” 5 Then Jethro, Moses’ father - in - law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness where he was camped, at the mount of God. 6 He sent word to Moses, “I, your father - in - law Jethro, am comi ng to you with your wife and her two sons with her.” 7 Then Moses went out to meet his father - in - law, and he bowed down and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare and went into the tent. In this passage we have a temporary reunion between Moses and his father - in - law, Jethro who brings with him Moses’ wife Zipporah and his children, Gershom and Eliezer. He is visiting Moses because he heard what God had done for the Israelites with the ten plagues and the destruction of Pharaoh ’s elite chari ot force at the Red Sea. The news of the Lord delivering the Israelites by destroying Egypt with the ten plagues and the destruction of the elite chariot force at the Red Sea would have been carried by c aravaneers, messengers, general gossip, and the like . Jethro would have heard this news . Now, Exodus 2:21 - 22 records that Moses settled with Jethro in Midian and married Jethro’s daughter Zipporah who gives Moses his first child who he names “Gershom” whose name in Hebrew means “a sojourner there,” which e xpresses Moses’ circumstances from his perspective. He was an exile from Egypt and rejected by Israel. He was a man without a country. He was unwelcome in both nations. So even though he was settling down in Midian and was starting a family there, he did n ot consider Midian home. This passage does not record that Moses had a second son who was Eliezer who is mentioned in Exodus 18:4 and whose name like Gershom reflects an experience in Moses’ life. Eliezer’s name means “my God is my help.” It was given to him because of course God helped Moses in Egypt in delivering him from Pharaoh. In Exodus 2:18 Jethro is called the father of seven girls and was called “ Reuel ” However, in Exodus 3:1, 4:18 and 18:1, he is called “ Jethro ” yi ṯ · rô . ( רְ עוּאֵ ל ) r e ʿ û ·ʾ ēl . in Judges 4:11 ( חֹבָ ב ) and “ Hobab ” ḥ ō · ḇ ā ḇ ( יִתְ רֹ ו ) 2012 William E. Wenstrom, Jr. Bible Ministries 1 “Jethro” was the man’s name or we would say in our day and age his “first” name whereas “Reuel” was his clan’s name or what we would call his “last” name. “Hobab” was Moses’ son - in - law since the vowels of “son - in - law” and “father - in - law” is the result of a misunderstanding of a Masorete who first pointed Numbers 10:29 as “father - in - law” rather than “son - in - law.” Both w ords share the Masoretic . חתן pointing for the consonants Interestingly, in Exodus 2:16, Jethro is simply called “ the priest of Midian ” whereas in Exodus 2:17 his clan name is given. This is significant because it indicates he was a believer in Yahweh, who is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses. It me ans that he worshipped Yahweh. Therefore, Stuart’s claim that Exodus 18 presents Jethro’s conversion is in error since he was already converted. Constable has an excellent comment, he writes “ As a Midianite, Jethro was a descendant of Abraham as was Amalek . Both were blood relatives of the Israelites. Nevertheless the attitudes of the Amalekites and Jethro were very different, though Midian as a nation was hostile to Israel. Set next to each other in the text as they are, the experiences of Israel with Amal ek and with Jethro illustrate two different attitudes that other nations held toward Israel. These differences have characterized the attitudes of outsiders toward God's elect throughout history. Jethro was a God - fearing man, part of a believing minority i n Midian. ” 1 The statement in Exodus 18:2 has caused quite a bit of controversy among interpreters since it says that Moses sent away Zipporah. Some have argued that this refers to the fact that Moses divorced Zipporah, no doubt because of her antagonism to Jewish circumcision of eight day old infants, which she found repulsive as recorded in Exodus 4:24 - 26. Also, Numbers 12:1 says that Moses married a Cushite woman. However, in response to this, Exodus 18 says three times that Zipporah was Moses’ wife (Exod us 18:2, 5, 6). Furthermore, at the time Moses married the Cushite woman the Lord had not outlawed polygamy though it was not endorsed by him. Thus, it was not unlawful of Moses to acquire a second wife in addition to Zipporah. Stuart has an excellent disc ussion regarding this statement in Exodus 18:2, he writes “ Exodus 18:2 – 3 says literally, ‘ Jethro, the father - in - law of Moses, took back Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after her being sent away, along with her two sons. ’ The word used in Exod 18:2 for ‘ sending away ’ is a noun form, šillû ḥ , which functions essentially as a gerund as used in the verse, a kind of verbal noun built from the piel verb stem. In medieval Hebrew it came to mean ‘ divorce, ’ so a number of rabbinical commentators, and a few moderns ones as well, concluded that Moses was divorced from Zipporah at least until this point in his life, if not permanently. For each of the reasons in favor of the conclusion that Moses and Zipporah had 1 Notes on Exodus, 2003 Edition, Dr. Tho mas Constable; page 91; Published by Sonic Light; www.soniclight.com/ 2012 William E. Wenstrom, Jr. Bible Ministries 2 divorced, counter - arguments exist. First, the other two uses of šillû ḥ in the OT are both in neutral/positive contexts (1 Kgs 9:16; Mic 1:14), suggesting no overtone of divorce, marital separation, or even marital friction. Second, the standard Hebrew word for divorce is not šillû ḥ (which cannot be proved to mean ‘ divorce ’ at all) but k ĕr ı̂ tut . Third, there is nothing untoward in Moses ’ marrying a second wife, i.e., the Cushite wife mentioned in Numbers. The Bible contains no specific law against polygamy, even in the NT, though it hardly endorses the practice, which is clearly inferior and not part of the creation design (cf. the monogamistic principle as enunciated in Gen 2:24 and Jesus’ quotation of it as constituting the normative view of marriage in Matt 19:5). Old Testament leaders such as Abraham before Moses and David after him had m ore than one wife, so from one point of view it could be said that polygamy was not something that at least some Israelites felt obligated to avoid (though the fact that sinful characters in the OT did a thing hardly makes it right). Fourth, by the time of Moses’ marriage to the Cushite woman, he and Zipporah were probably reunited (assuming that the second marriage took place after the arrival at Rephidim/Sinai, since a marriage prior to that time would be unlikely). The nrsv, representing one legitimate w ay of reading the text, translates as follows: ‘ After Moses had sent away his wife Zipporah, his father - in - law Jethro took her back, along with her two sons. ’ In ancient Israel, as in most world cultures aside from that of the recent modern West, a woman w ho married was ‘ sent away ’ from her father’s family to become part of her husband’s family. If her husband later divorced her, he ‘ sent away ’ his wife once again — this time back to her birth family and normally ‘ sent away ’ her children with her as well. Thu s ‘sending away’ can connote a positive, happy event (leaving home to get married), but it can, conversely, connote divorce. Which kind of connotation does it have here? In favor of the theory that Moses had divorced Zipporah sometime prior to this story o f their reuniting are the following considerations. First, Moses was married to a black Cushite (Nubian) woman as of a point in time sometime after the Exodus according to Num 12:1. It is argued that he would not have felt free to marry this woman had he s till been married to Zipporah, especially if he had merely sent Zipporah to Jethro for safety during the encounters with Pharaoh. In this line of reasoning a righteous man would not marry a second wife while his first was not present to be aware of the new marriage — at least formally if not by approval emotionally. Second, Exod 18:3 refers to ‘ her children ’ (Zipporah’s) rather than ‘ his children ’ or ‘ their children, ’ as if the children were now legally assigned to her after the divorce rather than still bein g his own as well.
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