1 When Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father in law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, and that the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt;Now, I'm no biblical scholar, but I'm getting the impression that Jethro is Moses' father-in-law.
2 Then Jethro, Moses' father in law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her back,
3 And her two sons; of which the name of the one was Gershom; for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land:
4 And the name of the other was Eliezer; for the God of my father, said he, was mine help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh:
5 And Jethro, Moses' father in law, came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness, where he encamped at the mount of God:
6 And he said unto Moses, I thy father in law Jethro am come unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her.
7 And Moses went out to meet his father in law, and did obeisance, and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare; and they came into the tent.
8 And Moses told his father in law all that the LORD had done unto Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, and all the travail that had come upon them by the way, and how the LORD delivered them.
9 And Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which the LORD had done to Israel, whom he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians.
10 And Jethro said, Blessed be the LORD, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.
11 Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them.
12 And Jethro, Moses' father in law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God: and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses' father in law before God.
13 And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses sat to judge the people: and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening.
14 And when Moses' father in law saw all that he did to the people, he said, What is this thing that thou doest to the people? why sittest thou thyself alone, and all the people stand by thee from morning unto even?
15 And Moses said unto his father in law, Because the people come unto me to enquire of God:
16 When they have a matter, they come unto me; and I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the statutes of God, and his laws.
17 And Moses' father in law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good.
18 Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.
19 Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to God-ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God:
20 And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do.
21 Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:
22 And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.
23 If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace.
24 So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father in law, and did all that he had said.
25 And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.
26 And they judged the people at all seasons: the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves.
27 And Moses let his father in law depart; and he went his way into his own land.
We'll keep an eye on little Gershom and Eliezer to see if they carry on with the family bidness.
Ol' Jethro comes on the scene with the young-uns and Mrs. Moses in tow, and he finds Moses being worn to a frazzle as the liaison between God and all of Israel. A nice irony, considering Exodus 2:14:
And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?Jethro (did I mention that he was Moses' father-in-law?) suggests a policy manual — a set of commandments, if you will — and a gang of middle-managers ("men" he calls them, and no doubt that's what they are).
He has an excellent point. After all, how can Moe micromanage the affairs of a whole nation, when he can't even hold up his own arms?
1 comment:
Note how Jethro isn't an Israelite - he's a Midianite. This account is Jahwist/Elohist (both, spliced together, but mainly Elohist); elsewhere, in passages from the Priestly Source, and only the Priestly Source, the Midianites are the enemy of the Israelites, and (towards the end of Numbers) the Israelites are at war with them.
Also note the name Jethro. In the first chapter of Numbers he's called Reuel instead, and on rare occasions he's called Hobab. Jethro is the name the Jahwist uses for him, and Reuel is the name the Elohist uses for him (in this chapter, the Elohist uses "Moses' father-in-law"). In some passages Hobab is said to be Reuel's son, rather than being the father-in-law himself - Hobab's occasional identification as the father-in-law was probably a typo.
Also note how similar the names of Moses' sons are to Gershon and Eleazar; the bible names the first as a son of Levi, and hence founder of one of the four Levite groups, and the latter is the name of one of Aaron's sons. Only one son of Moses is ever described as being born - in Exodus 2:22, and only one seems to exist during that wierd bit in Exodus 4:24-26; Eleazar seems to have appeared from nowhere, first mentioned here - the plural "sons" in Exodus 4:20 is thought by scholars to have been a later editorial tweak to fit better with this chapter.
What's going on with Moses' sons here is another attempt at sorting out the relationship between the various clans in the Israelite priesthood. Really, the Levites aren't a tribe at all - originally anyone could be a priest, but the position gradually became hereditary, and people assumed they must therefore have originated as a single tribe. The implication in this chapter is that the Gershon division is associated with Moses more closely than the other Levite divisions, but elsewhere the Gershon division is portrayed as being equal to the other divisions, apart from the Aaronids.
Here the Eleazrites are not Aaronids; but elsewhere (the start of the Books of Samuel) the Eleazrites are clearly described as having charge of the Ark and as the most senior priesthood; this would offend the Aaronids, who are a fascist kind of priest, refusing to contemplate anyone other than another Aaronid ever being or having been a priest, and therefore in the genealogies of the Priestly Source Eleazar is made a son of Aaron instead.
Jethro gives the Israelites the instruction/advice (classical Judaism interpreted it as a command) to institute a detailed and complex system of (Biblical) Judges (which isn't quite the same thing as a modern judge). Don't you think that's a little odd, given that the Israelites haven't even been given many laws yet. Scholars think this chapter is out of place, like parts of the previous chapter, and belongs somewhere in Numbers (after the Israelites have been given a huge block of laws).
Jethro hardly gets mentioned again and seems to be a minor character. But he isnt - check out verses 11-12 again, and remember that Jethro is a priest. What scholars think is really going on, is not that Jethro converts to worship of Yahweh, but that he [or rather the nation he represents] already worshipped Yahweh and converted the Israelites to it. In other words, the Elohist (who refers to "Moses' father in law" rather than "Jethro") portrays the Israelites as being standard polytheists, or at least worshipping a different deity, until the Kenites (of which Jethro was one) convert them; the Elohist is the one that presents the burning-bush story earlier - Moses is suddently introduced to Yahweh, having not known about him before.
Taking this narrative as a historically accurate account is called the "Kenite hypothesis" - that the historic Israelites originally worshipped El as the main god, like the Canaanites (who in reality they evolved from), but at some point the Kingdom of Judah interacted with the Kenites, who worshipped Yahweh as the main god, and people in Judah started doing the same; names from Judah noticably use "Yahweh" more ("Adonijah", and "Josiah", for example), and names from the (northern) Kingdom of Israel use "El" more ("Elhanen", and "Michael", for example) - the same north/south god-name preference as between the Jahwist and Elohist. You can see hints of the religious issues of this period in biblical names like "Elijah"="Yahweh is my god" or "El is Yahweh", "Jael"="Yahweh is god" or "Yahweh is El", and "Jabin"="Yahweh is the son [of El]".
The words "and God command thee so" in verse 23 are a deliberate attempt to make it seem that the regulations aren't picked up by the Israelites from the Midianites, but instead come from Yahweh. But "methinks the lady doth protest too much"; why would Jethro mention the regulations at all if they had to be given by Yahweh.
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