EXODUS 18 COMMETARYEDITED BY GLE PEASE

ITRODUCTIO

COFFMA, "IntroductionFields' suggestion as a title for this chapter is "Jethro and the Judges"; and this is certainly acceptable in view of the fact that the whole chapter deals with the visit of Jethro to Moses in "the mountain of the Lord," Horeb-Sinai, the royal reception accorded him by Moses, and the ensuing advice from Jethro with reference to the judges. Jethro's arrival with Moses' wife and their two sons (Exodus 18:1-6); his conversation with Moses (Exodus 18:7-11); his worship of the true God (Exodus 18:12); his observance of Moses' work (Exodus 18:13-16); his advice to Moses (Exodus 18:17-23); Moses' acceptance of that advice (Exodus 18:18-26 and Deuteronomy 1:9-18); and Jethro's departure (Exodus 18:27) are subdivisions of the chapter.

Keil suggested that Jethro here appears as the first-fruits of the heathen world who would in time seek the kingdom of God and enter religious fellowship with the people of God. Jethro brought with him Moses' wife and two sons who had turned back from the journey to Egypt upon the occasion of the circumcision of Eliezer. He joyfully received the marvelous news of what Jehovah had done in the delivery of Israel from bondage, confessed his faith in Jehovah, offered burnt-offerings and sacrifices, and enjoyed a meal of religious fellowship with the leaders of Israel.

Both the Midianites and the Amalekites were descended from Abraham, therefore kinsmen of Israel; and those two peoples in the persons of Jethro and the army of the Amalekites thus demonstrated the two diverse attitudes of the non-Jewish world toward Israel. "They foreshadowed and typified the twofold attitude which the heathen world would assume toward the kingdom of God."[1]

Since Jethro is the principal character, except Moses, in this chapter, we shall note here at the outset the often cited problem regarding the names applied to him in the sacred text.

In Exodus 4:18 we have "Jethro his father-in-law," an expression found nine other times.

In Judges 4:11 (cf. umbers 10:29), we have "Hobab the father-in-law of Moses," and

we read in Exodus 2:18 that Moses' wife and sisters-in-law returned to "their father

Reuel."The solution is quite simple: "All three names may refer to the same person."[2] "Reuel may be a tribal, rather than a personal appellation."[3] The father-in-law of Moses in Judges 4:11; and Jethro is called his father-in-law in Exodus 3:1, and here (Exodus 18:1), but as Rawlinson pointed out the Hebrew word rendered `father-in-law' actually means "almost any relationship by marriage."[4] Based on that, Rawlinson understood Jethro to be the brother-in-law of Moses, and a son of Reuel the actual father-in-law. These explanations are more than sufficient, and due to the preponderance in the ASV of the term father-in-law as applied to Jethro, we shall stick with that designation in the notes. Even if Reuel was the actual father-in-law and Jethro was the brother-in-law, it is evident that Jethro was the priest of Midian (having succeeded his father Reuel), and any fuller knowledge of the problem would not affect in any manner the message of the holy text.

Jethro Visits Moses

1 ow Jethro, the priest of Midian and father-in-law of Moses, heard of everything God had done for Moses and for his people Israel, and how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt.

BARES, "Jethro was, in all probability, the brother-in-law of Moses Exo_3:1. On the parting from Zipporah, see Exo_4:26.

CLARKE, "When Jethro, the priest of Midian, etc. - Concerning this person and his several names, See Clarkes note on Exo_2:15, See Clarkes note on Exo_2:16, See Clarkes note on Exo_2:18, See Clarkes note on Exo_3:1, See Clarkes note on Exo_4:20, See Clarkes note on Exo_4:24. Jethro was probably the son of Reuel, the father-

in-law of Moses, and consequently the brother-in-law of Moses; for the word

chothen, which we translate father-in-law, in this chapter means simply a relative by marriage. See Clarkes note on Exo_3:1.

GILL, "When Jethro the priest of Midian, Moses's father-in-law,.... The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan call him the prince of Midian, and so the word (e) is

rendered in some versions; whose daughter Moses had married, and so was his father-in-law, of which see more in Exo_2:16.

heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people; the miracles he had wrought for them in Egypt, the dividing of the Red sea to make a way for them, the destruction of the Egyptians, providing them with bread and water in such a miraculous manner in the wilderness, and giving them victory over Amalek, and appearing always at the head of them in a pillar of cloud and fire:

and that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt: which was the greatest blessing of all, and for the sake of which so many wonderful things had been done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. And now Midian being near to Egypt, it is not to be wondered at that Jethro should hear of these things, the fame of which went through all the countries round about, see Exo_15:14, though it is not improbable that Moses might send messengers to Midian to acquaint his father-in-law, his wife, and sons, of what the Lord had done for him, and by him.

HERY 1-6, "This incident may very well be allowed to have happened as it is placed here, before the giving of the law, and not, as some place it, in connection with what is recorded, Num_10:11, Num_10:29, etc. Sacrifices were offered before; in these mentioned here (Exo_18:12) it is observable that Jethro is said to take them, not Aaron.And as to Jethro's advising Moses to constitute judges under him, though it is intimate (Exo_18:13) that the occasion of his giving that advice was on the morrow, yet it does not follow but that Moses's settlement of that affair might be some time after, when the law was given, as it is placed, Deu_1:9. It is plain that Jethro himself would not have him make this alteration in the government till he had received instructions from God about it (Exo_18:23), which he did not till some time after. Jethro comes,

I. To congratulate the happiness of Israel, and particularly the honour of Moses his son-in-law; and now Jethro thinks himself well paid for all the kindness he had shown to Moses in his distress, and his daughter better matched than he could have expected. Jethro could not but hear what all the country rang of, the glorious appearances of God for his people Israel (Exo_18:1); and he comes to enquire, and inform himself more fully thereof (see Psa_111:2), and to rejoice with them as one that had a true respect both for them and for their God. Though he, as a Midianite, was not to share with them in the promised land, yet he shared with them in the joy of their deliverance. We may thus make the comforts of others our own, by taking pleasure, as God does, in the prosperity of the righteous.

II. To bring Moses's wife and children to him. It seems, he had sent them back, probably from the inn where his wife's aversion to the circumcision of her son had like to have cost him his life (Exo_4:25); fearing lest they should prove a further hindrance, he sent them home to his father-in-law. He foresaw what discouragements he was likely to meet with in the court of Pharaoh, and therefore would not take any with him in his own family. He was of that tribe that said to his father, I have not known him, when service was to be done for God, Deu_33:9. Thus Christ's disciples, when they were to go upon an expedition not much unlike that of Moses, were to forsake wife and children,Mat_19:29. But though there might be reason for the separation that was between Moses and his wife for a time, yet they must come together again, as soon as ever they could with any convenience. It is the law of the relation. You husbands, dwell with your wives,1Pe_3:7. Jethro, we may suppose, was glad of his daughter's company, and fond of her

children, yet he would not keep her from her husband, nor them from their father, Exo_18:5, Exo_18:6. Moses must have his family with him, that while he ruled the church of God he might set a good example of prudence in family-government, 1Ti_3:5. Moses had now a great deal both of honour and care put upon him, and it was fit that his wife should be with him to share with him in both. Notice is taken of the significant names of his two sons. 1. The eldest was called Gershom (Exo_18:3), a stranger, Moses designing thereby, not only a memorial of his own condition, but a memorandum to his son of his condition also: for we are all strangers upon earth, as all our fathers were. Moses had a great uncle almost of the same name, Gershon, a stranger; for though he was born in Canaan (Gen_46:11), yet even there the patriarchs confessed themselves strangers. 2. The other he called Eliezer (Exo_18:4), My God a help, as we translate it; it looks back to his deliverance from Pharaoh, when he made his escape, after the slaying of the Egyptian; but, if this was (as some think) the son that was circumcised at the inn as he was going, I would rather translate it so as to look forward, which the original will bear, The Lord is my help, and will deliver me from the sword of Pharaoh, which he had reason to expect would be drawn against him when he was going to fetch Israel out of bondage. Note, When we are undertaking any difficult service for God and our generation, it is good for us to encourage ourselves in God as our help: he that has delivered does and will deliver.

JAMISO 1-5, "Exo_18:1-27. Visit of Jethro.

Jethro ... came ... unto Moses, etc. It is thought by many eminent commentators that this episode is inserted out of its chronological order, for it is described as occurring when the Israelites were encamped at the mount of God. And yet they did not reach it till the third month after their departure from Egypt (Exo_19:1, Exo_19:2; compare Deu_1:6, Deu_1:9-15).

K&D 1-5, "The Amalekites had met Israel with hostility, as the prototype of the heathen who would strive against the people and kingdom of God. But Jethro, the Midianitish priest, appeared immediately after in the camp of Israel, not only as Moses' father-in-law, to bring back his wife and children, but also with a joyful acknowledgement of all that Jehovah had done to the Israelites in delivering them from Egypt, to offer burnt-offerings to the God of Israel, and to celebrate a sacrificial meal with Moses, Aaron, and all the elders of Israel; so that in the person of Jethro the first-fruits of the heathen, who would hereafter seek the living God, entered into religious fellowship with the people of God. As both the Amalekites and Midianites were descended from Abraham, and stood in blood-relationship to Israel, the different attitudes which they assumed towards the Israelites foreshadowed and typified the twofold attitude which the heathen world would assume towards the kingdom of God. (On Jethro, see Exo_2:18; on Moses' wife and sons, see Exo_2:21-22; and on the expression in Exo_18:2, after he had sent her back, Exo_4:26.) - Jethro came to Moses into the wilderness, where he encamped at the mount of God. The mount of God is Horeb (Exo_3:1); and the place of encampment is Rephidim, at Horeb, i.e., at the spot where the Sheikh valley opens into the plain of er Rahah (Exo_17:1). This part is designated as a wilderness; and according to Robinson (1, pp. 130, 131) the district round this valley and plain is naked desert, and wild and desolate. The occasion for Jethro the priest to bring back to his son-in-law his wife and children was furnished by

the intelligence which had reached him, that Jehovah had brought Israel out of Egypt (Exo_18:1), and, as we may obviously supply, had led them to Horeb. When Moses sent his wife and sons back to Jethro, he probably stipulated that they were to return to him on the arrival of the Israelites at Horeb. For when God first called Moses at Horeb, He foretold to him that Israel would be brought to this mountain on its deliverance from Egypt (Exo_3:12).

(Note: Kurtz (Hist. of O. C. iii. 46, 53) supposes that it was chiefly the report of the glorious result of the battle with Amalek which led Jethro to resolve to bring Moses' family back to him. There is no statement, however, to this effect in the biblical text, but rather the opposite, namely, that what Jethro had heard of all that God had done to Moses and Israel consisted of the fact that Jehovah had brought Israel out of Egypt. Again, there are not sufficient grounds for placing the arrival of Jethro at the camp of Israel, in the desert of Sinai and after the giving of the law, as Ranke has done. For the fact that the mount of God is mentioned as the place of encampment at the time, is an argument in favour of Rephidim, rather than against it, as we have already shown. And we can see no force in the assertion that the circumstances, in which we find the people, point rather to the longer stay at Sinai, than to the passing halt at Rephidim. For how do we know that the stay at Rephidim was such a passing one, that it would not afford time enough for Jethro's visit? It is true that, according to the ordinary assumption, only half a month intervened between the arrival of the Israelites in the desert of Sin and their arrival in the desert of Sinai; but within this space of time everything might have taken place that is said to have occurred on the march from the former to the latter place of encampment. It is not stated in the biblical text that seven days were absorbed in the desert of Sin alone, but only that the Israelites spent a Sabbath there, and had received manna a few days before, so that three or four days (say from Thursday to Saturday inclusive) would amply suffice for all that took place. If the Israelites, therefore, encamped there in the evening of the 15th, they might have moved farther on the morning of the 19th or 20th, and after a two days' journey by Dofkah and Alush have reached Rephidim on the 21st or 22nd. They could then have fought the battle with the Amalekites the following day, so that Jethro might have come to the camp on the 24th or 25th, and held the sacrificial meal with the Israelites the next day. In that case there would still be four or five days left for him to see Moses sitting in judgment a whole day long (Exo_18:13), and for the introduction of the judicial arrangements proposed by Jethro; - amply sufficient time, inasmuch as one whole day would suffice for the sight of the judicial sitting, which is said to have taken place the day after the sacrificial meal (Exo_18:13). And the election of judges on the part of the people, for which Moses gave directions in accordance with Jethro's advice, might easily have been carried out in two days. For, on the one hand, it is most probable that after Jethro had watched this severe and exhausting occupation of Moses for a whole day, he spoke to Moses on the subject the very same evening, and laid his plan before him; and on the other hand, the execution of this plan did not require a very long time, as the people were not scattered over a whole country, but were collected together in one camp. Moreover, Moses carried on all his negotiations with the people through the elders as their representatives; and the judges were not elected in modern fashion by universal suffrage, but were nominated by the people, i.e., by the natural representatives of the nation, from the body of elders, according to their tribes, and then appointed by Moses himself. - Again, it is by no means certain that Israel arrived at the desert of Sinai on the first day of the third month, and that only half a month (15 or 16 days) elapsed between their arrival in the desert of sin and their encamping at Sinai (cf. Exo_19:1). And lastly, though Kurtz still affirms that

Jethro lived on the other side of the Elanitic Gulf, and did not set out till he heard of the defeat of the Amalekites, in which case a whole month might easily intervene between the victory of Israel and the arrival of Jethro, the two premises upon which this conclusion is based, are assumptions without foundation, as we have already shown at Exo_3:1 in relation to the former, and have just shown in relation to the latter.)

CALVI, "1.When Jethro, the priest of Midian. This chapter consists of two parts. First of all, the arrival of Jethro in the camp is related, and his congratulation of Moses on account of the prosperity of his enterprise, together with the praise and sacrifice rendered to God. Secondly, his proposed form of government for the people is set forth, in consequence of which judges and rulers were chosen, lest Moses should sink under his heavy task. The greater number of commentators think that Zipporah, having been enraged on account of her sons circumcision, had turned back on their journey, and gone to live with her father; but to me this does not seem probable. For Moses would never have allowed his sons to be deprived of the redemption of which he was the minister; nor would it have been consistent that they should afterwards be appointed priests, of whom God was not the Redeemer. Besides, if he had deposited his wife and children in safety, and had advanced alone to the contest, he would have been deservedly suspected of deceit, or of excessive cowardice. Wherefore I have no doubt but that he underwent, together with his family, that miserable yoke of bondage by which they were long oppressed, and by this proof evidenced his faithfulness, so that greater authority might attend his vocation. The statement, then, in the second verse, after he had sent her back, I apply to Moses, because he had sent back his wife from the wilderness to visit her father, either having yielded to the desire which was natural to her as a woman, or, induced by his own feelings of piety, he had wished to show respect in this way to an old man nearly connected with him. There is something forced and cold in the words, which some would supply, after he had sent back gifts. The text runs very well thus, After Moses had sent back his wife, she was brought again by his father-in-law, thus returning and repaying his kindness.

BESO, "Exodus 18:1. Jethro, to congratulate the happiness of Israel, and particularly the honour of Moses his son-in-law, comes to rejoice with them, as one that had a true respect both for them and for their God: and also to bring Mosess wife and children to him. It seems he had sent them back, probably from the inn where his wifes unwillingness to have her son circumcised had like to have cost him his life, Exodus 4:25.

COFFMA, "Verses 1-4"ow Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, how that Jehovah had brought Israel out of Egypt. And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses wife, after he had sent her away, and her two sons, of whom the name of the one was Gershom; for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land: and the name of the other was Eliezer; for he said, The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the

sword of Pharaoh."

The vast importance of this visit was noted by Jones, "It affected for all time the constitutional history of Israel, separating the judicial and legislative functions of the community."[5]

Both [~'Elohiym] (God) and [~Yahweh] (Jehovah) are used in these verses for God, furnishing another example of the breakdown of allegations regarding the alleged sources of the Pentateuch, according to Allis.[6] At the time of this interview, there can be little doubt of Jethro's being a priest of the Most High God, the one and only Jehovah, but if as Keil thought, Jethro was a representative of the pagan world, it would have been possible: (1) if Moses had converted Jethro out of paganism; or (2) if Jethro had received the truth handed down through his ancestors, thus having known the true God throughout his life, in which case he would as a "faithful remnant" still have come from the pagan world. It is amazing that critics are so anxious to support their notions regarding "the evolution of monotheism," using every conceivable excuse to credit Midianites, or anyone else, with the introduction of the idea to Moses. Monotheism was known BEFORE paganism. It did not "evolve" at all. It was revealed to all mankind repeatedly throughout all of antiquity.

"He had sent her away ..." This does not mean that Moses had divorced Zipporah. Although the word here occasionally can be made to mean that, "Here it merely means that he `let her depart,' as in Exodus 18:27."[7] After God revealed to Moses the resistance that he would encounter in Egypt, and following the circumcision of Eliezer, Moses sent Zipporah and the children back to Jethro until after the exodus. The appearance here of Jethro with Moses' family is a strong proof of the goodwill that existed in the whole family. A Jewish writer assures us that the technical term here translated "sent her away" does not mean that at all, but means "sent her to her father's home."[8]

The fact of Eliezer's name being a derivative of [~'Elohiym] has led some critics to allege that Moses knew nothing of Jehovah until after Exodus 6, but, as Fields said, "To assert this is to deny the historical accuracy of all the uses of [~Yahweh] (Jehovah) throughout Genesis."[9] As noted above, Jochebed is a derivative of Yahweh. More and more it is evident that various names used for God may often be for no other reason than for variety. Gershom, Moses' oldest son, was given a name which means "I was a sojourner," and Eliezer means "God is my help." Thus, these names express respectively his despondency that was natural to exile, "and the gratitude of one who has just learned that the term of his banishment has ended."[10]

COKE, "When Jethro the priest, &c. Houbigant and others translate this, When Jethro the prince of Midian, the kinsman or relation of Moses, heard, &c. See note on ch. Exodus 2:18 and Genesis 14:17. Like Melchisedec, he was, most probably, both prince and priest; see Exodus 18:12. Father-in-law, throughout the chapter, should be read kinsman.

COSTABLE, "Verses 1-12The names of Moses" sons ( Exodus 18:3-4) reflect his personal experiences in the providence of God. However, not all biblical names carry such significance.

"It is a very precarious procedure to attempt to analyze the character or disposition of an Old Testament character on the basis of the etymology of his name alone." [ote: Davis, p187.]

Many names were significant (e.g, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Israel, etc.), but not all were.

The mount of God ( Exodus 18:5) is the mountain where God revealed Himself and His law to Israel, Mt. Sinai. The wilderness was the wilderness near Sinai.

"Moses" summary [ Exodus 18:8-10] is a proof-of-Presence summary, a confession of Yahweh"s powerful protection of and provision for Israel." [ote: Durham, p244.]

Jethro acknowledged the sovereignty of God ( Exodus 18:11). This does not prove he was a monotheist, though he could have been. Jethro was a God-fearing Prayer of Manasseh , evidently part of a believing minority in Midian. He gave evidence of his faith by offering a burnt offering and by making sacrifices to Yahweh ( Exodus 18:12). The meal that Moses, Aaron, and the Israelite elders ate with Jethro was the sacrificial meal just mentioned. Eating together in the ancient ear East was a solemn occasion because it constituted the establishment of an alliance between the parties involved. That is undoubtedly what it involved here. The fact that Aaron and all the elders of Israel were also present demonstrated its importance.

EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMMETARY, "JETHRO.

Exodus 18:1-27.

The defeat of Amalek is followed by the visit of Jethro; the opposite pole of the relation between Israel and the nations, the coming of the Gentiles to his brightness. And already that is true which repeats itself all through the history of the Church, that much secular wisdom, the art of organisation, the structure and discipline of societies, may be drawn from the experience and wisdom of the world.

Moses was under the special guidance of God, as really as any modern enthusiast can claim to be. When he turned for aid or direction to heaven, he was always answered. And yet he did not think scorn of the counsel of his kinsman. And although eighty years had not dimmed the fire of his eyes, nor wasted his strength, he neglected not the warning which taught him to economise his force; not to waste on every paltry dispute the attention and wisdom which could govern the new-born state.

Jethro is the kinsman, and probably the brother-in-law of Moses; for if he were the father-in-law, and the same as Reuel in the second chapter, why should a new name be introduced without any mark of identification? When he hears of the emancipation of Israel from Egypt, he brings back to Moses his two sons and Zipporah, who had been sent away, after the angry scene at the circumcision of the younger, and before he entered Egypt with his life in his hand. ow he was a great personage, the leader of a new nation, and the conqueror of the proudest monarch in the world. With what feelings would the wife and husband meet? We are told nothing of their interview, nor have we any reason to qualify the unfavourable impression produced by the circumstances of their parting, by the schismatic worship founded by their grandchildren, and by the loneliness implied in the very names of Gershom and Eliezer--"A-stranger-there," and "God-a-Help."

But the relations between Moses and Jethro are charming, whether we look at the obeisance rendered to the official minister of God by him whom God had honoured so specially, by the prosperous man to the friend of his adversity, or at the interest felt by the priest of Midian in all the details of the great deliverance of which he had heard already, or his joy in a Divine manifestation, probably not in all respects according to the prejudices of his race, or his praise of Jehovah as "greater than all gods, yea, in the thing wherein they dealt proudly against them" (Exodus 18:11, R.V.). The meaning of this phrase is either that the gods were plagued in their own domains, or that Jehovah had finally vanquished the Egyptians by the very element in which they were most oppressive, as when Moses himself had been exposed to drown.

There is another expression, in the first verse, which deserves to be remarked. How do the friends of a successful man think of the scenes in which he has borne a memorable part? They chiefly think of them in connection with their own hero. And amid all the story of the Exodus, in which so little honour is given to the human actor, the one trace of personal exultation is where it is most natural and becoming; it is in the heart of his relative: "When Jethro ... heard of all that the Lord had done for Moses and for Israel."

We are told, with marked emphasis, that this Midianite, a priest, and accustomed to act as such with Moses in his family, "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." or can we doubt that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who laid such stress upon the subordination of Abraham to Melchizedek, would have discerned in the relative position of Jethro and Aaron another evidence that the ascendency of the Aaronic priesthood was only temporary. We shall hereafter see that priesthood is a function of redeemed humanity, and that all limitations upon it were for a season, and due to human shortcoming. But for this very reason (if there were no other) the chief priest could only be He Who represents and embodies all humanity, in Whom is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, because He is all and in all.

In the meantime, here is recognised, in the history of Israel, a Gentile priesthood.

And, as at the passover, so now, the sacrifice to God is partaken of by His people, who are conscious of acceptance by Him. Happy was the union of innocent festivity with a sacramental recognition of God. It is the same sentiment which was aimed at by the primitive Christian Church in her feasts of love, genuine meals in the house of God, until licence and appetite spoiled them, and the apostle asked "Have ye not houses to eat and drink in?" (1 Corinthians 11:22). Shall there never come a time when the victorious and pure Church of the latter days shall regain what we have forfeited, when the doctrine of the consecration of what is called "secular life" shall be embodied again in forms like these? It speaks to us meanwhile in a form which is easily ridiculed (as in Lamb's well-known essay), and yet singularly touching and edifying if rightly considered, in the asking for a blessing upon our meals.

On the morrow, Jethro saw Moses, all day long, deciding the small matters and great which needed already to be adjudicated for the nation. He who had striven, without a commission, himself to smite the Egyptian and lead out Israel, is the same self-reliant, heroic, not too discreet person still.

But the true statesman and administrator is he who employs to the utmost all the capabilities and energies of his subordinates. And Jethro made a deep mark in history when he taught Moses the distinction between the lawgiver and the judge, between him who sought from God and proclaimed to the people the principles of justice and their form, and him who applied the law to each problem as it arose.

"It is supposed, and with probability," writes Kalisch (in loco), "that Alfred the Great, who was well versed in the Bible, based his own Saxon constitution of sheriffs in counties, etc., on the example of the Mosaic division (comp. Bacon on English Government, i. 70)." And thus it may be that our own nation owes its free institutions almost directly to the generous interest in the well-being of his relative, felt by an Arabian priest, who cherished, amid the growth of idolatries all around him, the primitive belief in God, and who rightly held that the first qualifications of a capable judge were ability, and the fear of God, truthfulness and hatred of unjust gain.

We learn from Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 1:9-15), that Moses allowed the people themselves to elect these officials, who became not only their judges but their captains.

From the whole of this narrative we see clearly that the intervention of God for Israel is no more to be regarded as superseding the exercise of human prudence and common-sense, than as dispensing with valour in the repulse of Amalek, and with patience in journeying through the wilderness.

THE TYPICAL BEARIGS OF THE HISTORY.

We are now about to pass from history to legislation. And this is a convenient stage

at which to pause, and ask how it comes to pass that all this narrative is also, in some sense, an allegory. It is a discussion full of pitfalls. Countless volumes of arbitrary and fanciful interpretation have done their worst to discredit every attempt, however cautious and sober, at finding more than the primary signification in any narrative.(32) And whoever considers the reckless, violent and inconsistent methods of the mystical commentators may be forgiven if he recoils from occupying the ground which they have wasted, and contents himself with simply drawing the lessons which the story directly suggests.

But the ew Testament does not warrant such a surrender. It tells us that leaven answers to malice, and unleavened bread to sincerity; that at the Red Sea the people were baptized; that the tabernacle and the altar, the sacrifice and the priest, the mercy-seat and the manna, were all types and shadows of abiding Christian realities.

It is more surprising to find the return of the infant Jesus connected with the words "When Israel was a child then I loved him, and I called My son out of Egypt,"--for it is impossible to doubt that the prophet was here speaking of the Exodus, and had in mind the phrase "Israel is My son, My firstborn: let My son go, that he may serve Me" (Matthew 1:15; Hosea 11:1; Exodus 4:22).

How are such passages to be explained? Surely not by finding a superficial resemblance between two things, and thereupon transferring to one of them whatever is true of the other. o thought can attain accuracy except by taking care not to confuse in this way things which superficially resemble each other.

But no thought can be fertilising and suggestive which neglects real and deep resemblances, resemblances of principle as well as incident, resemblances which are due to the mind of God or the character of man.

In the structure and furniture of the tabernacle, and the order of its services, there are analogies deliberately planned, and such as every one would expect, between religious truth shadowed forth in Judaism, and the same truth spoken in these latter days unto us in the Son.

But in the emancipation, the progress, and alas! the sins and chastisements of Israel, there are analogies of another kind, since here it is history which resembles theology, and chiefly secular things which are compared with spiritual. But the analogies are not capricious; they are based upon the obvious fact that the same God Who pitied Israel in bondage sees, with the same tender heart, a worse tyranny. For it is not a figure of speech to say that sin is slavery. Sin does outrage the will, and degrade and spoil the life. The sinner does obey a hard and merciless master. If his true home is in the kingdom of God, he is, like Israel, not only a slave but an exile. Is God the God of the Jew only? for otherwise He must, being immutable, deal with us and our tyrant as He dealt with Israel and Pharaoh. If He did not, by an exertion of omnipotence, transplant them from Egypt to their inheritance at one stroke, but required of them obedience, co-operation, patient discipline, and a

gradual advance, why should we expect the whole work and process of grace to be summed up in the one experience which we call conversion? Yet if He did, promptly and completely, break their chains and consummate their emancipation, then the fact that grace is a progressive and gradual experience does not forbid us to reckon ourselves dead unto sin. If the region through which they were led, during their time of discipline, was very unlike the land of milk and honey which awaited the close of their pilgrimage, it is not unlikely that the same God will educate his later Church by the same means, leading us also by a way that we know not, to humble and prove us, that He may do us good at the latter end.

And if He marks, by a solemn institution, the period when we enter into covenant relations with Himself, and renounce the kingdom and tyranny of His foe, is it marvellous that the apostle found an analogy for this in the great event by which God punctuated the emancipation of Israel, leading them out of Egypt through the sea depths and beneath the protecting cloud?

If privilege, and adoption, and the Divine good-will, did not shelter them from the consequences of ingratitude and rebellion, if He spared not the natural branches, we should take heed lest He spare not us.

Such analogies are really arguments, as solid as those of Bishop Butler.

But the same cannot be maintained so easily of some others. When that is quoted of our Lord upon the cross which was written of the paschal lamb, "a bone shall not be broken" (Exodus 12:46, John 19:36), we feel that the citation needs to be justified upon different grounds. But such grounds are available. He was the true Lamb of God. For His sake the avenger passes over all His followers. His flesh is meat indeed. And therefore, although no analogy can be absolutely perfect, and the type has nothing to declare that His blood is drink indeed, yet there is an admirable fitness, worthy of inspired record, in the consummating and fulfilment in Him, and in Him alone of three sufferers, of the precept "A bone of Him shall not be broken." It may not be an express prophecy which is brought to pass, but it is a beautiful and appropriate correspondence, wrought out by Providence, not available for the coercion of sceptics, but good for the edifying of believers.

And so it is with the calling of the Son out of Egypt. Unquestionably Hosea spoke of Israel. But unquestionably too the phrase "My Son, My Firstborn" is a startling one. Here is already a suggestive difference between the monotheism of the Old Testament and the austere jealous logical orthodoxy of the Koran, which protests "It is not meet for God to have any Son, God forbid" (Sura 19:36). Jesus argued that such a rigid and lifeless orthodoxy as that of later Judaism, ought to have been scandalised, long before it came to consider His claims, by the ancient and recognised inspiration which gave the name of gods to men who sat in judgment as the representatives of Heaven. He claimed the right to carry still further the same principle--namely, that deity is not selfish and incommunicable, but practically gives itself away, in transferring the exercise of its functions. From such condescension everything may be expected, for God does not halt in the middle of a path He has

begun to tread.

But if this argument of Jesus were a valid one (and the more it is examined the more profound it will be seen to be), how significant will then appear the term "My Son," as applied to Israel!

In condescending so far, God almost pledged Himself to the Incarnation, being no dealer in half measures, nor likely to assume rhetorically a relation to mankind to which in fact He would not stoop.

Every Christian feels, moreover, that it is by virtue of the grand and final condescension that all the preliminary steps are possible. Because Abraham's seed was one, that is Christ, therefore ye (all) if ye are Christ's, are Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise (Galatians 3:16, Galatians 3:29).

But when this great harmony comes to be devoutly recognised, a hundred minor and incidental points of contact are invested with a sacred interest.

o doctrinal injury would have resulted, if the Child Jesus had never left the Holy Land. o infidel could have served his cause by quoting the words of Hosea. or can we now cite them against infidels as a prophecy fulfilled. But when He does return from Egypt our devotions, not our polemics, hail and rejoice in the coincidence. It reminds us, although it does not demonstrate, that He who is thus called out of Egypt is indeed the Son.

The sober historian cannot prove anything, logically and to demonstration, by the reiterated interventions in history of atmospheric phenomena. And yet no devout thinker can fail to recognise that God has reserved the hail against the time of trouble and war.

In short, it is absurd and hopeless to bid us limit our contemplation, in a divine narrative, to what can be demonstrated like the propositions of Euclid. We laugh at the French for trying to make colonies and constitutions according to abstract principles, and proposing, as they once did, to reform Europe "after the Chinese manner." Well, religion also is not a theory: it is the true history of the past of humanity, and it is the formative principle in the history of the present and the future.

And hence it follows that we may dwell with interest and edification upon analogies, as every great thinker confesses the existence of truths, "which never can be proved."

In the meantime it is easy to recognise the much simpler fact, that these things happened unto them by way of example, and they were written for our admonition.

PULPIT, "JETHRO'S VISIT TO MOSES. It has been noticed, in the comment on Exodus 4:1-31; that shortly after the circumcision of Eliezer, Moses' second son, he

sent back his wife, Zipporah, to her own kinsfolk, the Midianites, together with her two sons, Eliezer and Gershom. Reuel, Zipporah's father, was then dead (Exodus and had been succeeded in his priesthood and headship of the tribe by Jethro, probably his son, and therefore the brother-in-law, and not the father-in-law, of Moses. (The Hebrew word used, as already observed, has both meanings.) Jethro gave protection to his sister and her children until he heard of the passage of the Red Sea, when he set forth to meet and congratulate his kinsman, and to convey back to him his wife and his sons. The meeting took place "at the mount of God" (verse 5), or in the near vicinity of Sinai, probably in some part of the plain Er-Rahah, which extends for five miles, or more, to the north-west of the Sinaitic mountain-group.

Exodus 18:1

Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law. Rather, "Jethro, priest of Midian, Moses' brother-in-law." See the comment on Exodus 3:1; and note that the Seventy use the ambiguous word , while the Vulgate has cognatus. And that. Rather "in that." The clause is exegetical of the preceding one.

PARKER, "Jethro"s Counsel to Moses

Exodus 18

The work which Moses attempted in his own strength strongly indicated the character of the man. He undertook to settle the dispute between the Egyptian and the Hebrew, and he did settle it by the destruction of the former. He interposed between the Hebrews who were striving one with another, and would have determined the contest without consultation with any man. He asked no help when he saw the shepherds ill-treating the daughters of Jethro; he took counsel with himself alone, and delivered the maidens from their oppressors. In the case before us we see precisely the same characteristics: Moses was the sovereign of Israel, and as such administered all matters, great and small. He did not foresee the results of the service in which he was so laboriously engaged. It was an older head than his own that saw the consequences of toil so uninterrupted and exhausting. For the time being Moses was borne up by the excitement of the situation, or by his love of the work; but Jethro foresaw that an increase of this kind of exacting labour would wear out the strongest and boldest man in all the hosts of Israel. The worker does not always see the bearing or the issues of the ministry in which he is engaged. Excitement suspends the judicial faculty. The warrior in the midst of the battle is not in a position to judge so completely and certainly as the spectator who observes the scene from a distance. It ought to be the part of a wise and generous friendship to point out to men when they are working too much, and wasting in exaggeration energies which might be beneficently exercised through a longer period of time. Some men live intensely,their lives are short, but the measure of their service is complete; they do not pause, they have no Sabbath days: with an unwise prodigality they expend their whole force within a brief hour. Such men are not always just to

society. A rich man has no right to give so profusely as to cut off the occasion of liberality in others. The strong man ought not to be at liberty to do so much work with his own hands as to render the labour of others unnecessary.

It was upon this principle that Jethro proceeded in the case of Moses. The great leader of Israel, though leading a life of laborious self-sacrifice, was actually falling below the requirements of social justice. He seemed to be acting on the conviction that he only could manage, arrange, and otherwise successfully administer all the affairs of the people. It never occurred to him that he was allowing the talent of others to lie idle. Talent requires to be evoked. It is true indeed that genius asserts itself, and clears for itself space and prominence equal to its measure of supremacy; on the other hand, it is equally true that much sound ability may become dormant, simply because the leaders of society do not call it into responsible exercise. The counsel which Moses received from Jethro inspired Israel with new life. From the moment that it was acted upon, talent rose to the occasion: energy was accounted of some value, and men who had probably been sulking in the background came to be recognised and honoured as wise statesmen and cordial allies. There is more talent in society than we suspect. It needs the sunshine of wise encouragement in order to develop it. There is a lesson in this suggestion for all who lead the lives of men. Specially, perhaps, there is a lesson to pastors of churches. It is a poor church in which there is not more talent than has yet been developed. When Saul saw any strong man and any valiant Prayer of Manasseh , he took him to himself. This is the law of sure progress and massive consolidation in church life. Let us keep our eyes open for men of capacity and good-will, and the more we watch the more shall our vigilance be rewarded. We should try men by imposing responsibilities upon them. There is range enough in church organisation for the trial and strengthening of every gift. Better be a door-keeper in the house of God than a sluggard, and infinitely better sweep the church floor than lounge upon the pew-top, and find fault with the sweeping of other people. Every man in the Church ought to be doing something. If the pattern be taken from the case described in the context, there need be no fear of rivalry or tumult. The arrangement indicated by Jethro was based upon the severest discipline. The position of Moses was supreme and undisputed; every great case was to be referred to his well-tried judgment, and in all cases of contention his voice was to determine the counsels of the camp. There must be a ruling mind in the Church, and all impertinence and other self-exaggeration must be content to bow submissively to the master-will. Very possibly there may be danger in sudden development of mental activity and social influence; but it must be remembered, on the other hand, that there is infinitely deadlier peril in allowing spiritual energy and emotion to fall into disuse. In the former case we may have momentary impertinence, conceit, and coxcombry; but in the latter we shall have paralysis and distortion more revolting than death itself.

Jethro counselled Moses "to be for the people Godward, that he might bring the causes unto God." The highest of all vocations is the spiritual. It is greater to pray than to rule. Moses was to set himself at the highest end of the individual, political, and religious life of Israel, and to occupy the position of intercessor. He was to be the living link between the people and their God. Is not this the proper calling of the

preacher? He is not to be a mere politician in the Church, he is not to enter into the detail of organisation with the scrupulous care of a conscientious hireling: he is deeply and lovingly to study the truth as it is in Jesus, that he may be prepared to enrich the minds and stimulate the graces of those who hear him. He is to live so closely with God, that his voice shall be to them as the voice of no other Prayer of Manasseh , a voice from the better world, calling the heart to worship, to trust, and to hope, and through the medium of devotion to prepare men for all the engagements of common life. The preacher is to live apart from the people, in order that he may in spiritual sympathy live the more truly with them. He is not to stand afar off as an unsympathetic priest, but to live in the secret places of the Most High, that he may from time to time most correctly repronounce the will of God to all who wait upon his ministry. When preachers live thus, the pulpit will reclaim its ancient power, and fill all rivalry with confusion and shame. Let the people themselves manage all subordinate affairs; call up all the business talent that is in the Church, and honour all its successful and well-meant experiments; give every man to feel that he has an obligation to answer. When you have done this, go yourself, O man of God, to the temple of the Living One, and acquaint yourself deeply with the wisdom and grace of God, that you may be as an angel from heaven when you come to speak the word of life to men who are worn by the anxieties and weakened by the temptations of a cruel world.

Many a man inquires, half in petulance and half in self-justification, "What more can I possibly do than I am already doing?" Let the case of Moses be the answer. The question in his case was not whether he was doing enough, but whether he was not doing too much in one special direction. Some of the talent that is given to business might be more profitably given to devotion. Rule less, and pray more. Spare time from the business meeting that you may have leisure for communion with God. Some persons apparently suppose that time is lost which is not spent in the excitement of social activity. Understand that silence may be better than speech, that prayer is the best preparation for service; and that the duties of magistracy may well be displaced by the higher duties of spiritual devotion. Moses was, undoubtedly, to all human appearance, a much busier man when he did all the business of Israel himself than when he called lieutenants to his assistance; but what was subtracted from his activity was added to the wealth of his heart, and though he made less noise, he exerted a wider influence. Is there not a lesson for the people in the position which Moses occupied at the suggestion of Jethro? Is it nothing to society to have intercessors? Is it nothing that the chief minds of the age should be engaged in the study of truth for the benefit of others? It ought to be the supreme joy of our social life that there are men of capacity, of earnestness, and of high spiritual penetration and sympathy, who devote their whole energy to the stimulus and culture of our best powers. The ministry of any country should be the fountain of its power. Ministers are to study the character of God, to acquaint themselves with all the secrets of truth, and to comprehend as far as possible the necessity and desire of the human heart, and the result of their endeavours will express itself in a luminous and tender ministry. This is work enough for any man. He who is faithful to this vocation will find that he has no energy to spare for the trifles of a moment, or even for the subordinate questions of serious public life. The time which a

minister spends in secrecy may enable him most successfully to teach the deep things of God. It is not enough that he be prepared with matter, he must have time and opportunity to enter into the spirit of his work. His knowledge may be wide and correct, but whatever is wanting in the reality and sensitiveness of his sympathy will be so much subtracted from his spiritual wisdom and strength,

PETT, "IntroductionJethro Visits and Advises Moses (Exodus 18:1-27).

There is little doubt that under God, Jethros visit saved Moses from being on the verge of nervous exhaustion. In return Moses will bring enlightenment to Jethro about the things of God. God often uses the most unexpected sources in order to help His servants. But there is an indication of how necessary Moses training and expertise was for Israel.

Verses 1-8Jethro Visits and Advises Moses (Exodus 18:1-27).

There is little doubt that under God, Jethros visit saved Moses from being on the verge of nervous exhaustion. In return Moses will bring enlightenment to Jethro about the things of God. God often uses the most unexpected sources in order to help His servants. But there is an indication of how necessary Moses training and expertise was for Israel.

Jethro Arrives With Moses Wife and Children and Is Warmly Welcomed And Learns of All That Yahweh Has Done (Exodus 18:1-9).

As the children of Israel approached Sinai they would come within the vicinity of the Midianite group to which Moses belonged, who would soon learn of their approach. Indeed it must be seen as very probable that Moses sent them notification.

a Jethro hears of all that God has done for Moses and for Israel his people, how Yahweh has brought them out of the land of Egypt (Exodus 18:11).b Jethro had taken Moses wife and his two sons after he sent her away of whom one was Gershom, meaning a resident alien (compare Exodus 2:2) because Moses had been a resident alien in a foreign land, and the other Eliezer, God is my help because God had saved him from the hand of Pharaoh (Exodus 18:2-4).c Jethro brings Moses wife and children to the camp of Israel at the mount of God (Exodus 18:15).c He sends a message to tell Moses that his father-in-law Jethro, with Moses wife and children, has come to meet with him (Exodus 18:16).b Moses goes out to his father-in-law and bowed and kissed him and they asked each other of their welfare and came into Moses tent (Exodus 18:17).a Moses told his father-in-law all that Yahweh had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israels sake, and all the trials they had had on the way, and how Yahweh had delivered them from them (Exodus 18:18).

ote in the parallels how in a Jethro had heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, and how Yahweh had brought them out of the land of Egypt and in the parallel Moses tells Jethro of all that Yahweh had done for Israels sake. In b we are told of Moses trials in his exile and how God had saved him from the hands of Pharaoh, and in the parallel we are told of what Yahweh had done to Pharaoh and how He had delivered Israel from all their trials. In c Jethro bring Moses wife and children with him to the camp, and in the parallel Moses warmly welcomes Jethro (and all his party) and takes them to his tent. Central to the passage is that Moses tribal leader and father-in-law Jethro has come bringing Moses wife and children. This central position brings out that Moses did not overlook the coming of his wife, even though it was not important in the ensuing narrative.

Exodus 18:1

ow Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, how that Yahweh had brought Israel out of Egypt.The news about what God had done for Moses would have come from Moses himself, who would no doubt have sent a fast messenger with the news of the deliverance. It was incumbent on him to keep his tribal leader informed. ote the change to God (Elohim) in the first phrase. It has been noteworthy that up to this point the use of the word Elohim (God) by itself has been notably lacking from the narrative since leaving Egypt. The emphasis has been on Yahweh. In fact Elohim (God) has only been used in the technical term the staff of God (Exodus 17:9) and to define Yahweh as your God (Exodus 15:26; Exodus 16:12). Thus this opening use of Elohim (God) is very much against the idea that Jethro worshipped Yahweh. Had he done so the sentence would surely have begun with Yahweh.

ote the use in this verse. Jethro hears of all that God has done. Thus he equates it with the activity of God as he knows Him. But then when the deliverance from Egypt is mentioned it is referred to Yahweh. This distinction applies throughout the chapter demonstrating its unity.

This distinction is especially observed when we compare how the word Elohim (God) is also used when defining Jethros sacrifices (Exodus 18:12) and in general conversation with Jethro (Exodus 18:15), as well as when he gives his advice (Exodus 18:17-23). It is only when speaking of the deliverance from Egypt that the name of Yahweh comes into prominence (Exodus 18:1 b, Exodus 8-11). This also ties in with the fact that Moses second sons name contains El and not Yah. In view of this it would seem clear that Jethro was not a dedicated worshipper of Yahweh, and certainly not a priest of Yahweh, while being willing to acknowledge that Yahweh was God and even greater than all the gods (Exodus 18:11), by which he mainly meant the gods of Egypt of whose defeat he had heard. He quite possibly identified his own god with Yahweh, for Moses had spent forty years with the tribe. But if so the association was secondary for he speaks of him as Elohim.

BI 1-6, "I, thy father-in-law, Jethro, am come unto thee.

Family gatherings

I. That this family gathering was permitted after long absence, and after the occurrence of great events.

II. That this family gathering was characterized by courtesy, by a religious spirit, and by devout conversation.

III. That this family gathering derived its highest joy from the moral experiences with which it was favoured.

IV. That this family gathering was made the occasion of a sacramental offering to God. Lessons:

1. That God can watch over the interests of a separate family.

2. That God unites families in a providential manner.

3. That united families should rejoice in God.

4. That the families of the good will meet in heaven, never more to part.

5. Pray for the completion of the Divine family in the Fathers house. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Character not deteriorated by honour

Nothing tests a man more than his bearing toward his former friends after he has passed through some experiences which have brought him great honour and prosperity; and when, as in the present instance, he comes back with his old frankness and cordiality, and is not ashamed of his old piety, he is a great man indeed. Too often, however, prosperity deteriorates character, and honour freezes the heart. The head swims on the giddy height, and the son returns a comparative stranger even to his fathers house; while the family worship, which used to be so enjoyed, is smiled at as a weakness of the old peoples, and avoided as a weariness to himself. Old companions, too, are passed without recognition; or, if recognized at all, it is with an air of condescension, and with an effort like that which one makes to stoop for something that is far beneath him. The development of character also estranges us from those whom we once knew intimately, and who were once, it may be, the better for our fellowship. But the consolation in all such cases is, that there can be no value in the further friendship of those who can thus forget the past. He is the really good friendas well as the, truly great manwho, in spite of his deserved eminence, resumes with us at the point at which we separated, and carries us at length with him to the throne of grace, to acknowledge there our obligations to the Lord. There are men whom one meets from time to time with whom he has always to begin anew. They are like a book in which you never get fully interested, and which, whenever you take it up, you must commence to read again at the very preface; until, in absolute disgust, you cast it away from you, and never lift it more. There are others who are like a well-beloved volume, with a bookmark in it, which you can open at any moment, and resume where you broke off; and which, though you may be often interrupted, you contrive to read through to the end. Such a friend was Moses to Jethro, and Jethro to Moses; and though there came a final separation of the one from the other on earth, they would renew their conference in heaven. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

Ashamed of parents

A fellow student of mine had very poor parents, but they had a great desire to give their son the very best possible education; and if you had looked into that home, you would have seen much pinching and self-denying on the part of those parents to give their boy a university training. Once, when he was away at college, they went up with proud hearts to see him, for was it not with great efforts on their part that he was there? He was walking in the street with a fellow student when he met them, and he tried to avoid them. You ask me, why? Because he was ashamed of them in their simple dress, and he was not going to own them until his friend had gone. That man reached the Presbyterian ministry, but he did not long stay in it, He fell from his position, and the brokenhearted parents followed him step by step. He went down lower and lower until a fellow minister and myself have rescued him again and again from police cells. Oh, the foulness of heart of one who is ashamed to own his mother, however poor. And yet there is still a greater sin; to be ashamed of That self-sacrificing love that nailed to the Cross the Son of God. (J. Carstairs.)

2 After Moses had sent away his wife Zipporah, his father-in-law Jethro received her

CLARKE, "After he had sent her back -Why Zipporah and her two sons returned to Midian, is not certainly known. From the transaction recorded Exo_4:20, Exo_4:24, it seems as if she had been alarmed at the danger to which the life of one of her sons had been exposed, and fearing worse evils, left her husband and returned to her father. It is however possible that Moses, foreseeing the troubles to which his wife and children were likely to be exposed had he taken them down to Egypt, sent them back to his father-in-law till it should please God to deliver his people.

Jethro, now finding that God had delivered them, and totally discomfited the Egyptians, their enemies, thought it proper to bring Zipporah and her sons to Moses, while he was in the vicinity of Horeb.

GILL, "Then Jethro, Moses's father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses's wife,.... When he had heard of the above things, he determined to pay Moses a visit, and congratulate him on that account; and he took his daughter, the wife of Moses, along

with him, to deliver her to her husband, to share with him in his cares and troubles; as to partake with him of his honours and dignity, so to bear part with him in his burdens, so far as she was capable of:

after he had sent her back: upon his call and mission to Egypt, he took his wife and children with him; but upon an affair which occurred in the inn by the way, he sent them back again to his father-in-law, where they had remained ever since, see Exo_4:24. Jarchi says this was done at meeting with Aaron his brother, Exo_4:27, and relates a conversation between them upon it. As that Aaron should say to him, who are these? to which he replied, this is my wife, I married her in Midian, and these are my sons: he further said to him, and where art thou carrying them? he replied, to Egypt; says he, by reason of those who are before there, we are in straits, and thou wilt add unto them; upon which he said to his wife, go back to thy father's house, and she took her sons and went thither. Kimchi (f) observes, that some render the words "after her gifts"; whose sense, according to Aben Ezra, is, after she had sent gifts to her husband; but others more probably interpret it of gifts sent by him to her to engage his father-in-law to let her come to him, as well as to prevail upon her to come; perhaps it may be better rendered, "after her messenger"; that is, either after the messenger sent to her by Moses, to acquaint her and her father of what had been done for him, or after the messenger she sent to him, to let him know that she intended shortly to be with him; though perhaps, after all, nearer to our version and others, it may be rendered, "after her dismissions" (g); the dismission or sending away of her and her sons, as before related; for this is by no means to be interpreted of a divorce of her; after which she was brought again to her husband; for there is no reason to believe that ever anything of that kind had passed, as some have thought (h): the plain case seems to be this, that Moses finding his family would be exposed to danger, or would be too great an incumbrance upon him in the discharge of his great work he had to do in Egypt, sent them back to his father-in-law until a fit opportunity should offer of their coming to him, as now did.

ELLICOTT, "(2) He does not simply judgei.e., decide the particular question brought before him; but he takes the opportunity to educate and instruct the people in delivering his judgmentshe makes them know the statutes of God and His lawshe expounds principles and teaches morality. Both reasons were clearly of great weight, and constituted strong arguments in favour of his practice.

WHEDO, "2. After he had sent her back See notes on Exodus 4:24-26. The discrepancies which some interpreters find between this account and Mosess return into Egypt narrated in Exodus 4:18-26, are creations of their own fancy. Our historian has not given us all the details. The statement of Exodus 4:20, that Moses took his wife and sons, and returned to the land of Egypt, is seen from the immediate context to mean that he started with them to return, and that they accompanied him until the incident which occurred by the way (Exodus 18:24-26) served as an occasion for her returning with her sons to her fathers house. This simple and natural supposition solves all the difficulties, and is itself suggested by the record here given. The work and exposures of Moses in Egypt made it expedient that his wife and children return and abide in Midian until he should return home from Egypt at the head of his people. Another reasonable hypothesis is, that Moses took his wife and sons to Egypt, and that after the opposition to his mission became

formidable, he secretly sent them back from Egypt to the home of Jethro.

PETT, "Exodus 18:2-4

And Jethro, Moses father-in-law took Zipporah, Moses wife, after he had sent her away, and her two sons, the name of one of whom was Gershom, for he said, I have been a sojourner in a strange land, and the name of the other was Eliezer, for he said, The God of my father was my help and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.This summary brings us up to date on Moses family position. Moses had clearly sent his wife back to the family tribe while he was having his contest with Pharaoh. This was probably in order to ensure her safety and the safety of her two sons and to prevent them from being used by Pharaoh as a bargaining tool. It has ever been the policy of tyrants to get back at or control their enemies by attacking their families. But it may partly have been because a Midianite wife and two foreign sons were causing dissension among certain of the children of Israel (although such racial discrimination was not usual. It was only marriage to Canaanites that was frowned on because of their perverted sexual rites. There is no direct suggestion here or anywhere that Moses marriage was frowned on). And Jethro had accepted her and her sons back under his care. He had taken her.

The details of Moses two sons are also given. They were mentioned in Exodus 4:20, and the fact of Gershoms birth and naming in Exodus 2:22. This is now mentioned again, along with the naming of his second son Eliezer, important here because of its meaning.

Gershom. Ger means a foreigner, a sojourner, a stranger. Moses construed the name here as meaning a stranger there, the regular play on words common with both tribal and Egyptian names. Moses comment suggested how hardly he understandably had felt his exile.

Eliezer. My God is help. Exodus 4:20 suggests that Eliezer was born in Midian before Moses left for Egypt. His name was basically a statement of faith, that God would be Moses helper. And Moses especially related this to his escape from execution when he fled from Egypt with Gods help. He now compares it in Exodus 18:8 (see analysis) with their recent deliverance. In fact both sons may well now be grown up.

PULPIT, "After he had sent her back. Literally "after her dismissal." It is curious that the fact of the dismissal had not been previously mentioned, yet is here assumed as known. Some commentators (as Knobel) find, in what is said of Zipporah, the trace of two distinct writers who give two contradictory narratives; but the difficulties and obscurities of the history are sufficiently intelligible, if we hear in mind

1. That Moses was addressing immediately those who knew the facts; and

2. That he was studious of brevity.

3 and her two sons. One son was named Gershom,[a] for Moses said, I have become a foreigner in a foreign land;

CLARKE, "The name of the one was Gershom - See Clarkes note on Exo_2:22.

GILL, "And her two sons,.... Those also Jethro took along with him and his daughter:

of which the name of the one was Gershom; which seems to be his firstborn, Exo_2:22, his name signifies a desolate stranger, as some, or, "there I was a stranger": the reason of which name follows agreeably thereunto:

for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land; meaning, not the land of Egypt, where he was born, and had lived forty years; but in the land of Midian, where he was when this son of his was born; and which name was given him partly to keep up the memory of his flight to Midian, and partly to instruct his son, that Midian, though his native place, was not his proper country where he was to dwell, but another, even the land of Canaan.

CALVI, "3.And her two sons. It was remarked in its proper place, how distinguished a proof not only of faith, but of magnanimity and firmness Moses had manifested in giving these names to his sons. For we cannot doubt, but that he brought on himself the ill-will of his connections, as if he despised the country of his wife, by calling the one (Gershom) a strange land; and the name of his son continually cried out, that though he inhabited Midian, yet was he an alien in his heart, and though sojourning for a time, would afterwards seek another habitation. Whence also we may conjecture that he took them with him into Egypt, rather than banish from him these two pledges of his piety on account of the sudden anger and reproaches of his wife; since by their names he was daily reminded that Gods covenant was to be, preferred to all earthly advantages.

COKE, "Exodus 18:3. And her two sons Their names are mentioned, Gershom, a

stranger, and Eliezer, God is my help; expressive of the state of Moses in Midian, and his confidence in God's care of him. ote; We are all strangers upon earth, as our fathers were; but we have a child born unto us, to comfort us, the true Eliezer, even Emmanuel, the incarnate God, our helper.

MACLARE, "GERSHOM AD ELIEZERExodus 18:3 - - Exodus 18:4.In old times parents often used to give expression to their hopes or their emotions in the names of their children. Very clearly that was the case in Moses naming of his two sons, who seem to have been the whole of his family. The significance of each name is appended to it in the text. The explanation of the first is, For he said, I have been an alien in a strange land; and that of the second, For the God of my fathers, said he, was mine help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh. These two names give us a pathetic glimpse of the feelings with which Moses began his exile, and of the better thoughts into which these gradually cleared. The first childs name expresses his fathers discontent, and suggests the bitter contrast between Sinai and Egypt; the court and the sheepfold; the gloomy, verdureless, gaunt peaks of Sinai, blazing in the fierce sunshine, and the cool, luscious vegetation of Goshen, the land for cattle. The exile felt himself all out of joint with his surroundings, and so he called the little child that came to him Gershom, which, according to one explanation, means banishment, and, according to another {a kind of punning etymology}, means a stranger here; in the other case expressing the same sense of homelessness and want of harmony with his surroundings. But as the years went on, Moses began to acclimatise himself, and to become more reconciled to his position and to see things more as they really were. So, when the second child is born, all his murmuring has been hushed, and he looks beyond circumstances, and lays his hand upon God. And the name of the second was Eliezer, for, he said, the God of my fathers was my help.

ow, there are the two main streams of thought that filled these forty years; and it was worth while to put Moses into the desert for all that time, and to break off the purposes and hopes of his life sharp and short, and to condemn him to comparative idleness, or work that was all unfitted to bring out his special powers, for that huge scantling out of his life, one-third of the whole of it, in order that there might be burnt into him, not either of these two thoughts separately, but the two of them in their blessed conjunction; I am a stranger here; God is my Help. And so these are the thoughts which, in like juxtaposition, ought to be ours; and in higher fashion with regard to the former of them than was experienced by Moses. Let me say a word or two about each of these two things. Let us think of the strangers, and of the divine helper that is with the strangers.I. A stranger here.ow, that is true, in the deepest sense, about all men; for the one thing that makes the difference between the man and the beast is that the beast is perfectly at home in his surroundings, and gets all that he needs out of them, and finds in them a field for all that he can do, and is fully developed to the very highest point of his capacity by what people nowadays call the environment in which he is put. But the very

opposite is the case in regard to us men. Foxes have holes, and they are quite comfortable there; and the birds of the air have roosting-places, and tuck their heads under their wings and go to sleep without a care and without a consciousness. But the Son of man, the ideal Humanity as well as the realised ideal in the person of Jesus Christ, hath not where to lay His head. o; because He is so much better than they. Their immunity from care is not a prerogative-it is an inferiority. We are plunged into the midst of a scene of things which obviously does not match our capacities. There is a great deal more in every man than can ever find a field of expression, of work, or of satisfaction in anything beneath the stars. And no man that understands, even superficially, his own character, his own requirements, can fail to feel in his sane and quiet moments, when the rush of temptation and the illusions of this fleeting life have lost their grip upon him: This is not the place that can bring out all that is in me, or that can yield me all that I desire. Our capacities transcend the present, and the experiences of the present are all unintelligible, unless the true end of every human life is not here at all, but in another region, for which these experiences are fitting us.But, then, the temptations of life, the strong appeals of flesh and sense, the duties which in their proper place are lofty and elevating and refining, and put out of their place, are contemptible and degrading, all come in to make it hard for any of us to keep clearly before us what our consciousness tells us when it is strongly appealed to, that we are strangers and sojourners here and that this is not our rest, because it is polluted. Therefore it comes to be the great glory and blessedness of the Christian Revelation that it obviously shifts the centre for us, and makes that future, and not this present, the aim for which, and in the pursuit of which, we are to live. So, Christian people, in a far higher sense than Moses, who only felt himself a stranger there, because he did not like Midian as well as Egypt, have to say, We are strangers here; and the very aim, in one aspect, of our Christian discipline of ourselves is that we shall keep vivid, in the face of all the temptations to forget it, this consciousness of being away from our true home.One means of doing that is to think rather oftener than the most of us do, about our true home. You have heard, I dare say, of half-reclaimed gipsies, who for a while have been coaxed out of the free life of the woods and the moors, and have gone into settled homes. After a while there has come over them a rush of feeling, a remembrance of how blessed it used to be out in the open and away from the squalor and filth where men sit and hear each other groan and they have flung off as if they were fetters the trappings of civilisation, and gone back to liberty. That is what we ought to do-not going back from the higher to the lower, but smitten with what the Germans call the heimweh, the home-sickness, that makes us feel that we must get clearer sight of that land to which we truly belong.Do you think about it, do you feel that where Jesus Christ is, is your home? I have no doubt that most of you have, or have had, dear ones here on earth about whom you could say that, Where my husband, my wife is; where my beloved is, or my children are, that is my home, wherever my abode may be. Are you, Christian people, saying the same thing about heaven and Jesus Christ? Do you feel that you are strangers here, not only because you, reflecting upon your character and capacities and on human life, see that all these require another life for their explanation and development, but because your hearts are knit to Him, and where

your treasure is there your heart is also; and where your heart is there you are? We go home when we come into communion with Jesus Christ. Do you ever, in the course of the rush of your daily work, think about the calm city beyond the sea, and about its King, and that you belong to it? Our citizenship is in heaven and here we are strangers.II. ow let me say a word about the other childs name.God is Helper. We do not know what interval of time elapsed between the birth of these two children. There are some indications that the second of them was in years very much the junior. Perhaps the transition from the mood represented in the one name to that represented in the other, was a long and slow process. But be that as it may, note the connection between these two names. You can never say We are strangers here without feeling a little prick of pain, unless you say too God is my Helper. There is a beautiful variation of the former word which will occur to many of you, I have no doubt, in one of the old psalms: I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, as were all my fathers. There is the secret that takes away all the mourning, all the possible discomfort and pain, out of the thought: Here we have no continuing city, and makes it all blessed. It does not matter whether we are in a foreign land or no, if we have that Companion with us. His presence will make blessedness in Midian, or in Thebes. It does not matter whether it is Goshen or the wilderness, if the Lord is by our side. So sweetness is breathed into the thought, and bitterness is sucked out of it, when the name of the second child is braided into the name of the first; and we can contemplate quietly all else of tragic and limiting and sad that is involved in the thought that we are sojourners and pilgrims, when we say Yes! we are; but the Lord is my Helper.Then, on the other hand, we shall never say and feel the Lord is my Helper, as we ought to do, until we have got deep in our hearts, and settled in our consciousness, the other conviction that we are strangers here. It is only when we realise that there is no other permanence for us that we put out our hands and grasp at the Eternal, in order not to be swept away upon the dark waves of the rushing stream of Time. It is only when all other props are stricken from us that we rest our whole weight upon that one strong central pillar, which can never be moved. Learn that God helps, for that makes it possible to say I am a stranger, and not to weep. Learn that you are strangers, for that stimulates to take God for out help. Just as when the floods are out, men are driven to the highest ground to save their lives; so when the billows of the waters of time are seen to be rolling over all creatural things, we take our flight to the Rock of Ages. Put the two together, and they fit one another and strengthen us.This second conviction was the illuminating light upon a perplexed and problematic past. Moses, when he fled from Egypt, thought that his lifes work was rent in twain. He had believed that his brethren would have seen that it was Gods purpose to use him as the deliverer. For the sake of being such, he had surrendered the court and its delights. But on his young ambition and innocent enthusiasm there came this douche of cold water, which lasted for forty years, and sent him away into the wilderness, to be a shepherd under an Arab sheikh, with nothing to look forward to. At first he said, This is not what I was meant for; I am out of my element here. But before the forty years were over he said, The God of my father was my help, and He delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh. What had looked a disaster turned

out to be a deliverance, a manifestation of divine help, and not a hindrance. He had got far enough away from that past to look at it sanely, that is to say gratefully. So we, when we get far enough away from our sorrows, can look back at them, sometimes even here on earth, and say, The mercy of the Lord compassed me about. Here is the key that unlocks all the perplexities of providence, The Lord was my Helper.And that conviction will steady and uphold a man in a present, however dark. It was no small exercise of his faith and patience that the great lawgiver should for so many years have such unworthy work to do as he had in Midian. But even then he gathered into his heart this confidence, and brought summer about him into the mid-winter of his life, and light into the midst of darkness; for he said-even then, when there was no work for him to do that seemed much to need a divine help-the Lord is my Helper.And so, however dark may be our present moment, and however obscure or repulsive our own tasks, let us fall back upon that old word, Thou hast been my Help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.When Moses named his boy, his gratitude was allied with faith in favours to come; and when he said was, he meant also will be. And he was right. He dreamt very little of what was coming, but this confidence that was expressed in his second childs name was warranted by that great future that lay before him, though he did not know it. When the pinch came his confidence faltered. It was easy to say The Lord is my Helper, when there was nothing very special for which Gods help was needed, and nothing harder to do than to look after a few sheep in the wilderness. But when God said to him, Go and stand before Pharaoh, Moses for the moment forgot all about Gods being his helper, and was full of all manner of cowardly excuses, which, like the excuses of a great many more of us for not doing our plain duty, took the shape of a very engaging modesty and diffidence as to his capacities. But God said to him, Surely I will be with thee. He gave him back Eliezer in a little different form. You used to say that I was your helper. What has become of your faith now? Has it all evaporated when the trial comes? Surely I will be with thee. If we will set ourselves to our tasks, not doubting Gods help, we shall have occasion in the event to be sure that God did help us.So, brethren, let us cherish these two thoughts, and never keep them apart, and God will be, as our good old hymn has it-Our help while troubles last,And our eternal home.

PULPIT, "And her two sons. That Zipporah had borne Moses at least two sons before his return to Egypt from Midian, had appeared from Exodus 4:20. The name of the one, Gershom, and the ground of it, had been declared in Exodus 2:22. The repetition here may be accounted for by the present chapter having been originally a distinct and separate composition, written on a distinct roll, and subsequently incorporated by Moses into his great work.

4 and the other was named Eliezer,[b] for he said, My fathers God was my helper; he saved me from the sword of Pharaoh.

GILL, "And the name of the other was Eliezer,.... Who seems to be his second son, and was that which was circumcised by Zipporah at the inn, and about which there was such a stir, Exo_4:24, and signifies "my God is help", or, his helper:

for the God of my father, said he, was mine help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh; who, on hearing that Moses had killed an Egyptian, was wroth with him, and sought to slay him; and perhaps drew his sword for that purpose, but was prevented: however, this, in all human probability, would have been the case, that he would have fallen by his sword either in a private or public manner, had it not been for the interposition of divine Providence, and therefore he gave this name to his child, to be a standing memorial of it.

BESO, "Exodus 18:4. The name of the other was Eliezer My God a help: it looks back to his deliverance from Pharaoh, when he made his escape after the slaying of the Egyptian; but if this were the son that was circumcised in the inn, it would be better to translate it, The Lord is my help, and will deliver me from the sword of Pharaoh, which he had reason to expect would be drawn against him, when he was going to fetch Israel out of bondage.

ELLICOTT, "(4) Eliezer.Eliezer is supposed to have been the boy whom Zipporah circumcised in the wilderness (Exodus 4:25). He grew to manhood, and had a son, Rehabiah (1 Chronicles 23:17), whose descendants were in the time of David very numerous (1 Chronicles 23:17; and comp. 1 Chronicles 26:25-26). It is uncertain whether Moses gave him his name before parting from him, in allusion to his escape from the Pharaoh who sought to slay him (Exodus 2:15), or first named him on occasion of receiving him back, in allusion to his recent escape from the host which had been destroyed in the Red Sea.

WHEDO,"4. Eliezer Here for the first time mentioned by name, but both sons are referred to in Exodus 4:20, and it is supposed that this younger son was the one circumcised by the way, (Exodus 4:25.) The name means, my God is a help, and was given either in remembrance of Mosess past deliverance from the sword of

Pharaoh, or as expressing his hope for the future. The fear of execution as one guilty of blood, and the purpose of Pharaoh to slay him, were the cause of his flight from Egypt, (Exodus 2:15.) The same old fear may have arisen at the thought of his returning, and if Eliezer were born about that time there would have been a special appropriateness in the name. We should then render: and he will deliver me, etc.

PULPIT, "Eliezer. Eliezer had not been previously mentioned by name; but he was probably the son circumcised by Zipporah, as related in Exodus 4:25. We learn from 1 Chronicles 23:15-17, that he grew to manhood, and had an only son, Rehabiah, whose descendants were in the time of Solomon very numerous. For the God of my father, said he, was my help. Eliezer means literally, "My God (is my) help." It would seem that Zipporah, when she circumcised her infant son, omitted to name him; but Moses, before dismissing her, supplied the omission, calling him Eliezer, because God had been his help against the Pharaoh who had sought his life (Exodus 2:15), and of whose death he had recently had intelligence (Exodus 4:19). Thus the names of the two sons expressed respectively, the despondency natural to an exile, and the exultant gratitude of one who had just learned that by God's goodness, the term of his banishment was over.

5 Jethro, Moses father-in-law, together with Moses sons and wife, came to him in the wilderness, where he was camped near the mountain of God.

BARES, "The wilderness - i. e., according to the view which seems on the whole most probable, the plain near the northern summit of Horeb, the mountain of God. The valley which opens upon Er Rahah on the left of Horeh is called Wady Shueib by the Arabs, i. e. the vale of Hobab.

CLARKE, "Jethro - came with his sons - There are several reasons to induce us to believe that the fact related here is out of its due chronological order, and that Jethro did not come to Moses till the beginning of the second year of the exodus, (see Num_10:11), some time after the tabernacle had been erected, and the Hebrew commonwealth established, both in things civil and ecclesiastical. This opinion is founded on the

following reasons: -

1. On this verse, where it is said that Jethro came to Moses while he was encamped at the mount of God. Now it appears, from Exo_19:1, Exo_19:2, that they were not yet come to Horeb, the mount of God, and that they did not arrive there till the third month after their departure from Egypt; and the transactions with which this account is connected certainly took place in the second month; see Exo_16:1.

2. Moses, in Deu_1:6, Deu_1:9, Deu_1:10, Deu_1:12-15, relates that when they were about to depart from Horeb, which was on the 20th day of the second month of the second year from their leaving Egypt, that he then complained that he was not able to bear the burden alone of the government of a people so numerous; and that it was at that time that he established judges and captains ove