Jethro, priest of Midian, hears all that God has done and comes to Moses at the mountain of God with Zipporah and her two sons, Gershom ("I have been an alien in a strange land") and Eliezer ("the God of my father was mine help").
Moses tells him everything. Jethro rejoices: "Blessed be the LORD, who hath delivered you… Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods." He offers a burnt offering, and Aaron and all the elders of Israel eat bread with him before God.
The next day Moses sits from morning to evening judging the people's disputes. Jethro says: "The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people… for this thing is too heavy for thee."
His advice: teach the people God's laws, and choose "able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness" as rulers of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. They will judge small matters; the great matters will come to Moses. Moses listens and does it all, and Jethro returns home.
A priest of Midian who blesses the LORD
Jethro (also called Reuel and, in Numbers 10:29, Hobab's father) blesses the LORD, offers sacrifice, and eats with Israel's elders before Moses has received the law. Some scholars propose that the worship of Yahweh was known among Midianites or Kenites (Moses' in-laws, Judges 1:16) before Israel, and that Moses learned it in Midian. This "Midianite" or "Kenite hypothesis" draws on Egyptian lists that mention a land of "Shasu of Yhw" in the south. Others answer that Exodus presents Jethro as coming to faith in the LORD after hearing what He did: "Now I know."
Officers over thousands and hundreds
Delegated justice and ranked officials were standard in the ancient Near East. Military and administrative units of tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands appear in Egyptian, Mesopotamian and later Israelite organization. Deuteronomy 1:9–18 retells the appointment from Moses' viewpoint.
The Case for the Biblical Account
Scripture's account
Jethro worships the LORD and advises Moses to appoint judges over the people (Exodus 18).
What evidence would we expect?
Midianites as a people of northwestern Arabia; ancient systems of delegated justice; early associations of Yahweh with the southern deserts.
The discoveries
Qurayyah painted pottery and settlements in northwestern Arabia associated with Midian; Egyptian Shasu of Yhw lists; ancient Near Eastern administrative ranks.
Testing the discoveries
The Shasu lists name a place or people, not a god explicitly, and the connection to Midian is inferred. Jethro himself is known only from the Bible.
The strongest reconstruction
Exodus preserves a memory of Israel's close ties to Midian, a real people of the region, and of Moses learning practical leadership from his father-in-law.
What remains possible
That Jethro came to faith through Israel's deliverance; or that Yahweh was already worshiped in the southern deserts.
What the evidence shows
- Ranked units of tens, hundreds and thousands were used in ancient Near Eastern administration.
- Egyptian inscriptions mention a southern land of "Shasu of Yhw."Source: D. E. Fleming, Yahweh before Israel: Glimpses of History in a Divine Name (Cambridge, 2020)
- Yahweh was worshiped among the Midianites before Moses.Source: D. E. Fleming, Yahweh before Israel: Glimpses of History in a Divine Name (Cambridge, 2020)
- "Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods."
Continue the journey
Connected elsewhere in ScriptureThe Cloud MovesNumbers 10:29–32: Moses asks Hobab, his in-law, to guide Israel.More from this lesson
Why this matters to the rest of Scripture
- Moses asks Hobab, his in-law, to guide Israel.
- Moses recalls appointing the judges.
- Seventy elders share Moses' burden.
- The apostles appoint seven to share the work.
- The Kenites, Moses' in-laws, settle with Judah.