Information in the ancient world did not travel as fast as modern communications, but travel it did. It might have taken weeks or even months, but caravans, couriers, and other types of travelers carried information by foot, donkey, and camel from city to city, nation to nation.

It didn’t take long for word about God’s defeat of Egypt and Amalek to find its way to the people and leaders of many city dwellers and nomadic tribes. They heard of Egypt’s devastation, freedom of the slave nation of Israel, and the defeat of Amalekites by the ‘armies’ of Israel. How could a nation of slaves do all of that? People heard that it was because of the power of the ‘God of Israel.’

All of these ancient people knew about the ‘gods.’ They made images to their ‘gods’ from wood, stone, and precious metals (e.g. gold, silver). They believed their ‘gods’ were greater than other nations’ ‘gods,’ and would often go to war to demonstrate the power of their ‘gods.’ So, you can imagine the fear they felt when they heard that the ‘God of Israel’ had defeated all of the ‘god’s of Egypt and Amalek. What would God do to their ‘gods?’

Jethro Visits

And Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel His people—that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. Exodus 18:1

Remember Jethro? He was Moses’ father-in-law and lived many miles to the east of Egypt and the wilderness area where the Israelites were camped. He heard about all that the One True God had done for Moses and Israel. Moses had left his Midian family many months earlier to obey God’s call to confront Pharaoh about freeing Israel from slavery. He had asked Jethro to allow him to go to Egypt. Jethro told Moses to ‘Go in peace.’ Moses traveled with his wife and sons for a short distance, but then sent them back to stay with Jethro (Exodus 4).

What we see in Exodus 18 is Jethro traveling to visit Moses in the wilderness where he was encamped ‘at the mountain of God.’ Jethro brought Moses’ wife, Zipporah, and his sons, Gershom and Eliezer, with him. They reunited and went into Moses’ tent to catch up on all that had occurred since Moses left Midian.

And Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardship that had come upon them on the way, and how the Lord had delivered them. Then Jethro rejoiced for all the good which the Lord had done for Israel, whom He had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Jethro said, ‘Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh, and who has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods; for in the very thing in which they behaved proudly, He was above them.’ Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took a burnt offering and other sacrifices to offer to God. And Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God. Exodus 18:8-12

Jethro was a ‘priest of Midian,’ which meant he was a spiritual leader of the Midianites. He was most likely a worshipper of ‘other gods.’ [Some researchers think Jethro may have become a monotheist because of Moses.] That’s why his statement about the God of Israel is so important to notice – ‘Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods; for in the very thing in which they behaved proudly, He was above them.’ God’s defeat of the ‘gods’ of Egypt was proof to Jethro that ‘the Lord’ was ‘greater than all the gods.’

Even though Jethro was kind to Moses and the Israelites, that would not always be the case for the Midianites. The leaders of Midian came to fear Israel (Numbers 22) and schemed with the Moabites against God’s people. That eventually led to some Israelites worshipping false ‘gods’ (Number 25). God would not allow that, so He told Moses to ‘Harass the Midianites, and attack them; for they harassed you with their schemes’ (Numbers 25:16-18). God later told Moses to ‘Take vengeance on the Midianites for the children of Israel’ (Numbers 31:1). Moses sent an army of thousands of men (1,000 from each tribe) to fight the Midianites. The Israelites won.

The pagan nation of Midian would continue to be a hindrance to Israel for many years. You can read more about their paganism and hatred for Israel in Judges chapters six, seven, eight, and nine.

Jethro Advises

Back to our current story from Exodus 18. Jethro had the opportunity to see Moses in action the next day. He saw that ‘Moses sat to judge the people; and the people stood before Moses from morning until evening.’ Jethro did not think that was a good use of Moses’ time or method of judging the people of Israel. He realized that Moses would wear himself out judging the people from morning until evening. So, Jethro gave his son-in-law some good advice –

Listen now to my voice; I will give you counsel, and God will be with you: Stand before God for the people, so that you may bring the difficulties to God. And you shall teach them the statutes and the laws, and show them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do. Moreover you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And let them judge the people at all times. Then it will be that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they themselves shall judge. So it will be easier for you, for they will bear the burden with you. If you do this thing, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all this people will also go to their place in peace.’ So Moses heeded the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people: rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. So they judged the people at all times; the hard cases they brought to Moses, but they judged every small case themselves. Then Moses let his father-in-law depart, and he went his way to his own land. Exodus 18:19-27

Notice that Jethro’s advice included the phrase, ‘If you do this thing, and God so commands you.’ Any advice we receive men must always be compared to God’s commands. Moses believed Jethro’s advice was good, so he implemented the new ‘system of justice.’ The ‘rulers’ of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, judged the every-day types of cases that people would bring before them – the ‘small’ ones. That allowed Moses to deal with the ‘hard cases.’

After giving his advice, Jethro returned to Midian. As for Moses’ wife and sons, we know little about what happened to his wife. However, we do read about his sons later in 1 Chronicles 23. They ‘were reckoned to the tribe of Levi.’ That makes sense since Moses was from the ‘tribe of Levi.’ His sons would therefore be descendants of Levi through Moses.

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You can download the first 13 chapters of this series here.

You can download chapters 14 – 24 of this series here.

Next Time

In the next part of our series – Train to Reign – we’ll see the next step in God’s training of Israel as the people meet their God and hear His commandments for how they will live their lives as His special people.

“Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”

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