Exodus 18

Ex. 18 1 Now Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father in law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, how that the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt.

2. And Jethro, Moses’ father in law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her away, 3 and her two sons; of which the name of the one was Gershom; for he said, I have been a 4 sojourner in a strange land: and the name of the other was Eliezer; for he said, The God of 5 my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh: and Jethro, Moses’ father in law, came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness where he was 6 encamped, at the mount of God: and he said unto Moses, I thy father in law Jethro am come 7 unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her. And Moses went out to meet his father in law, and did obeisance, and kissed him: and they asked each other of their welfare; and 8 they came into the tent. And Moses told his father in law all that the LORD had done unto Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the travail that had come upon them by 9 the way, and how the LORD delivered them. And Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which the LORD had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians. 10 And Jethro said, Blessed be the LORD, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh; who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the 11 Egyptians. Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods: yea, in the thing wherein 12 they dealt proudly against them. And Jethro, Moses’ father in law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God: and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses’ 13 father in law before God. And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses sat to judge the 14 people: and the people stood about Moses from the morning unto the evening. And when Moses’ father in law saw all that he did to the people, he said, What is this thing that thou doest to the people? why sittest thou thyself alone, and all the people stand about thee from 15 morning unto even? And Moses said unto his father in law, Because the people come unto 16 me to inquire of God: when they have a matter, they come unto me; and I judge between a 17 man and his neighbour, and I make them know the statutes of God, and his laws. And Moses’ 18 father in law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for the thing is too heavy for thee; thou 19 art not able to perform it thyself alone. Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God be with thee: be thou for the people to God-ward, and bring thou the causes unto 20 God: and thou shalt teach them the statutes and the laws, and shalt shew them the way 21 wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do. Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating unjust gain and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens, 22 and let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge themselves: so shall it be easier 23 for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee. If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people also shall go to their 24 place in peace. So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father in law, and did all that he had 25 said. And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, 26 rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And they judged the people at all seasons: the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small matter 27 they judged themselves. And Moses let his father in law depart; and he went his way into his own land.

De. 19 And I spake unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone: 10 the LORD your God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for 11 multitude. The LORD, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times so many more as 12 ye are, and bless you, as he hath promised you! How can I myself alone bear your cum- 13 brance, and your burden, and your strife? Take you wise men, and understanding, and 14 known, according to your tribes, and I will make them heads over you. And ye answered 15 me, and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do. So I took the heads of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, and captains of fifties, and captains of tens, and officers, according to your tribes.

The visit of Jethro to Moses is recounted in Ex. 18. According to the order of the text, it would seem to have taken place immediately after the battle with Amalek at Rephidim (Ex. 17), and before the encampment at Sinai (Ex. 19:2).

For the reasons assigned below it is transferred from its orderly place in the record, and inserted here, at the commencement of the third main division of the laws of Moses, the class of Civil Ordinances. The leading fact connected with this historical visit, for which mainly it is recorded, was the appointment by Moses of ruling judges, at the suggestion of Jethro. It falls here, therefore, into its fitting place, as a natural introduction as well as a substantial portion of the civil laws. B.

There are indications which show that this occurrence must have taken place after Israel had reached Sinai and heard the Law, and not before they had arrived at that mount and received the statutes and ordinances of God. There is reference clearly to a state of things which indicates national organization, and not the nomadic state in which the Israelites were at the outset. And we see plainly that the nineteenth (Exodus) is the proper continuation of the seventeenth chapter. J. C.—The mountain of God, and not Rephidim, is described as the place of encampment at that time (verse 5). Moreover, the circumstances in which we find the people are adapted not to their flying halt at Rephidim (only half a month intervened between their arrival at the desert of Sin and their encampment in the desert of Sinai), but to their longer stay at Sinai. Hence this chapter departs from the chronological order, and anticipates the occurrence. The author is now standing at the commencement of an important section in his history, which extends from Ex. 19 to Nu. 10, and contains the account of the giving of the Law at Sinai. All the directions embraced in this section are given through Moses by Jehovah, and bear throughout the character of Divine commands. It is different with the appointment of the judges, the origin of which is recorded in this chapter. This was not ordered by Jehovah, but recommended by Jethro. And hence we are led to conjecture that the author purposely separated the human institution from such as were Divine, and pointed out the distinction by the position assigned to it. Ranke.

The reason of the order in the text, Lightfoot says, is to be sought for in the prophetic curse denounced against the Amalekites in the close of the preceding chapter; for as Jethro and his family were residing in the country of this devoted people, it was proper to afford the reader an intimation that he was not to be involved in their doom, and accordingly the incident of his visit to the camp of Israel, and his joining in the worship of the true God, is introduced in immediate connection with the mention of the curse; not that it actually occurred at that precise time, but to show that he once came, and evinced by his conduct that he was exempted from the denunciation. This view of the subsubject we consider on the whole the correct one. Bush.

The Israelites had moved into the district of Horeb and had encamped in the plain, in which they remained for a whole year, and from which they witnessed the giving of the Law: and it was some time during their residence there that Jethro came with Zipporah and her sons to Moses. “The mount of God” (verse 5) is preeminently and emphatically Sinai; and therefore we are shut up to the inference that the encampment here referred to was not Rephidim, but Sinai. This view of the matter is confirmed by the words of Moses in the first chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, where, describing what must be held to be the same change in the mode of his administration which he here initiated, he places it clearly in Horeb, and not long before the removal of the people from the base of Sinai. Moreover, in this chapter itself there are certain expressions which seem to refer to the promulgation of the Law and the establishment of the Divine oracle as things already past; for Moses speaks to Jethro of “the people coming to inquire of God,” and of his making them “to know the statutes of God and his laws;” while Jethro uses language which appears to imply that Moses had already begun “to bring their causes unto God.” Besides, the time which elapsed between the arrival of the people at Rephidim and their journeying to Sinai would hardly admit of the occurrence of all the events here enumerated, especially when we take into consideration the conflict with Amalek, of which that valley was the scene, and which occupied at least one whole day. And further, no one can read the words of Jethro without perceiving that his advice to Moses was founded not upon the proceedings of a single day, and that one of exceptional hardship, but rather on his observation, for some considerable time, of the wearing character of the constant routine of duties which Moses had undertaken, and which he was endeavoring daily to perform. W. M. T.

Ex. 18. This chapter, which abounds in personal reminiscences (and gives a vivid impression of the affectionate and confiding character of Moses), stands rather apart from the general narrative. It may have been and probably was written on a separate roll. The repetition of particulars well known to the reader is a general characteristic of such distinct portions. Cook.

1. Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law.** According to the note, vol. i., p. 579, “it appears probable that Reuel was the grandfather, Jethro the father, and Hobab the brother, of Zipporah. Hence, after forty years Reuel is no more spoken of." The treatment of Jethro in this place, and afterward of Hobab, by Moses, accords with this view. B.

3,4. Two sons, Gershom, Eliezer.** Moses had no interest but that of God and his people; to promote this he employed his whole time and his uncommon talents. The zeal of God’s house consumed him; for in that house, in all its concerns, we have the testimony of God himself that he was faithful (Heb. 3:2), and a higher character was never given nor can be given, of any governor sacred or civil. He made no provision for his own sons, Gershom and Eliezer; they and their families were incorporated with the Levites (1 Ch. 23:14), and had no higher employment than that of taking care of the tabernacle and the tent. No history, sacred or profane, has been able to produce a parallel to the disinterestedness of Moses. A. C.—The two sons sink into obscurity. Their names, though of Levitical origin, relate to their foreign birthplace. Gershom, the “stranger,” and Eliezer, “God is my help,” commemorated their father’s exile and escape. Their posterity lingered in obscurity down to the time of David. A. P. S.

5-7. On our entrance into the Desert of Sinai, we had a piece of the Bible translated for us into every-day life as it was in the time of the exodus. We had reached the neighborhood of the tents of our Sheikh Eid, and his wife and two children, accompanied by an aged male relative, came out to meet him. Eid saluted the old man, embraced him, and kissed him on either cheek, and the pair then, with right hands clasped, repeated over and over again the words, “Are you well?” with the answer, “Thank God, well!” As I watched the scene, I could not help calling to mind the words of Ex. 18:5-7. Palmer.

8-11. Jethro is before us here as both a good and a wise man—good in that his heart is shown to be with God and with God’s people, “rejoicing for all the goodness which the Lord had done to Israel whom he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians” (verse 9); and wise in that he saw at a glance that the burdens then borne by Moses in the administration of justice among the people would soon break him down; and in his admirable suggestions of a better method which from that day became established among the Hebrew people. For both reasons such a visit deserved a permanent record. H. C.

12. A burnt-offering and sacrifices.**

This clearly shows that Jethro was recognized as a priest of the true God. The identity of religious faith could not be more conclusively proved than by the participation in the sacrificial feast. This passage is of great importance in its bearings upon the relation between the Israelites and their congeners, and upon the state of religion among the descendants of Abraham. Cook.—The term “burnt-offering” is usually applied to a sacrifice which is burned entire upon the altar. The phrase “sacrifice for God,” refers here to a peace-offering upon portions of which the worshippers partook in the manner of a religious feast; an act at once religious toward God and social toward man. H. C.

13-18. Read carefully this simple recital, and note how natural the inquiry of Jethro, the answer of Moses, and the earnest caution expressed in the rejoinder of the interested and wise hearted old man. When we consider the immense toil of Moses involved in his “sitting from morning unto evening” to decide the multitude of questions arising “between a man and his neighbor,” and to instruct the people in the detail of God’s laws, we can well appreciate the urgency and plainness of Jethro’s words of protest. B.

17,18. The thing thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away.** It was a lawful, a laudable work, pushed to a perilous extreme; and it was the undue extreme to which it was pushed that was not good. Labor is good; but if we labor unwisely, so as to overtask and enervate our faculties, the labor which in itself is good becomes an evil. Whatever merciful alleviations and remissions of toil the good providence of God may have brought, there is plenty of work for every man to do—work which he cannot neglect save to his own hurt, and to the loss of the community at large. No man is so unhappy or so likely to become a burden to himself and a pest to his neighbors as he who neither has a daily task set him, nor sets himself a task. Labor braces the energies of mind and body, and makes the after-rest sweet. It conditions all good things; for all good things are hard to get; and in the labor of getting them lies our best safeguard against temptations to evil. Yet man is not a machine that he should do nothing but work, though he often uses himself as if he were. If he give himself to incessant labor or, if, like Moses, he simply carry labor to an excess, he will surely wear himself away and yet not achieve that at which he aims; while if he will listen to some wise Jethro, and lighten his labor, he may long retain his strength, and in the long run do a larger stroke of work than if he went at it with the feverish excitement which preys upon the strength it evokes. To wear out is better than to rust out; but it is best of all neither to rust out in sloth nor prematurely to wear out in undue toils. To follow any vocation with so absorbing an interest as to undermine health and to neglect the higher ends for which life is given, is both unwise and wicked. It is to sin against the law which God has written on our bodies—a law which is very prompt to avenge itself, and against the law which he has revealed in our reason and experience. And therefore God has ordained the intermission of labor. Not only has he given us an inward monitor which warns us when mental or vital powers are overtasked; he has also fixed bounds to our labor beyond which we cannot or ought not to pass. Seven times a week the day draws to an end, and the night comes on in which most of us at least are compelled to rest. Once every week, too, there returns the day of rest, on which we cease from our toils, and withdraw our minds from the noisy labors and corroding anxieties of traffic. Ah! if men would abstract their minds as well as their hands from labor night by night and Sunday by Sunday, instead of wearing themselves away, they would carry an intenser vigor to their toils, and do more though in lesser time. It is because they will not rest when God says, “Rest,” nor worship when God says, “Worship,” that so many are urged into mania or borne to a premature grave. Cox.

19,20. He introduces his counsel with the fervent words, “God be with thee!” “Continue thou,” he advises, “in thine appointed work of mediation in behalf of the people, and interpret to them all the way and the will of God, as it has been and shall be disclosed to thee.” B.—Herein Jethro declares the twofold office which Moses was to sustain—viz., that of advocate in behalf of the people, and interpreter on the part of God. Bush.—What a comprehensive form of a preacher’s duty does this verse exhibit! He must instruct the people in the nature, use, and importance of the ordinances of religion. He must lay before them the whole moral law, and their obligations to fulfil all its precepts. He must point out their principal duties; and he must set before them all their work. A. C.

Requisites of character. Able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating unjust gain. Able men. Heb. men of might or force—i.e., men of vigorous, active, energetic character. This was the first requisite. The second was that they should be men fearing God—that is, conscientious men; men who dare not do a base, mean, or unjust thing, whatever the temptation or however secretly it might be done, because they are controlled by a holy awe of heaven. The next qualification is that they should be men of truth; men who would on no account utter a falsehood or betray a trust. Bush.—Hating unjust gain. Not only not seeking bribes or aiming to enrich themselves, but abhorring the thought of it; he is fit to be a magistrate, and he alone, who despiseth the gain of oppression, and shaketh his hands from the holding of bribes (Is. 33 : 15). H.

Such was Jethro’s conception of the man fitted to be placed in authority over his fellows. To this list of qualifications Moses adds others at the time of their election, as we learn from De. 1 : 15. First, they were to be “wise men” of their tribes—that is, of first intelligence. Secondly, “known men” in their tribes—that is, men who have been tried, and thus become known. Thirdly, “men of understanding”—that is, of good, practical judgment, as well as intelligence. And in inducting them to office, he charges them: First, “hear and judge right-eously” not only between two fellow-citizens, but between a fellow-citizen and a stranger. Second, “without respect of persons, but hear the small as well as the great.” Third, without “fear of the face of man,” remembering, fourthly, that “the judgment is God’s” not man’s; and, therefore, should rest upon no fear or favor of man, but on the principles of eternal rectitude. Whatever opinions may be entertained of the theology and ritual of the Mosaic age, it is very clear that there is no evidence of narrowness, ignorance, and the childishness of that era to be gathered from this analysis of the qualification of candidates for office under a free popular government. S. R.

A magistracy elected by the people, the public officer chosen by the public voice, was another of those great principles on which Moses founded his civil polity. The magistrates are not properly the ministers of the people unless the people elect them. No fact can be plainer or more certain than that the judges, instituted at the suggestion of Jethro, were chosen by the suffrages of all Israel. The direction of Moses to the people upon that occasion is very explicit. His words are, “Take you wise men, and understanding, and known, according to your tribes, and I will make them heads over you.” The meaning is, “Do you elect the proposed officers, and I will commission and induct them into office.” It is very observable that these magistrates were to be taken “out of all the people,” and not from any privileged class. The only qualifications for office required were that they should be “able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating unjust gain,” “wise men, and understanding, and known among their tribes.” The possession of these high attributes was enough; no other patent of nobility was required. To the test of official competency expressed in the three interrogatories, “Is he honest? Is he capable? Is he faithful?” if there be added a fourth, “Does he fear God?"—this would include the Mosaic test to a tittle. Moses demanded four qualifications in a civil ruler—viz., ability, integrity, fidelity, and piety. When Jephthah was made judge, it is expressly said, “The people made him head and captain over them.” These instances, and others which might be cited, prove that the great principle, that rulers should be elected by the ruled, that authority should emanate from those over whom it is to be exercised, was fully embodied in the Hebrew constitution. E. C. W.

Herein was a wide distinction between the civil and the ecclesiastical officers in the Mosaic system, which is another evidence of the clear discrimination between the secular and spiritual officers under the Theocracy. Here Moses calls upon the people to select officers to rule and judge them. But the appointment of the sanhedrim of seventy elders for the service of religion, on one occasion, was altogether different, as we find in Nu. 11:16. When Moses complained despondingly of his too great labor, “the Lord said unto Moses, Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel whom thou knowed to be elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them up unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee; and I will come down and talk with thee there, and I will take of the spirit that is upon thee and will put it upon them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee.” This was after the departure from Mount Sinai, and after the appointment of the civil magistrates. This council of seventy were ecclesiastical and spiritual officers, who after their appointment prophesied, as religious teachers and guides of the people. They were, therefore, altogether distinct from the civil rulers. Thus it is evident that even in the Mosaic system, though a Theocracy, the civil authority even from the first was recognized as resting on reason and natural law, while the whole matter of religious order and worship was directly revealed from God to Moses for the Church and delivered through the elders. The Scottish fathers were right, therefore, in asserting that even in the Hebrew system the civil and ecclesiastical powers were not confounded. And that, according to the Word of God, they differed in their origin, nature, and end, though both powers are from God and ordained for his glory. S. R. (See Sec. 167.)

In one of these passages (Ex.) they are called rulers, and their function is to “judge the people at all seasons, upon every small matter.” In the other passage (De.) they are characterized as “heads” and “captains.” B.

In the patriarchal form of government which was maintained by the Hebrews during their sojourn in Egypt, every father exercised a father’s authority over his own household, and every tribe obeyed its own prince, who was originally the first-born of the founder of the tribe, but subsequently appears to have been elected. The princes, whose duty it had been originally to keep genealogical tables, subsequently employed scribes (translated “officers”) for that purpose, who in progress of time acquired so much authority as to be permitted to exercise a share in the government. Under the Mosaic economy the authority of these heads and princes continued the same as before, with the addition of the judges of tens, of fifties, of hundreds, and of thousands. Difficult cases went up from the inferior to the superior judges; and the very difficult causes were submitted to Moses himself or to the supreme ruler of the commonwealth, and in the time of the monarchy to the king himself; and sometimes a further appeal was made to the high-priest. Wheeler.

These judges seem to have been a sort of justice of the peace in several divisions, probably taken from the military division of a host. This was a model proper for them as an army marching, and not unsuitable to their settlement as tribes and families, in a sort of counties, hundreds, and tithings. Perhaps our [English] old Saxon constitution of sheriffs in counties, hundredors or centgraves in hundreds, and deciners in decennaries, may give some light to this constitution of Moses. Some of our legal antiquaries [among them Lord Bacon] have thought that those constitutions of the Saxons were taken from these laws of Moses, introduced by Alfred or by his direction. After the establishment of the Hebrews in the land of Canaan, Moses ordained that judges should be appointed in every city (De. 16:18), and it would seem that they were chosen by the people. In succeeding ages these judicial offices were filled by the Levites, as the persons best skilled in the Law of the Hebrews. Horne.—The guiding principle in the classification was at first both tribal and numerical—following their division into tribes and their numbers. After their location in Canaan the numerical element gave place to the geographical. Judges had their province and their responsibility limited, not by thousands and hundreds directly but by cities and localities. With this modification the system passed into established usage among the Hebrews. H. C.

In the system suggested by Jethro, as we find it afterward developed in Israel, the basis of the commonwealth is the family, the divinely constituted government. For the division into thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens was, as we gather from the subsequent history, not tens, fifties, etc., of individuals, but of families. The ten families over whom one magistrate was chosen might embrace from two to five hundred individuals; and the fifty families comprehended within the limits of the appellate jurisdiction of the next highest magistrate might embrace from one thousand to two thousand five hundred individuals, and so on upward. In Josh. 7:14-18 the command to search for “the accursed thing,” in the case of Achan’s sin, was: “In the morning ye shall be brought according to your tribes, and it shall come to pass the tribe which the Lord taketh shall come according to the families thereof; and the family which the Lord shall take shall come by households, and the household which the Lord shall take shall come man by man.” Out of the household of Zabdi, when examined “man by man,” Achan was taken as the culprit; yet we find that Achan had his own tent, and sons and daughters, who perished with him in the judgment. All of which illustrates to us the arrangement of society into families when this system of magistrates over tens and hundreds was adopted. Now, the earlier Anglo-Saxon civil structure was singularly coincident with this. Its fundamental idea was just the oppoopposite of that of the old Roman civilization which moulded the modern social structures of the continent. Under the Roman civilization the feeling proper to family relationship had been almost superseded by maxims of State. Hence, when the State became utterly corrupt, nothing remained but that society should fail to pieces. But with the Saxon race the bonds of family and kindred were sacred and were made the basis of all other relations. The reverence for woman, the sanctity of the marriage vow, the vigor with which men of the same blood were bound to guard the interests of each other, were all parts of a system in which the family was regarded as the first form of society, and in which also everything beyond was viewed as an expansion of what had been found there. The Saxon institutions familiar to us under the names of the “tithings,” or “tens” and the “hundreds,” were the natural outgrowth of this family feature in Teutonic life. The tithings and hundreds were not divisions of territory, but associations of tens and hundreds of families. Out of this grew the county court, and the whole system of police and justice. And out of this came also the mysterious influence which turned warriors and marauders into men of peace so soon as they touched the soil and breathed the air of Britain, and which led the man of plunder to put his hand to honest industry; and soon the culture of the soil was followed by the construction of the village, the town, the city. The “tithings,” the “hundreds,” then the shire courts wove them all into the great social network. Every man entered into security for the good conduct of men about him. Such as were not responsible to the court of the hundred were responsible to the hall court of their lord. Each locality had its refuge against injustice in the right of appeal, and on the other hand each individual had his protection against imperial misrule in the courts of his own locality. For neither tithe court, hundred court, king’s court, nor the king himself was absolute. Thus what began in the system of tithings of the families ascended onward and upward to the great council or parliament representing all the families of the nation.

From the same principle sprang the origin of trial by jury. The finding of a verdict in the Hundred Court and in all other courts was the province alone of twelve thanes or free-tenants, or twice that number. After investigation or compurgation, if the court was still perplexed, the twelve thanes, chosen equally by the litigants, retired from the court to deliberate on a verdict. Thus that great institution, the bulwork of individual liberty, had its origin in the very roots of the civilization, grew with its growth and strengthened with its strength. Here is the secret of the aversion of the Anglo-Saxon civilization to the imperialism to which the continent has ever tended. By reason of this fundamental law of the family as the unit of the State, when the uniting influence of Christianity gradually drew together the several petty States into a consolidated kingdom, this left still unimpaired the constitutional protection of the local courts and lords and barons, who jealously watched against the encroachments of consolidating imperialism till the constitutional rights which they represented found a permanent asylum in the great charter of constitutional liberty.

In the history of Israel we find that these fundamental guarantees of liberty were finally swept away by the imperial tendencies of Solomon, the wisest man indeed, but really the worst king, in the sense of working ruin to the liberties of his country, that ever sat upon the throne. In the history of the Anglo-Saxon constitutions, as developed under both monarchical and republican forms, the most dangerous tendency seems to be not from any direct tendency to imperialism so much as from a departure from the fundamental idea of the family.

Ex. 18:24. Moses did all that he had said. This settlement was made not by any special revelation from Jehovah, nor by the inspired Moses, but at the wise, common-sense suggestion of Jethro, which Moses, simply as the leader of Israel, accepted and put into execution. S. R.—Moses might with some reason have claimed a monopoly of Divine counsel. But when Jethro, though an outsider and one who had only good common-sense on his side, makes his suggestion, Moses does not scorn to listen to his advice and take it, too. And the event showed that the Lord fully approved his servant’s course. J. M. G.

De. 1:9-15. In this parallel passage Moses recites the same transaction, omitting all allusion to his father-in-law, and giving prominence to the qualities requisite in judges, and to the principles of justice and righteousness by which they were to be governed. H. C.—He recalls his own words to the people, spoken after he had adopted the suggestion of Jethro. “Ye are so many,” he had said; “how can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, and your burden, and your strife?” Yet in the midst of his recital respecting the event of forty years before, there bursts from his heart the fervent prayer, “The LORD make you a thousand times more, and bless you, as he hath promised!” B.—How abruptly is this prayer interposed in his own after account of the appointment of the judges! How true to nature, if it be a real utterance of the dying Lawgiver! And how clear the proof that it is the record of a real address by Moses himself to the people! Birks.

Ex. 18:27. And Moses let his father-in-law depart. The sacred writer, as usual, brings one line of events to a close before passing to another. So far as the form of the narrative goes, we are at liberty to suppose that the interview with Jethro took place any time during the encampment at Sinai. M.

Jethro returned to his home and people. His son Hobab, brother-in-law of Moses, appears in the history somewhat later (Nu. 10:29-32), and seems to have consented to act as guide to Moses and Israel in their march from Sinai to Kadesh, and not improbably until they reached the Jordan. H. C.—It would appear that Hobab came with Jethro at this time to the camp, and remained. B.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE: SUPREME COURT. CHARGES TO JUDGES. WITNESSES. PUNISHMENTS; THEIR DESIGN AND KINDS.