Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Exodus 18:1-6 comments: Jethro brings Zipporah and Moses' sons to him




Exodus 18:1 ¶  When Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father in law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, and that the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt; 2  Then Jethro, Moses’ father in law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her back, 3  And her two sons; of which the name of the one was Gershom; for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land: 4  And the name of the other was Eliezer; for the God of my father, said he, was mine help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh: 5  And Jethro, Moses’ father in law, came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness, where he encamped at the mount of God: 6  And he said unto Moses, I thy father in law Jethro am come unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her.
Again, we get a bearing on where the Hebrews might be at this point. If you recall I suggested that Midian partly lay in what is now Tabuk province in Saudi Arabia, bordering the Gulf of Aqaba arm of the Red Sea. Eziongeber was on that arm of the Red Sea.
1Kings 9:26  And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom.

            Jethro, Moses father-in-law, takes Moses’ wife and two sons, who had been sent home earlier apparently, to meet Moses and this vast assembly.
Jethro is not only the priest of Midian but he is a Kenite in tribal ethnicity.
Judges 1:16  And the children of the Kenite, Moses’ father in law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad; and they went and dwelt among the people.
            He is considered the spiritual leader and chief prophet of the Druze religion of the Middle East and the Druze claim ancestry from him. The Druze religion is sort of a mixture of Islam, Greek philosophy, Hinduism, and Gnostic Christianity, which was a sort of occultic Christian philosophy. Of course, this definition oversimplifies it. They believe in reincarnation and the transmigration of the soul. They do not revere Christ as God in the flesh or believe in His resurrection so they are not Christians. However, Druze in Israel have been great supporters of the country and have risen to top positions in politics and public service. Many of them are known as Druze Zionists.
They come to Moses who is encamped at the mount of God. This is Horeb or Sinai.

1Kings 19:8  And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

Sinai was the name of the area.

Exodus 19:1  In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. 2  For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount.

So, Sinai and Horeb will be used interchangeably for the name of this mountain.

1Kings 8:9  There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the LORD made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.

Exodus 31:18  And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God…32:4  And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

Psalm 106:19  They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image.

Malachi 4:4 ¶  Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.

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