Exodus 18:4 - Exposition

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.