Exodus 2

INTRODUCTORY.

(1.) The time of the event with which this chapter opens is not precisely ascertained, but it must have been somewhere in the third stage of the cruel oppression described in the last part of chap. 1. We now come to transactions in which Moses was an eyewitness and an actor. From the opening of this chapter we should naturally suppose that Moses was the firstborn child; yet from verses four and seven we find that he had an older sister, and from Exodus 7:7 we find that Aaron was his older brother, of whose birth no mention is made . This omission of events well known to Moses, which do not lie directly in the line of connexion that he aims to trace, is specially noteworthy as a characteristic of the author’s style . The opening history is, in truth, not only biography, but autobiography, the narrative of the writer’s own eventful birth .

(2.) The whole style of this chapter shows that it was written by one who was familiar with both Egyptian and Hebrew. Ewald shows ( Hist. of Israel, ii, p. 3) that the words for river, (Nile,) bulrushes, (Nile grass,) and afterward the words for ephah, hin, etc., are Egyptian words naturalized in Hebrew. So the words for slime, pitch, brick, ark, and others, are common to both languages, as may be seen at once from the hieroglyphic dictionaries of Bunsen and Brugsch. The great Hebrew lawgiver used both languages with equal fluency, and his work is everywhere tinged with the “wisdom of the Egyptians.”

(3.) Here begins the history of one of the great souls of the earth. In original endowments, in the grandeur of his mission, and in the permanence of his influence, no other man has been more highly honored of God. In law and literature, as well as in religion in the world of action as well as of thought in the Occident as well as the Orient what name outshines the name of Moses? No other man ever touched the world at so many points as he, and through no other did God ever so move the world. We must accept his claim to inspiration or leave him a riddle unsolved. Says Ewald: “We cannot explain him, or derive him from previous antecedents, for here we stand in presence of the mystery of all creation and of all spiritual power.” Yet he is not self-reliant, like the great captains, statesmen, and lawgivers of profane history. He was humbled and crushed by a sense of weakness while revealing the sublimest power. Utterly quenched in his work, he built no monuments for himself, founded no dynasties, but retired behind the cloudy pillar, where he “wist not that his face shone.”

CONCLUDING NOTE.

REUEL, JETHRO, HOBAB. Some have made Reuel and Jethro the same; others, Hobab and Jethro the same; and others still have considered all three the same. The solution of the question depends on the meaning of the word חתן , which our translators have always rendered “father-in-law,” but which the Seventy render by γαμβρος , which means simply marriage relation, and may be father-in-law, son-in-law . brother-in-law, or bridegroom . The Seventy thus give us a wide liberty, which we must use to settle the relationship of these persons to Moses .

1. Reuel, or Raguel, is called the father of Zipporah, Moses’s wife, in Exodus 2:18. Also in Numbers 10:29, Reuel is called the חתן of Moses, that is, his “father-in-law . ”

2. Jethro, or Jether, is in Exodus 3:1, and often thereafter, called the חתן of Moses, and “Jethro” we understand to be another name for Reuel . Jether, or Jethro, signifies “excellence,” and was probably a titular or honorary name which he received because of his priestly dignity .

3. Hobab is in Numbers 10:29 expressly called Reuel’s son, so he must have been Zipporah’s brother . But the same word is also applied to him in Judges 4:11, which we consider here to mean simply marriage relation, that is, in this case, brother-in-law .

Other incidental notices confirm this view. Reuel, that is, Jethro, was advanced in life when Moses first met him, (Exodus 2:16,) since he had seven grown-up daughters . But, forty years after this, we find Hobab invited to accompany the Israelites in their journeyings, and aid them in selecting their encampments, (Numbers 10:31,) and he seems to have complied with the invitation, for his children are afterwards found settled in Canaan. Judges 1:16; Judges 4:11. This we should not expect of the aged Reuel, but it might betrue of Hobab, his son, who would then have been in the prime of life; while the character of a wise counsellor, such as is assigned to Jethro in Exodus 18:0, well suits the age and office of Reuel .

Reuel and Jethro, then, we understand to be one and the same person, the father of Hobab and of Zipporah, the wife of Moses. Thus Hobab would be her brother.