Exodus 18:5

Jerome's Latin Vulgate

Venit ergo Jethro cognatus Moysi, et filii ejus, et uxor ejus ad Moysen in desertum, ubi erat castrametatus juxta montem Dei.

Parallel Translations

Clementine Latin Vulgate (1592)
Ponamque buccellam panis, et confortate cor vestrum : postea transibitis : idcirco enim declinastis ad servum vestrum. Qui dixerunt : Fac ut locutus es.

Nova Vulgata (1979)
Venit ergo Iethro socer Moysi et filii eius et uxor eius ad Moysen in desertum, ubi erat castrametatus iuxta montem Dei;

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Exodus 3:1, Exodus 3:12, Exodus 19:11, Exodus 19:20, Exodus 24:16, Exodus 24:17, 1 Kings 19:8

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And Jethro, Moses's father in law,.... This is the third time he is so called in the chapter already, and many more times besides after in it; the reason of which seems to be, either to distinguish him from another of the same name, or to do him honour, that he should be in such a relation to so great and distinguished a man as Moses now was:

came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness; not with his own sons and wife, but with the sons and wife of Moses; Zipporah and her sons, as before related; with those he came into the wilderness of Arabia, where Moses now was, and which was not at a great distance from Midian, since about the same spot Moses, when he dwelt there, had, and fed the flock of his father-in-law, Exodus 3:1, that part of the land of Midian where Jethro lived lay somewhere eastward of Mount Sinai, and was probably situated where Sharme now stands; which, according to Dr. Pocock i, is about a day and a half's journey from Mount Sinai, from whence the monks of Mount Sinai are chiefly supplied with fish k: it follows: where he encamped at the mount of God: at Horeb, where the Lord had appeared to Moses; and so the Targum of Jonathan adds,

"where the glory of the Lord was revealed to Moses at the beginning;''

and where, afterwards, the Lord, appeared again, and gave the law, and therefore is called the Mount of God; the one as well as the other being past when Moses wrote this book, and called the mountain by this name: it is matter of question at what time Jethro came hither, whether before or after the giving of the law: it seems, by the order in which this story is here placed, as if it was immediately after the battle with Amalek; and Saadiah Gaon is of opinion it was before the giving of the law; and one would think it most reasonable and natural that Jethro would take the first opportunity of visiting Moses, and that Moses would not long defer sending for his wife and children: but Aben Ezra thinks he did not come till the second year after the tabernacle was set up, since, in the context, mention is made of burnt offerings and sacrifices, and no account is given of a new altar built by Moses; and besides, he says, "I do make them know the statutes of God and his laws", Exodus 18:16, and it is certain from hence, that the children of Israel were removed from Rephidim, and were now encamped at the mount of God, at Horeb; but whether they had got to the other side of the mount of Sinai as yet is not so clear; though it looks as if what Moses did, by the advice of Jethro, was after the law was given on Sinai, see Deuteronomy 1:6 so that, upon the whole, it seems as if this account, according to the order of time, should be placed after Numbers 10:28, or, as Dr. Lightfoot l thinks, between the tenth and eleventh verses of that chapter, and is put here to show that though Midian was near Amalek, as he observes, yet Jethro was exempt from the curse and destruction threatened to that, see 1 Samuel 15:6.

i Travels, p. 137. k See the Bishop of Clogher's Chronology of the Hebrew Bible, p. 214. l Works, vol. 1. p. 710, 711.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The wilderness - i. e., according to the view which seems on the whole most probable, the plain near the northern summit of Horeb, the mountain of God. The valley which opens upon Er Rahah on the left of Horeh is called “Wady Shueib” by the Arabs, i. e. the vale of Hobab.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Exodus 18:5. Jethro - came with his sons — There are several reasons to induce us to believe that the fact related here is out of its due chronological order, and that Jethro did not come to Moses till the beginning of the second year of the exodus, (see Numbers 10:11), some time after the tabernacle had been erected, and the Hebrew commonwealth established, both in things civil and ecclesiastical. This opinion is founded on the following reasons: -

1. On this verse, where it is said that Jethro came to Moses while he was encamped at the mount of God. Now it appears, from Exodus 19:1-2, that they were not yet come to Horeb, the mount of God, and that they did not arrive there till the third month after their departure from Egypt; and the transactions with which this account is connected certainly took place in the second month; see Exodus 16:1.

2. Moses, in Deuteronomy 1:6; Deuteronomy 1:9; Deuteronomy 1:10; Deuteronomy 1:12-15, relates that when they were about to depart from Horeb, which was on the 20th day of the second month of the second year from their leaving Egypt, that he then complained that he was not able to bear the burden alone of the government of a people so numerous; and that it was at that time that he established judges and captains over thousands and hundreds and fifties and tens, which appears to be the very transaction recorded in this place; the measure itself being recommended by Jethro, and done in consequence of his advice.

3. From Numbers 10:11; Numbers 10:29, c., we find that when the cloud was taken up, and the Israelites were about to depart from Horeb, that Moses addressed Hobab, who is supposed to have been the same as Jethro, and who then was about to return to Midian, his own country, entreating him to stay with them as a guide while they travelled through the wilderness. It therefore seems necessary that the transaction recorded in this chapter should be inserted Num. x. between the 10th and 11th verses. Numbers 10:10-11.

4. It has been remarked, that shortly after they had departed from Sinai the dispute took place between Miriam, Aaron, and Moses, concerning the AEthiopian woman Zipporah whom he had married, (see Numbers 12:1, c.); and this is supposed to have taken place shortly after she had been brought back by Jethro.

5. In the discourse between Moses and Jethro, mentioned in this chapter, we find that Moses speaks of the statutes and laws of the Lord as things already revealed and acknowledged, which necessarily implies that these laws had already been given, (Exodus 18:16), which we know did not take place till several months after the transactions mentioned in the preceding chapters.

6. Jethro offers burnt-offerings and sacrifices to God apparently in that way in which they were commanded in the law. Now the law respecting burnt-offerings was not given till after the transactions mentioned here, unless we refer this chapter to a time posterior to that in which it appears in this place. Exodus 18:12; Exodus 18:12.

From all these reasons, but particularly from the two first and the two last, it seems most likely that this chapter stands out of its due chronological order, and therefore I have adjusted the chronology in the margin to the time in which, from the reasons above alleged, I suppose these transactions to have taken place but the matter is not of much importance, and the reader is at liberty to follow the common opinion. As Moses had in the preceding chapter related the war with Amalek and the curse under which they were laid, he may be supposed to have introduced here the account concerning Jethro the Midianite, to show that he was free from that curse, although the Midianites and the Kenites, the family of Jethro, were as one people, dwelling with the Amalekites. See Judges 1:16; 1 Chronicles 2:55; 1 Samuel 15:6. For although the Kenites were some of those people whose lands God had promised to the descendants of Abraham, (see Genesis 15:18-19), yet, in consideration of Jethro, the relative of Moses, all of them who submitted to the Hebrews were suffered to live in their own country; the rest are supposed to have taken refuge among the Edomites and Amalekites. See Calmet, Locke, &c.