Bible Commentaries

When Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, he drove them on one occasion behind the desert, and came to the mountains of Horeb. רעה היה , lit. “ he was feeding: ” the participle expresses the continuance of the occupation. המּדבּר אחר does not mean ad interiora deserti ( Jerome); but Moses drove the sheep from Jethro's home as far as Horeb, so that he passed through a desert with the flock before he reached the pasture land of Horeb. For “in this, the most elevated ground of the peninsula, you find the most fertile valleys, in which even fruit-trees grow. Water abounds in this district; consequently it is the resort of all the Bedouins when the lower countries are dried up” ( Rosenmüller). Jethro's home was separated from Horeb, therefore, by a desert, and is to be sought to the south-east, and not to the north-east. For it is only a south-easterly situation that will explain these two facts: First, that when Moses returned from Midian to Egypt, he touched again at Horeb, where Aaron, who had come from Egypt, met him (Exodus 4:27); and, secondly, that the Israelites never came upon any Midianites on their journey through the desert, whilst the road of Hobab the Midianite separated from theirs as soon as they departed from Sinai (Numbers 10:30).

(Note: The hypothesis, that, after the calling of Moses, this branch of the Midianites left the district they had hitherto occupied, and sought out fresh pasture ground, probably on the eastern side of the Elanitic Gulf, is as needless as it is without support.)

Horeb is called the Mount of God by anticipation, with reference to the consecration which it subsequently received through the revelation of God upon its summit. The supposition that it had been a holy locality even before the calling of Moses, cannot be sustained. Moreover, the name is not restricted to one single mountain, but applies to the central group of mountains in the southern part of the peninsula (vid., Exodus 19:1). Hence the spot where God appeared to Moses cannot be precisely determined, although tradition has very suitably given the name Wady Shoeib, i.e., Jethro's Valley, to the valley which bounds the Jebel Musa towards the east, and separates it from the Jebel ed Deir, because it is there that Moses is supposed to have fed the flock of Jethro. The monastery of Sinai, which is in this valley, is said to have been built upon the spot where the thorn-bush stood, according to the tradition in Antonini Placent. Itinerar. c. 37, and the annals of Eutychius (vid., Robinson, Palestine).

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Jehovah then made Himself known to Moses as the God of his fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, reminding him through that name of the promises made to the patriarchs, which He was about to fulfil to their seed, the children of Israel. In the expression, “thy father,” the three patriarchs are classed together as one, just as in Exodus 18:4 (“my father”), “because each of them stood out singly in distinction from the nation, as having received the promise of seed directly from God” ( Baumgarten). “ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.” The sight of the holy God no sinful man can bear (cf. 1 Kings 19:12).

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