Commentari biblici

Exodus 18:1. Jethro, to congratulate the happiness of Israel, and particularly the honour of Moses his son-in-law, comes to rejoice with them, as one that had a true respect both for them and for their God: and also to bring Moses’s wife and children to him. It seems he had sent them back, probably from the inn where his wife’s unwillingness to have her son circumcised had like to have cost him his life, Exodus 4:25.

Exodus 18:3. The name of one was Gershom — A stranger, designing thereby not only a memorial of his own condition, but a memorandum to his son of his, for we are all strangers upon earth.

Exodus 18:4. The name of the other was Eliezer — My God a help: it looks back to his deliverance from Pharaoh, when he made his escape after the slaying of the Egyptian; but if this were the son that was circumcised in the inn, it would be better to translate it, The Lord is my help, and will deliver me from the sword of Pharaoh, which he had reason to expect would be drawn against him, when he was going to fetch Israel out of bondage.

Exodus 18:11. Now know I that JEHOVAH is greater than all gods — That the God of Israel is greater than all pretenders — All deities, that usurp divine honours: he silences and subdues them all, and is himself the only living and true God. He is also higher than all princes and potentates, who also are called gods, and has both an incontestible authority over them, and an irresistible power to control them; he manageth them all as he pleaseth, and gets honour upon them, how great soever they are. Now know I — He knew it before, but now he knew it better; his faith grew up to a full assurance, upon this fresh evidence; for wherein they dealt proudly — The magicians or idols of Egypt, or Pharaoh and his grandees, opposing God, and setting themselves up in competition with him; he was above them — The magicians were baffled, Pharaoh humbled, his powers broken, and Israel rescued out of their hands.

Exodus 18:12. And Jethro took a burnt-offering for God — And probably offered it himself, for he was a priest in Midian, and a worshipper of the true God, and the priesthood was not yet settled in Israel. And they did eat bread before God — Soberly, thankfully, in the fear of God: and their talk was such as became saints. Thus we must eat and drink to the glory of God, as those that believe God’s eye is upon us.

Exodus 18:13. Moses sat to judge the people — To answer inquiries; to acquaint them with the will of God in doubtful cases, and to explain the laws of God that were already given.

Exodus 18:15. The people came to inquire of God — And happy was it for them that they had such an oracle to consult. Moses was faithful both to him that appointed him, and to them that consulted him, and made them know the statutes of God, and his laws — His business was not to make laws, but to make known God’s laws: his place was but that of a servant.

Exodus 18:16-17. I judge between one another — And if the people were as quarrelsome one with another as they were with God, he had many causes brought before him, and the more because their trials put them to no expense. Not good — Not convenient either for thee or them.