Acknowledging One's Dependence: the Jethro story of Exodus 18

Extract

The two narratives in Exodus 18, in which Jethro joins the Israelites in a sacrifice (w. 1—12) and counsels Moses on how to organize the Israelites (w. 13—27), appear to some highly esteemed commentators to have ‘no substantive relation to each other’ (Noth, 1972:136) except for the prominent role played in both by Moses’ Midianite father-in-law. I hope to show, however, that the two episodes go well together. I hope too that the reader will agree that, as so often is the case with OT material, Ex 18 has light to shed, if only obliquely, on an issue that preoccupies us still; in this case, that of authority.

The two accounts are doubtless very ancient; are, indeed, in substance probably historical, for the nation would scarcely without historical warrant have credited a foreigner with the important role given to Jethro in Ex 18 (Welch, 1932:192). It looks, however, as though a redactor has made a conscious choice to insert the story at a different point from that at which it was found in the tradition as it came down to him.

The picture of Moses declaring God’s ‘statutes and laws’ (18.16) and using them to resolve judicial disputes implies that the Sinai-revelation has already taken place (cf. Dt 1.9—18), and indeed at 18.5 the location for the episode is specifically stated to be ‘the mountain of God’; yet the redactor has elected to tell the story before the arrival at Sinai (19.2).