Verses 1-4

Moses father-in-law was the priest of Midian and Jethro was the title of his priestly office as pointed out in the study of chapter 3.

The news of the God of the Israelites sending through Moses and Aaron ten plaques on the land of Egypt thus forcing Pharaoh to let go of his Hebrew slaves traveled quickly throughout the region and Jethro heard about it. It was hard for anyone living in that era to imagine that Pharaoh would let go of his Hebrew slaves. Besides, miracles of such a gigantic proportion were cited that trustworthiness of the news was cast in doubt. Not long after that Jethro also heard news of how through Moses the God of the Israelites had turned the Red Sea into dry ground to clear the way for the Israelites to get away from the pursuing Pharaoh and Egyptian army, and how Pharaoh and the Egyptians followed in pursuit, only to drown in the Red Sea. He was even more perplexed by the latest news he heard. The whole thing seemed to him nothing but a myth even though he was a priest.

Verse 2 of the current chapter says that Moses had sent his wife Zipporah away and that Jethro received her. We were not told about that in earlier chapters. In chapter 4 we learned that Moses was almost killed by the LORD for his failure to circumcise his sons but for Zipporah s intervention. The following is a quote from the study of chapter 4:

It was not mentioned that Moses had sent his wife and two sons back to his father-in-law until Chapter 18 when his father-in-law brought them along to Moses. When he heard of what God had done for the Israelites, Jethro came with his daughter and two grandsons for them to be reunited with Moses. It is not known when and where Zipporah and her two sons were sent back to Jethro. It is likely that they were sent back after the episode at the lodging place. Verses 19 and 20 suggest that Moses might have been concerned about the safety of his family in Egypt. When God guaranteed that those who wanted to kill him were dead, Moses was willing to bring his family along. With the episode at the lodging place safety became uncertain again. So Moses might have sent them back to Jethro at that point. He thought it wise to leave his family with his father-in-law than for them to face uncertainty and danger with him in Egypt. Besides Zipporah was a Midiante. It would introduce an extra element of barrier and alienation when he came among the Israelites with her. It made sense for Zipporah and her sons to return to Midian at least for now.

Because of the uncertainty he faced in going back to Egypt, Moses decided to send his wife Zipporah and two sons back to be with his father-in-law and then continued on his way to Egypt. Moses had not told Jethro the real reason he was going back to Egypt lest he would be worried. But when his daughter and two grandchildren turned back, he was told about the whole situation. Then they were all worried about Moses and held in suspense, not knowing what would happen to him in Egypt. Unconfirmed news of what happened to the Israelites did not give them any comfort at all but only added to the uncertainty.

After the Amelakites were defeated, the Israelites were camped near Horeb since Moses had brought water out from the rock at Horeb. Jethro must live not far from Horeb because Moses used to lead Jethro s flock there. Once he ascertained that the people were safe after their successful repulsion of the attack of the Amalakites, Moses sent words to Jethro informing him of what God had done for him and for the Israelites and asking him to come with his daughter and two grandsons. With the people under his care he could not just go home and pick up his wife and two sons.

When they finally received words from Moses that he was camped near Horeb and was requesting for them to come, Jethro, Zipporah and the two children were overjoyed.

In verse 1 of the current chapter there is a reference to God and a reference to the LORD. When the LORD is mentioned, it is in the context of bringing the Israelites out of Egypt. This is consistent with other references of deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt such as the following promise the LORD made to them:

^{Ex 6:6} Therefore, say to the Israelites: I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.

^{Ex 6:7} I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

The LORD being mentioned in the context of bringing the Israelites out of Egypt is also seen in the preamble to the Ten Commandments for the Israelites to obey that underlines the LORD s ownership of and authority over his people the Israelites.

^{Ex 20:2} I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

It is the LORD, the God of the Israelites unequivocally, who brought the Israelites out of Egypt. That is how the LORD wants the Israelites to know him by. Whenever deliverance of the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage is the context, it is the LORD specifically and not just the generic God that is in focus. So verse 1 says that Jethro heard of everything God had done for Moses and for his people Israel, and how the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt.

In the study of chapter 3 we discussed how Moses was transformed from being a worker for God into a worshipper of God in the desert through the help of his father-in-law Reuel whose name means friend of God . As he put aside his business relationship with God as a worker, Moses developed a personal relationship with God as a worshipper in the desert where no business relationship with God could survive. We could see in chapter 3 the effect and outcome of his transformation but we do not have information on the struggle Moses went through. Verses 3 and 4 of the current chapter shed light on that aspect of the transformation.

Verses 3 and 4of the current chapter mention the names of Moses two sons that were born to him after he had fled from Egypt and settled in Midian, and what those names mean. The meanings of those two names shed light on what was going through Moses mind as he dealt with the aftermath of his failed attempt at delivering the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage, when all the dust had settled. Please note that the name of his firstborn son Gershom is mentioned in chapter 2 but not the name of his younger son. With the mention of the name of his younger son in the current chapter we get a more complete picture of the struggle Moses went through.

Moses named his firstborn son Gershom commemorating the fact that he had become an alien in a foreign land. Moses had lived in Egypt all his life before that and could only use Egypt as the point of reference. To him Egypt had always been his homeland where he was born and grew up. By the time Moses reached forty he dreamt of one day possessing the land of Canaan as God had promised Abraham that his descendants would eventually, and he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. The timing of that promise coming to fruition had become ripe in his estimation. With the supposed possession of the land of Canaan seemingly in sight, Moses was eager to call Canaan home. But it did not happen as Moses had expected. On the surface it appears that Moses named his firstborn son Gershom commemorating the fact that he had become an alien in a foreign land away from Egypt as his homeland. In reality the name of his firstborn son was more for mourning the death of the dream of possessing Canaan as his homeland.

So at the time when Gershom was born, it was not certain how Moses relationship with God would turn out from there on out. If he held grudges against God because of the letdown he had been put through, he would walk away from God. By the time his younger son was born, he came to a conclusion about his relationship with God when he named his younger son Eliezer , commemorating the fact that God saved him from the sword of Pharaoh when he fled from Egypt. Moses must have had a very difficult time fleeing from Egypt and the Egyptians must have doggedly pursued him, but he managed to escape. The escape must have been so dramatic that it could not have happened without God s help in Moses thinking. Though he did not receive help from God in delivering the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage, he did in escaping from Egypt. That was his conclusion looking back at what had happened.

God saving Moses from the sword of Pharaoh was for him a consolation in light of his abject failure at delivering the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage. Because of God s faithfulness in saving him, he was able to trust in God s goodness regardless of God s seeming indifference to the suffering of the Israelites, God s delay in fulfilling his promise to Abraham and the death of the dream of possessing Canaan as his homeland. By the time Eliezer was born Moses had lived in Midian for some time and would have known what the rest of his life held out for him. Thus he came out of the struggle that was raging within him with his faith in God intact. Over time he was transformed from being a worker for God to being a worshipper of God with the help of Reuel his father-in-law as discussed in the study of chapter 3.

It was not just Moses relationship with God but also his pursuit of delivering the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage that had been transformed in the desert even though the pursuit had already ended in failure, strange as it may sound.

^{Heb 11:24} By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh s daughter.

^{Heb 11:25} He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time.

^{Heb 11:26} He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

^{Heb 11:27} By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.

^{Heb 11:28} By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.

What the second part of verse 27 of the above passage of scriptures says about Moses seeing him who is invisible refers to Moses seeing God as the one who saved him from the sword of Pharaoh. Moses pursuit of delivering the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage was seen to be in progress from verse 24 to the first part of verse 27. What is depicted drove him to action. He felt that it was the right thing for him to do while he was doing it. But after he had left Egypt and settled in Midian, what he had considered to be a noble and righteous act was then assessed in the context of counting the loss and looking to the future for what was in store for him, to see if it was still worth all the trouble. When finally he chose to continue to place his trust in God regardless of the outcome of his pursuit and even though he had dashed to pieces for it, he decided that his pursuit was worth all the trouble he had gone through, thanks to God for his goodness in saving Moses from the sword of Pharaoh. He did not know why God had allowed his promise to Abraham to remain unfulfilled but chose to trust in God s unfailing goodness anyway. Had he decided not to trust in God anymore, he would have considered his pursuit something that should not have been attempted. Thus he went through a deliberation process of ascribing worth to his pursuit.

As a result of his deliberation what Moses had pursued could be characterized as the surpassingly great thing in his life. The worth of the surpassingly great thing in a person s life lies in itself and not in the outcome of its pursuit. Its worth is certain and not unpredictable; its worth is not conditional upon anything else but rather entirely intrinsic. If the worth of what one pursues lies in the outcome of its pursuit, that would render the pursuit meaningful when the outcome is positive and meaningless when the outcome is negative. It cannot be the surpassingly great thing that one is pursuing because the outcome of its pursuit is the determining factor for its worth. Rather the surpassingly great thing has its worth wrapped up in itself and not in the outcome of its pursuit.

Furthermore the worth of the surpassingly great thing is such that one would pursue it even if one would dash to pieces for it. If one is not willing to go all out like that to pursue it, either there is something else in one s life that one would rather be pursuing or there are other things that one would be pursuing along with it. That being the case, there is nothing surpassingly great about it; it cannot be the surpassingly great thing in one s life.

Therefore the worth of the surpassingly great thing lies in itself and not in the outcome of its pursuit and its worth is such that one would pursue it even if one would dash to pieces for it. That is what constitutes the surpassingly great thing in a person s life.

As he contemplated the pursuit of delivering the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage, Moses knew in his heart that the pursuit might end in failure and that he might die as a result, but he decided to proceed anyway. At that point Moses had only identified a candidate for the surpassingly great thing in his life. It could not yet be confirmed as the surpassingly great thing because he had neither dashed to pieces for it nor had to face the failure of his pursuit, though he knew that his pursuit might fail and he might die as a result.

When Moses fled from Egypt to settle in Midian, it was still not certain if delivering the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage could be confirmed as the surpassingly great thing for him even though his pursuit had indeed ended in failure and he had refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh s daughter, chosen to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time and regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater values than the treasures of Egypt. What if after he had settled in Midian and counted the loss, he considered his failed attempt at delivering the Israelites in accordance with God s promise to Abraham something that was foolish and that should not have been done? Then it could not be the surpassingly great thing for him with such deliberation. But since he chose to continue to place his trust in God regardless of the failure of his pursuit and even though he had dashed to pieces for it, he affirmed the worth of what he pursued in facilitating the fulfillment of God s promise to Abraham. It could thus be confirmed that delivering the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage was indeed the surpassingly great thing for him.

Consequently after a candidate for the surpassingly great thing had been identified in Moses life, confirmation of the candidate as the surpassingly great thing was a deliberation and decision process, given that Moses had already failed in his pursuit and had already dashed to pieces for it.

Confirmation of the surpassingly great thing in a person s life is a deliberation and decision process. Two people who have the same set of experience in pursuing the same thing can come to two different conclusions about it, one considering it the surpassingly great thing in his life while the other does not. The conclusion is a reflection of what is in the person who deliberates and decides on the matter and the individual perception of the worth of what the person pursues.

If there is something in your life that you think is worth pursuing regardless of outcome and even if you would dash to pieces for it, you have identified a candidate for the surpassingly great thing in your life. But until you have failed in your pursuit and have dashed to pieces for it, the context for the deliberation process is still lacking for the candidate to be confirmed as the surpassingly great thing for you. We cannot haphazardly make claims of pursuing the surpassingly great thing in our lives because pursuit of the surpassingly great thing is something to be lived out and confirmed.

Of course you don t want to fail in any pursuit, let alone dashing to pieces for it. But there can be things in life that you might just consider to be candidates for the surpassingly great thing in your life. For instance if you are a cross-cultural missionary to an unreached people in the end time, you might consider the evangelization of the unreached people a candidate for the surpassingly great thing in your life. When you do that, you are preparing yourself for the reality that before your missionary pursuit produces any tangible fruit on the mission field, you might dash to pieces for it. In the end time the outcome of evangelization among unreached peoples could be totally barren and the missionary could dash to pieces that the missionary could become disillusioned and disheartened, if the matter has not been considered as a candidate for the surpassingly great thing in the life of the missionary, even if God has saved the missionary from death the way God saved Moses from the sword of Pharaoh. It is imperative that the cross-cultural missionary has identified evangelization of the unreached people as the candidate for the surpassingly great thing in the life of the missionary.

When the misfortune befalls the cross-cultural missionary and the missionary survives physically, the context for the deliberation process of confirming the candidate to be the surpassingly great thing in the life of the missionary is then available. If the missionary chooses to confirm it, the missionary would have the perseverance to continue on the mission field for a potential breakthrough down the road.

In the case of Moses the breakthrough came at the age of eighty, forty years after the candidate of delivering the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage had been confirmed to be the surpassingly great thing in his life, when God finally delivered the Israelites through him. Please note that Moses did not make delivering the Israelites a candidate for the surpassingly great thing in his life until he reached the age of forty when he had grown up, as verse 11 of chapter 2 of Exodus says, and after much deliberation. The whole process of identifying a candidate for the surpassingly great thing in his life, confirming it when the context for the deliberation process became available and then waiting for the breakthrough from God had taken forty years for Moses. It was a mind game of perseverance that Moses needed to win before the breakthrough came. He did win it because verse 27 of chapter 11 of Hebrews says that Moses persevered because he saw him who is invisible.

Yes, it is a mind game of perseverance. It is those who can win the mind game that will see the pursuit of their surpassingly great thing to a final, successful and triumphant completion, even though there is the interruption of traumatic defeat along the way. For those who fail to confirm the candidate for the surpassingly great thing by giving up because of the trauma of the interrupting defeat, they are not pursuing the surpassingly great thing in their lives. Those who win this mind game will have the requisite perseverance for confirming the surpassingly great thing and securing the breakthrough.

It is the mind game of perseverance the cross-cultural missionary to an unreached people in the end time must be prepared to win in order to be fruitful on the mission field. Winning the mind game will take time for the cross-cultural missionary. There will be so much pushback from the community of the unreached people and there will be so much loss on the part of the cross-cultural missionary that it would seem hopeless for the gospel to make any inroad among them. But the cross-cultural missionary who wins the mind game of perseverance will eventually see the fruit of the gospel among the unreached people. Let the cross-cultural missionary focus on the pursuit of the surpassingly great thing for the worth the missionary sees in it regardless of outcome, even if the missionary dashes to pieces for it. In the end time let the cross-cultural missionary be prepared to win the mind game of perseverance before heading to the mission field.

It is difficult to evangelize unreached peoples today; it will be made even more so in the end time when the clash of religion will become more front and central, pervasive and dominant. Pressure exerted by the community of unreached people on the missionary will be greater than currently encountered. If the cross-cultural missionary finds himself or herself suffering a crushing defeat at one point in his or her pursuit, similar to what Moses experienced when the Hebrew slaves rejected him as their deliverer, the completion of world evangelization will be in jeopardy if the missionary accepts it as game over for him or her.

The outcome of cross-cultural mission belongs to God and the pursuit belongs to the cross-cultural missionary. If the cross-cultural missionary is faithful in pursuit, God will be faithful in rendering the outcome in the end. Just as it was God who compelled Pharaoh to let God s people go, it is God who compels the devil to let God s people among unreached peoples go. God himself decides when to do so. The cross-cultural missionary must wait on God.

It is about devotion to God and not accomplishment in mission. It takes a worshipper to win the mind game of persevering in mission in the end time. Devotion is the fatal dosage of commitment. End-time mission is for worshippers who are devoted to God, not workers who are devoted to the outcome of mission. It will be a time of counting the cost before embarking on cross-cultural mission. Jesus knew full well what was involved in creating man and eventually saving man. He counted the cost before the world began. The cross-cultural missionary also needs to count the cost before embarking on end-time cross-cultural mission.

Recently a young missionary from the land paid the ultimate price in his attempt to reach an isolated tribe on an island known to be violent toward intruders with the good news of Jesus Christ. Before his death he had identified his missionary pursuit a candidate for the surpassingly great thing in his life because he had meticulously prepared for it throughout his entire albeit short adult life, and thought through the prospect of failing and even dying as a result of the pursuit. When his missionary pursuit indeed failed and he dashed to pieces because of a deadly pushback from the tribe he was trying to reach, he confirmed the candidate to be indeed the surpassingly great thing in his life by his death. Though he had no opportunity to witness any breakthrough of the good news among this unreached tribe, he had counted the cost and found it worth all the trouble regardless of outcome. According to the following journal article that voices opposition to what he did, his concern as documented in his own journal was who would take his place if he was killed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/he-lost-his-mind-slain-missionary-john-allen-chau-planned-for-years-to-convert-remote-tribe/2018/11/27/eb13d7ad-4685-4748-951b-790d671f655d_story.html?utm_term=.ef7425b08322

The prelude to the end time has been sounded. The end-time clock will start ticking. World evangelization will be the surpassingly great thing for the terminal generation of the body of Christ in the end time.

When he destroyed the pursuing Pharaoh and Egyptian army in the Red Sea, God saved Moses from the sword of Pharaoh a second time hence the mention of the name of Moses younger son Eliezer . Successful deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt had revived Moses dream of possessing Canaan as his homeland hence the mention of the name of his firstborn Gershom again. It was no longer for mourning the death of the dream of possessing Canaan as his homeland but rather for eagerly anticipating the realization of the dream.

Unfortunately for Moses realization of that dream was further delayed another forty years when the Israelites refused to take Canaan as God commanded. Even more tragic was that Moses barred himself from entering Canaan when he disobeyed God s command concerning the people. As a result he died without ever possessing Canaan. Canaan never became Moses s homeland while he still lived; he only saw it from a distance. Even so it was still worth it for Moses to have gone through all the trouble he had because God s promise to Abraham coming to fruition was the surpassingly great thing in his life, even though he did not live to see it in his days.

Verses 5-12

Jethro came with Zipporah and her two sons to Moses in the desert where Moses was camped near the mountain of God, i.e., Horeb. He expected to come into the presence of a big throng of people when he met Moses since Moses had become the leader of the Israelites when God delivered them from Egypt with signs and wonders worked through Moses. He used his title in the word sent to Moses that he had come because his formal title that was perhaps more reflective of the prestige it endowed was what he would like to be known by among the Israelites. Moses went out to meet Jethro and bowed down before him and kissed him. They greeted each other and went into the tent.

Moses recounted before Jethro how the LORD brought the ten plaques on Pharaoh and the Egyptians in order to compel Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, how the LORD divided the Red Sea for the Israelites to get away from the pursuing Pharaoh and Egyptian army, and how Pharaoh and the Egyptian army were drowned when they followed. Moses also recounted difficult situations where the people ran out of water and food as they traveled toward Horeb and how the LORD provided water, manna and quails for them. Lastly he recounted how the Amelakites attacked them as they were hurrying to Horeb for water, and how he and the elders of the Israelites successfully repulsed the attack through petitioning before the LORD as a team. Jethro had heard news of what happened. But the news either had been embellished or perhaps did not fully capture what really transpired. Now he got the complete story from what Moses told him.

Moses who had been downtrodden for the previous forty years was glad to be able to speak so well of the LORD, the God of the Israelites, before Jethro, that he had not been able to before. In fact he had always been ashamed that his people were in bondage in Egypt and that his attempt of delivering them in accordance with God s promise to their patriarchs failed miserably. He must have thought that God had other means to deliver the Israelites than him. So he had thought very poorly of himself in terns of knowing things of God and had considered himself a poor advocate for the God of the Israelites before Jethro. So he had not been zealous in trying to convince Jethro about the God of the Israelites being the one true God at all. To Jethro the God of the Israelites was but one of many gods. In fact the God of the Israelites was unable to fulfill his promise to their patriarchs of delivering them from Egypt because the gods of the Egyptians were apparently more powerful than the God of the Israelites.

Verse 9 of the current chapter is Moses description of his perception of Jethro s response to his testimony about the LORD. By the good things that the LORD had done for Israel in rescuing them from the hand of the Egyptians, Moses meant the ten plaques and the dividing of the Red Sea and the subsequent drowning of the pursuing Pharaoh and Egyptian army. The reality was that Jethro had known only of bad things that happened to the Israelites in Egypt. What had recently happened was a complete reversal of fortune for them and a complete reversal of Jethro s impression that Moses was pointing out. Moses felt that the God of the Israelites had been exonerated and, himself also.

Jethro was worried about Moses as he returned to Egypt and Moses safety had been his primary concern. When Moses came out of Egypt safely, Jethro was thankful that the LORD had rescued him from the hand of the Egyptians and of Pharaoh, and the people from the hand of the Egyptians. While Moses depicted Jethro as being delighted to hear the good things the LORD had done for the Israelites, Jethro s own remark did not mention good things but summed things up as the LORD s deliverance of Moses and the people.

Moses in his testimony about the LORD focused on the LORD being the God of miracles in what he did to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel s sake and in what he did to solve their problems along the way post deliverance from Egypt. His description of his perception of Jethro s response to his testimony is from the perspective of the Israelites and focused on what the LORD did for them, even though Jethro s response is from the perspective of the LORD and is focused on the LORD who delivered the Israelites from Egypt. We can see the difference in perspective between Moses and Jethro of the same set of events.

Moses was eager to speak of the miracles the LORD did through him and that was part of the reason he focused on the good things the LORD did for the Israelites. Jethro seemed to have discerned the intent of the God of the Israelites in revealing his name only when he was about to deliver the Israelites from Egypt in order to be known as the LORD who brought the Israelites out of Egypt. He knew what was on the LORD s mind better than Moses. A miracle worker, no matter how great the miracle he does, does not necessarily know God s mind better than others who do not work miracles.

Jethro could never have imagined in his wildest dream that his son-in-law could bring his mission of delivering the Israelites from Egypt to such a completion. In his assessment it could have been done only if the God of the Israelites is greater than all other gods, the god of the Midianites included. It had taken forty years for him to come to such a conclusion about the God of the Israelites. After spending his whole life as the priest of the god of the Midianites, Jethro came to know the LORD through Moses testimony. The word now in verse 11 of the current chapter conveys the idea that Moses testimony had completely reversed Jethro s perception that the God of the Israelites was inferior to the gods of the Egyptians.

^{Ex 12:12} On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn both men and animals and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD.

Jethro was familiar with the gods of Egypt and drew the conclusion that by nature of what they governed the ten plaques the LORD brought on the Egyptians in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt had been a judgment on the gods of Egypt because the Egyptians had enslaved the Israelites and treated then arrogantly.

It had taken Moses forty years to finally deliver the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage. It had thus taken forty years for Jethro to have a transformed understanding of the God of the Israelites. Moses did not know the name of the LORD until the LORD sent him back to Egypt to bring the Israelites out, and Jethro got to know the name of the LORD then. The LORD was not in a hurry to have these things taken care of early on. He waited for the right time for himself to be known to all as the LORD who brought the Israelites out of Egypt.

Accompanying Jethro s confession that the LORD was greater than all other gods was the act of offering sacrifices to the LORD. From the context of verse 12 it is not certain what purpose the burnt offering served. The term burnt offering comes under Strong's Concordance number H5930. It was referred to in two places in Genesis before its reference in the current chapter of Exodus. The first reference was made when Noah sacrificed burnt offerings to the LORD after the flood had receded and Noah and his family had come out of the ark along with all the animals. The second reference was made when God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering. These two events of sacrificing burnt offering took place long before the LORD gave his decrees and laws to Moses. And Jethro s sacrificing the burnt offering to the LORD was probably also before they were given. That being the case, we should find out the purpose of a burnt offering from these two references in Genesis instead of the decrees and laws given to Moses later.

^{Ge 8:20} Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.

^{Ge 8:21} The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

^{Ge 8:22} As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.

^{Ge 22:1} Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham! Here I am, he replied.

^{Ge 22:2} Then God said, Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.

^{Ge 22:13} Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.

^{Ge 22:14} So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.

In the context of Noah sacrificing burnt offerings it was as a testimony that the LORD would desist from destroying all living creatures after the flood regardless of man s sinfulness. In the context of Abraham sacrificing Isaac as a burnt offering, a ram provided by the LORD was offered in place of Isaac as a substitution of what was meant to be devotion to God. We can apply the meaning of the burnt offering on these two occasions to the burnt offering made by Jethro. When Jethro sacrificed the burnt offering, it was a testimony that Jethro willingly made himself a devotion to God and that the LORD would desist from destroying Jethro regardless of his iniquities. In other words Jethro had come under the name of the LORD as the Israelites had.

The bread that Aaron and all the elders of Israel ate with Jethro was manna. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that accompanied the Israelites signified the presence of the LORD among them. Jethro could not be eating manna with Moses, Aaron and the elders of Israel in the presence of the LORD if he had not confessed his belief about the LORD being greater than all other gods. No one can come into the presence of God without faith. When Jethro ate manna in the presence of the LORD, it was sign that his sacrifices were accepted by the LORD and that he had indeed come under the name of the LORD.

Verses 13-26

The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. Jethro arrived at a time when Moses and the people had not had the breathing room for contemplating how they were going to set up the judicial system since they had run into various difficulties after their departure from Egypt. In fact they had just fended off the attack from the Amelakites.

Seeing that Moses alone sat as judge while the people stood around him from morning till evening did not give Jethro a complete picture of what Moses was doing. Jethro asked two probing questions rather forthrightly questioning Moses apparently inefficient way of handling his judicial responsibility before venturing an advice. In his questions Jethro was contrasting Moses alone sitting with all the people standing to portray the authority-and-subordinate relationship with the description standing from morning till evening for emphasis.

There was not gently raising concern or going about it slowly to eventually get to the crux of the matter on the part of Jethro. It was the most efficient way of approaching a problem without concern for courtesy, similarly to what happens in a manager-subordinate relationship when the manager spots a problem with a subordinate and needs to get to the bottom of things immediately. It was the way Jethro used to question Moses when he noticed problems with the way Moses tended his sheep. All of a sudden Moses found himself as though still being held accountable for tending Jethro s sheep while in reality he was taking care of God s people.

Moses said that people came to him to enquire of God when they had a dispute and that he would decide between the parties and inform them of God s decrees and laws. His answer did not give the reason why he alone sat as judge while all the people stood around him from morning till evening. It would appear that the people would not know what God s decrees and laws were until they had a dispute that was brought before Moses and Moses would then inform them of God s decrees and laws in handing down the verdict. On top of that only Moses alone knew God s decrees and laws and that was why Moses alone sat as judge.

There is a certain mentality to someone who alone sits while all other people stand around him from morning till evening, when the person who sits is the one who decides for that to happen. It sends a message to the people that diligent application of their lives does not matter and standing around doing nothing all day long would suit them just fine. Moses in the way he set up the judicial system was responsible for the terrible waste of people s lives. He was making a statement about him being superior and the people being inferior. He was elevating himself by degrading others. In so doing he was making self-esteem a zero-sum game in relationship. It is typical of someone who has an inferiority complex.

^{Ac 7:22} Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.

Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and would certainly possess organizational skill. Even though he knew that the judicial system with one single judge was not a sustainable way of handling justice, he could not deny himself the pleasure of being the lone judge over the people who once rejected him in that role over them. He gratified himself at the expense of wasting people s lives and delaying justice. We were told in chapters 3 and 5 about slave drivers supervising Israelite foremen. And the foremen in turn supervised the people. There was an organizational structure in Egypt that kept the slave labor going. So the people could see that the judicial system Moses set up without any organizational structure was unsustainable but refrained from expressing their opinion since they relied on him for everything anyway. They were not in a position to pop his bubble. Moses inferiority complex was so strong that it overruled his common sense, training and experience to the detriment of the people who were afraid of challenging him.

Moses alone had been given the decrees and laws by God. If possession of God s decrees and laws put him in such a position that people would come to him in order to enquire of God, then why did he hoard God s decrees and laws and not disseminate them to the people so that they would themselves know what God require of them in their individual circumstances, given that so far Moses had informed them of regulations for celebrating the Passover, for consecrating the firstborn and for handling manna? Are not decrees and laws supposed to be made public for proper observance? It is hard to say why Moses did not disseminate God s decrees and laws to the people of his own accord. On the other hand because of the inferiority complex that had surfaced in Moses, it might have been for an ignoble reason. It is unfortunate to draw such a conclusion about Moses but we need to do the interpretation with the evidence at hand and the evidence at hand is not in Moses favor.

As a former shepherd that was despised in the Egyptian culture where he grew up, Moses had developed a degraded view of himself and would readily harbor that same view toward former slaves in Egypt, who were a notch below him in social standing.

In Stephen s account of Moses story Moses was hoping that the Israelites would see that God was using him to rescue them but they did not.

^{Ac 7:23} When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites.

^{Ac 7:24} He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian.

^{Ac 7:25} Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.

Moses was rejected for the role of ruler and judge by the Hebrew bully forty years before.

^{Ex 2:13} The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?

^{Ex 2:14} The man said, Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and thought, What I did must have become known.

The whole debacle of trying to deliver the Israelites from Egypt had such an impact on Moses that he developed speech impairment that was rather damaging to his already bruised ego, particularly since he was once powerful in speech. He might still hold residual resentment from his prior experience with them. He must have felt vindicated by their change of attitude toward him now that they came to him with their disputes and he would decide between the parties. He was gleefully basking in the glory of being the lone judge over and the lone broker of God s will to them.

Moses was employed by his father-in-law in the lowly profession of sheep tending for forty years. He did the lowly mundane work for his father-in-law so that his father-in-law could devote himself to his priestly duties as the priest of Midian. His father-in-law had influenced him in the way he related to God that helped him persevere in his relationship with God for the previous forty years. His father-in-law gave his daughter to him in marriage and she saved Moses from God who was trying to kill him. Without her Moses would have died and would not have been able to deliver the Israelites from Egypt. Moses had depended heavily on his father-in-law for his welfare.

Moses had just experienced an elevation and upsurge of his depressed ego when the LORD worked signs and wonder through him to deliver the Israelites from Egypt. Meeting up with his father-in-law did not bode well for his ego. While the Israelites constituted one party whom Moses was inclined to beat up on, his father-in-law constituted another party who was a reminder of his inadequacy. And so the Israelites became an easy target of Moses inferiority complex suddenly awakened by the coming of his father-in-law.

The probing questions Jethro asked Moses yielded an answer that reflected what weighed heavily on Moses mind. In response to Jethro s question as to why he alone sat as judge while people stood around him from morning till evening, Moses said that it was because people came to him to enquire of God, meaning actually that they came to him with their dispute and he would decide between the parties and inform them of God s decrees and laws. The emphasis of the response is on the characterization of people s coming to him as enquiring of God. His interpretation of God s decrees and laws and rendering his judgment in the context of the dispute at hand would be God s response to their enquiry of God.

What people were really looking for in coming to Moses as the recognized authority among them was arbitration of disputes, perhaps in accordance with God s decrees and laws if the decrees and laws had something to say about their disputes. It is doubtful that at such a point in their journey not long after deliverance from Egypt that they would put God at the center of their mundane lives and be so keen on enquiring of God whenever any of them got into a dispute with another person. They would not have reached that level of reliance on God for governance on how they conducted themselves in relation with one another. It was especially so when Moses had not taken the initiative to teach them God s decrees and laws, the way they ought to live and the duties they ought to perform in everyday living. Not many of the decrees and laws had been given to Moses by that time anyway.

On the other hand it was certainly God s will for them to be governed in their daily living by God s decrees and laws. It is just that the people s intent in bringing their disputes to Moses did not match what Moses characterized as enquiring of God.

Moses was raised without a father figure in his life. His father-in-law served as the father figure and made up for what was lacking in his training. His father-in-law also happened to be his former employer. In saying that people came to him to enquire of God Moses was casting what he did in the light of priestly duty among the people similar to what his father-in-law routinely did as the priest of Midian. He was portraying himself to be his father-in-law s equal who was no longer a hired hand for tending sheep.

Moses was eager to come out from under the shadow of his father-in-law as a son wants to come out from under the shadow of his father even though Moses had in reality already done so. He was in psychological entrapment and needed Jethro s verbal affirmation to free him from it. It is no different from the situation of a son returning home for the first time after he has left and has gotten on well in the world and made a name for himself. His father happens to be a household name and it is difficult for him to be himself. It is only when the son has obtained affirmation from his father that he could find himself operating independently of his father even though he is already independent. It is only a psychological need that needs to be met and the affirmation needs to come from the father. It was the same with Moses that the affirmation needed to come from the father figure in his life.

Performing all those great signs and wonders had not elevated Moses self-worth, nor had the accomplishment of delivering the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage. Miracles and accomplishments do not instill more self-worth in the miracle worker but only make him proud because he uses things outside of himself to elevate his importance making him boastful. He is actually not important by himself because the moment miracles and accomplishments are stripped away, he is reduced to nothing. A person s self-worth increases when he can make things outside of himself and people other than himself important because he is truly important by himself without dependence on anything and other people. The following gospel tract carries a discussion of that.

http://gospeloutlet.org/tracts/FoolishnessOfBoasting.html

Even though God had turned Moses failure of delivering the Israelites from Egypt into triumph, Moses past continued to haunt him. Apparently subsequent success does not necessarily heal the wound from earlier failure. Success that overturns prior failure is not necessarily balm for the wound inflicted by the failure. Comfort from the fact that the worth of his pursuit rested with the pursuit itself and not with the outcome, and comfort from the fact that he was no longer counted among those who oppressed his people did not seem to soothe Moses wound.

The reason is that Moses did not get to know God personally and did not know his name I AM during the forty years while tending sheep in the desert, licking his wound. On the other hand the cross-cultural missionary has the counsel of the totality of scriptures. The cross-cultural missionary knows God personally and knows that God is worth pursuing at all costs because God has intrinsic worth as his name I AM indicates. The cross-cultural missionary doesn t need to be traumatized by failure the way Moses was while awaiting the breakthrough from God to deliver the Israelites though the cross-cultural missionary needs to take stock of what has gone wrong for his or her failed attempt to reach the unreached people and make adjustment. God being worth pursuing at all costs is the balm for the wound inflicted on the cross-cultural missionary when he nor she has dashed to pieces for the surpassingly great thing in the missionary s life.

Moses was a workaholic working from morning till evening and was not inclined to share his workload with others. Moses perhaps worked like this as he tended sheep as a means of forgetting the trouble he had endured. Giving himself no time to think about the unpleasant part of his past kept his emotion intact. Please keep in mind that the impact of his failure was so great on him that he developed speech impairment. Keeping a workaholic schedule gave him an easy way out of his emotional turmoil.

God s discipline for service can have significant negative side effect no matter how much benefit the discipline brings in molding and shaping the person for a particular service. Moses training as a shepherd in the desert for forty years is an example. We need to understand God s discipline for service is not necessarily for transforming a person into someone we like, but into a person who can render the specific service the discipline is intended for. Let s go less by how we feel and more by how God s work can be accomplished or we would become self-absorbed.

When Moses was Jethro s hired hand, Jethro would evaluate Moses performance. He would be used to saying whether what Moses was doing was good or not without Moses becoming defensive. Jethro could also speak forthrightly into Moses life. It was so obvious to Jethro that the way Moses handled his responsibility was not right that the first thing that came out of his mouth after he heard Moses response to his enquiry was that it was not good. Had there not existed such prior employer-employee relationship and familiar pattern of assessment for quick problem solving, Jethro would not have been so forthright.

Moses was not able to answer the question why he alone sat as judge while other people stood around him from morning till evening. So Jethro homed in on this particular issue that Moses implicitly acknowledged as a problem. He pointed out that Moses and the people would together wear themselves out and not just the people wearing him and the people out because Moses was in control of the situation that had come about by Moses own choice. It was not Moses sitting as judge that concerned Jethro but rather Moses alone sitting as judge that concerned him. It was not the people standing around Moses that concerned Jethro but rather the people standing from morning till evening that concerned him. What Jethro pointed out as not good was Moses not sharing his responsibility that could be shared, wasting people s lives that could be avoided, unnecessarily causing people to grumble about not getting the service they needed. From Jethro s perspective the situation could be improved.

Efficiency problems are often ignored by employees and more often noticed by managers who are responsible for estimating workload and deploying resources. Managers do not see a workaholic employee s insatiable amount of appetite for work and taking on too much work to be a good thing because it is not sustainable and customer satisfaction would be a problem. As Moses former employer Jethro was the right person to pop Moses bubble.

Having pointed out the problem with the judicial system that Moses set up, Jethro proceeded to offer his advice on how it could be improved with a plan for remediation. This was a regular pattern of exchange when it came to problem solving with Moses as employee.

Jethro realized that his son-in-law who shepherded his flocks and herds for forty years had become the leader of the Israelites. He could sense his son-in-law s insecurity and eager desire to be considered his equal. He decided that he needed to release Moses so that he could continue on to the next phase of his life as the leader of God s people. So Jethro began his advice of a remediation plan by affirming Moses role as people s representative before God who brought their disputes to God. The affirmation was what Moses was eagerly looking for from the father figure in his life. Then Jethro spelled out Moses responsibility of teaching the people God s decrees and laws, and showing them the way to live and the duties they are to perform, and distributing his authority via a judicial system of appointed judges.

Jethro s way of governance advocated instilling God s decrees and laws in the people as the way of life for them while Moses way of governance utilized God s decrees and laws as a body of law code for dispute arbitration. Jethro s way of governance would give the people custodial responsibility of God s decrees and laws while Moses way of governance would inform parties in dispute of the relevant portion of God s decrees and laws. Jethro s way of governance emphasized living rightly while Moses way of governance emphasized dispute arbitration. Jethro s way of governance promoted obedience to God s decrees and laws while Moses way of governance let people violate God s decrees and laws out of ignorance until confronted and reined in.

Jethro s way of governance inclined the people to God in their circumstance as they listened to God s voice for how they should obey God s decrees and laws while Moses way of governance kept the people at a distance from God as they listened to Moses voice for how they should obey God s decrees and laws. Jethro s way of governance instilled in the people the capacity of self-governance while Moses way of governance consigned the people to the role of the governed. The former was elevation above the slave status while the latter maintenance of the status quo.

^{Ex 15:26} He said, If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you.

Without a doubt Jethro s way of governance would keep at bay the LORD s threat of afflicting the people with the diseases he brought on the Egyptians. Because Moses did not teach the people God s decrees and laws, they would have difficulties staying off the LORD s affliction.

The following passage of scriptures speaks of the people being vomited out by the land of Canaan if they disobeyed God s commands and conducted themselves like the Canaanites after settling in the land.

^{Lev 18:4} You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the LORD your God.

^{Lev 18:5} Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD.

^{Lev 18:6} No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the LORD.

^{Lev 18:7} Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her.

^{Lev 18:8} Do not have sexual relations with your father s wife; that would dishonor your father.

^{Lev 18:9} Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father s daughter or your mother s daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere.

^{Lev 18:10} Do not have sexual relations with your son s daughter or your daughter s daughter; that would dishonor you.

^{Lev 18:11} Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father s wife, born to your father; she is your sister.

^{Lev 18:12} Do not have sexual relations with your father s sister; she is your father s close relative.

^{Lev 18:13} Do not have sexual relations with your mother s sister, because she is your mother s close relative.

^{Lev 18:14} Do not dishonor your father s brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations; she is your aunt.

^{Lev 18:15} Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son s wife; do not have relations with her.

^{Lev 18:16} Do not have sexual relations with your brother s wife; that would dishonor your brother.

^{Lev 18:17} Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son s daughter or her daughter s daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.

^{Lev 18:18} Do not take your wife s sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living.

^{Lev 18:19} Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period.

^{Lev 18:20} Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor s wife and defile yourself with her.

^{Lev 18:21} Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.

^{Lev 18:22} Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

^{Lev 18:23} Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.

^{Lev 18:24} Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.

^{Lev 18:25} Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.

^{Lev 18:26} But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things,

^{Lev 18:27} for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled.

^{Lev 18:28} And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.

^{Lev 18:29} Everyone who does any of these detestable things such persons must be cut off from their people.

^{Lev 18:30} Keep my requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them. I am the LORD your God.

The people were supposed to take possession of Canaan soon. Obedience and disobedience to God s commands was a matter of life and death for the people, and Moses was not teaching them God s decrees and laws and turning over the custodial responsibility of the decrees and laws to them. Imagine scripture writers refusing to put the inspiration of the Holy Spirit down on paper and everybody would need to line up waiting for their deliberation of all the questions we have. What happened when they died if they had not written down the inspiration and made it available to others? Isn t what happened five hundred years ago a break with the status quo of keeping the bible from the masses and an attempt at making the bible available to everyone who could read? Every generation of believers is a custodian of the bible. The people were the custodian of the decrees and laws given through Moses and Moses needed to turn the custodial responsibility over to the people.

When we look ahead to chapter 21 we would see that God told Moses to set the laws before the people.

^{Ex 21:1} These are the laws you are to set before them:

Jethro s advice was in alignment with God s intent for his decrees and laws to be made available to the people.

Jesus said that his words are spirit and they are life, more than just rules to be obeyed.

^{Jn 6:63} The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

In fact Jesus words are to be the way of life for his disciples. When we read the bible, we are not just consulting a rule book for proper conduct but rather enquiring of God how we ought to live our lives as God s people. The bible instills in us the way of life so that we would be obeying God s commands for us out of our natural inclination. God s decrees and laws needed to be instilled in the people as the way of life for them so that they would be obeying God s commands out of their natural inclination.

If the people enquired of God only when they ran into a problem, it is no different from the way we conduct ourselves that we do not seek God until we run into a problem. That was not the right attitude toward God s decrees and laws. God s decrees and laws were intended for them to chew on and to be treasured up in their hearts all the time regardless of circumstance. They were to conduct themselves in everyday life in accordance with God s decrees and laws all the time and not just when they had a dispute and needed help for arbitration. God s decrees and laws were not just for remedying wrongdoing but for righteous living as an expression of the way God s people were. If they remained external regulations to be followed in order for the people to avoid getting into trouble, they would do wrong, enter into a dispute and show up in line for arbitration.

For God s decrees and laws to be instilled in the people as the way of life for them, the decrees and laws need to be internalized so that the way they conducted themselves out of their natural inclination would be in accordance with the decrees and laws. The following passage of scriptures captures the idea.

^{Dt 11:18} Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

^{Dt 11:19} Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

^{Dt 11:20} Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

As Moses continually turned the custodial responsibility of God s decrees and laws over to the people, his role as the lone broker of God s will would be reduced. The more the decrees and laws became the way of life for them, the more Moses role would be reduced. He would turn from being a dispute arbitrator to being a teacher. Instead of explaining the law code to parties in dispute when they came to him for arbitration, he would proactively teach them the decrees and laws, show them the way to live and the duties they were to perform. So instead of perpetuating the people s dependence on him and thus promoting man-centered leadership over them, Moses continually weaned the people of dependence on him and directed God s leadership over them.

If God s decrees and laws constituted only a body of law code, Moses would not have the responsibility of teaching the people the precepts for moral living and setting himself as an example. But if he were to teach them, Moses would take on the moral responsibility as a teacher. It was a much greater responsibility that Jethro laid on him than what he had taken on. The responsibility laid on Moses also took on a more personal nature in setting himself as an example.

Moses was to select capable men from all the people, men who feared God and trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain, to be officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. He would have to delegate the selection process to those who could field the candidates, ascertain the qualification of candidates and make the right appointment decision.

There were three personal traits that Jethro suggested should constitute the selection criteria for officials. The first qualification of an official was aptitude. They were to be capable men drawn from the entire population. The second qualification was attitude toward God that they were to be men who feared God. The third qualification was attitude toward money that they were to be trustworthy men who hated dishonest gains.

People who fear God are those who are God s children because God disciplines them when they do wrong and so God s children fear God. God does not discipline those who are not his children and so people who are not God s children do not fear God. Please note that fearing God is not about living in constant fear of God but knowing that God would discipline us when we do wrong and therefore refraining from doing wrong. Fear is the deterrent for wrongdoing, not in a punitive sense that we live in constant fear of God.

People who hate dishonest gain are trustworthy and people who love dishonest gain are untrustworthy. People who love dishonest gain must not be entrusted with doing God s work because they will damage God s work and will bring destruction on themselves for the sake of dishonest gain.

Jethro proposed to Moses a more participatory model on the people s part for governance. When it came to tending sheep, sheep did not participate and were rather passive. A shepherd did not teach sheep anything and a good shepherd consisted in taking care of everything for the sheep. That was a problem for Moses after having tended sheep for forty years. Relationship with sheep was entirely hierarchical. Another likely factor contributing to Moses way of handling justice was that Moses did not have helping hands tending Jethro s sheep. That was the drawback for his training for service when it came to organizing the people for self-governance. It took Jethro to offer Moses a better model for governance than the model for taking care of his sheep. Jethro could see the people in the seat of the judge and not just Moses alone. He was recommending a leadership role for the people that Moses reserved for himself alone.

The Midianite priesthood might be an organized order with priests installed at different ranks. Jethro would be at the top of the hierarchy. He appeared to be experienced in putting together organization of people for efficiency of administration. That accounted for the sound advice he gave Moses for organizing the people for governance.

Candidates who met the qualification would be appointed to the respective role of official over thousands, hundreds, fifties, tens. These officials were to serve as judges of the people at all times. They would handle simple cases themselves but refer all difficult ones to Moses. As the expert resource Moses needed to provide support for the judges when they did not know how to handle difficult cases. This would be a permanent arrangement that the officials would serve the people at all times. This way the people would become self-governing for the most part.

Teaching the people the decrees and laws, and showing them the way to live and the duties they were to perform would reduce the rate of dispute among the people. Appointing officials over the people would further reduce the need for them to come to Moses for arbitration. Delegating reduced Moses workload. Responsibility was delegated individually to each person as each obeyed the decrees and laws in everyday circumstance and corporately to the officials as they administered justice. In present-day terms Jethro gave Moses advice on how to improve efficiency of the judicial system and customer satisfaction with customers given the tools to manage their own welfare.

Jethro suggested that Moses run his recommendation by God and have it validated first before implementing it. Once it was confirmed and implemented, Jethro believed that Moses would be able to stand the strain and that the people would be satisfied with the service they received. Without knowing what Moses response to his advice would be, Jethro emphasized the incentives for change since Moses knew that without the organizational structure he would not be able to stand the strain of taking care of so many people by himself and the people would grumble about the inadequate service. Thus Jethro laid out in his recommendation a job description for Moses new role as teacher of God s people even though he was no longer Moses employer. It shows that Jethro was accustomed to handling things in this manner with Moses when Moses was tending his sheep.

Moses thought that the Israelites were not fit to govern themselves because they were former slaves. The image of the Hebrew bully fighting a fellow Hebrew was seared into his mind forty years before. The people could not possibly govern themselves if they fought among themselves. That was Moses rationalization for the way he treated them. Moses himself was actually not fit to govern them. His inferiority complex was not less degrading for him than the people s slave mentality for them.

As for the people they would remain stuck and paralyzed in their slave mentality that they would instinctively look up to someone outside of themselves to govern them. It was up to Moses to rectify his view of the people and to liberate them from their degraded perception of themselves that stood in the way of their self-governance as a free people. In the previous chapter the people struggled to take on the task to defend themselves as a free people. In the current chapter they needed to be weaned of their dependence on an external party for governance and be organized into a self-governing people.

Just as the people carried with them a lot of baggage in becoming God s people as former slaves, Moses carried with him a lot of baggage in becoming God s servant, having transitioned first from being a prince of Egypt and then from being a shepherd. While the people needed to continue to shed their slave mentality as God s people, Moses needed to be lifted from his inferiority complex to become the leader of God s people.

Jethro s recommendation would accomplish the developmental goal for both Moses and the people. When Moses heeded Jethro s advice, the people would indeed become self-governing as a free people, attain a better quality of inner being through internalizing God s decrees and laws, fully practice God s decrees and laws as God s people who would be replacing inhabitants of Canaan. In so doing Moses would instill significance in the people in God s sight and at the same time direct God s leadership over the people. The people as a whole would realize a greater self-worth and so would Moses - it was mutually reinforcing. Jethro s advice to Moses clearly refuted the zero-sum game mentality of self-esteem in relationship that Moses harbored. The future of the Israelites as a free people was hinged on whether Moses was going to heed Jethro s advice or not.

Once Jethro gave Moses the affirmation he badly needed, Moses unconditionally took in and implemented everything his father-in-law told him without consulting God because he knew it was the right thing to do. There was no one that Moses would take advice from like that other than his father-in-law. The affirmation from his father-in-law did for Moses what working those great big miracles could not - it was that dramatic. Moses began to see the people differently. They were not just some slaves who could not govern themselves and had to rely solely on him for governance; they were able to govern themselves too. They could learn God s decrees and laws and live them out on their own when properly taught. Jethro untied the knot for Moses and that in turn enabled Moses to untie the knot for the people. Jethro was a Godsend for Moses and the people.

Moses was duly released by his father-in-law to come out from under the shadow of his father-in-law so that he could be effective as the leader of God s people. Otherwise he would get totally bogged down by governing the people on a day-to-day basis and administering minutiae; he would get entangled with them rather than be their representative before God. With the task of governance becoming lighter for him, Moses could get himself ready for the next phase of his service as the teacher of the decrees and laws he would be receiving from God. Moses was about to go up Horeb to receive the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are the foundation of the laws of Moses. He needed to put aside the less important things in order to focus on the really important thing.

Moses further delegated his responsibility to even those who were not elders of the people.

^{Dt 1:12} But how can I bear your problems and your burdens and your disputes all by myself?

^{Dt 1:13} Choose some wise, understanding and respected men from each of your tribes, and I will set them over you.

^{Dt 1:14} You answered me, What you propose to do is good.

^{Dt 1:15} So I took the leading men of your tribes, wise and respected men, and appointed them to have authority over you as commanders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens and as tribal officials.

Collaboration took on an even broader scope. Social structure and organization began to take shape. The people had made a giant step toward self-governance.

The following passage of scriptures shows that Moses became compliant with God s command for him to teach the people God s decrees and laws.

^{Dt 6:1} These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess,

^{Dt 6:2} so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.

The following passage from the book of Joshua shows that Joshua as Moses successor followed Moses teaching for the people after Moses had died.

^{Jos 1:8} Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

While Jethro s recommendation seemed focused on solving the efficiency problem Moses faced in setting up the judicial system, it actually served a much greater purpose of the people being taught God s decrees and laws that was intended by God. He did it without even a hint that he was trying to solve a much greater problem and without taking the credit for it from Moses. He only took credit for solving the efficiency problem that he was in a position to do with his former employee.

God was speaking to Moses through Jethro to get Moses disentangled from his man-centered leadership over the people. In the course of time Moses tendency of man-centered leadership actually got worse and eventually got him into trouble with God such that he was not allowed to enter Canaan. We could see some early manifestation of his problem in the current chapter. Early on God would speak through others to Moses problem but over time Moses should have dealt with his own problem. God would not be dealing with him like dealing with a child in perpetually correcting him through others. It is important for a person in the position of spiritual leadership to be mindful of not regressing after a problem has been corrected.

From the biblical account of Jethro we know that Jethro was a friend of God, a priest, an advisor, an administrator and an organizational expert, and above all a father-in-law who was the father figure in his son-in-law s life and exercised crucial influence over his son-in-law s spiritual development.

Verse 27

In chapter 4 Zipporah circumcised her son and rendered Moses compliant with God s covenant of circumcision so that he could fulfill his destiny as deliverer of God s people from bondage in Egypt. That was the first phase of Moses responsibility. Now that the people had been delivered, Jethro advised Moses on how to engage the second phase of his responsibility as teacher of God s decrees and laws to the people so that the people could fulfill God s destiny for them in Canaan. Without Jethro and his daughter Moses would not have been able to handle his responsibility at critical junctures in his service to God in spiritual leadership.

Both Jethro and his daughter were outsiders who came to know the God of Israel later in life unlike Moses and the Israelites, though Moses himself was also an outsider of sort. In fact Jethro had just confessed his praise of the LORD as greater than all other gods. Yet Jethro and Zipporah were able to discern God s will for Moses and the people that Moses had not been able to. In fact we know Moses to be rather poor at doing God s will according to God s way and God s timing forty years before and even more recently. Perhaps we could say that Moses lacked spiritual acuity for God s will for both himself and others. God made up for the deficiency through his wife and father-in-law at critical junctures.

Jethro was molding Moses for life with his advice for Moses. Such advice served Moses well for the rest of his life as the leader of God s people. So now we should add Jethro and Zipporah to the short list of people Moses mother, Moses sister and Pharaoh s daughter who were significant in making Moses the man that he was.

What was going for Moses was that he was teachable and moldable and once he knew God s will, he would be doing it with perseverance and patient endurance for forty years. And he was considered to be faithful in all God s house. Moses developmental path had twists and turns and we have by now a fairly complete picture of it. He had many flaws the way we do and he struggled with them the way we do. There is surely no quantum leap for development. It takes time and incremental correction over the long haul. Moses the spiritual giant that we know was not overnight in the making. It is not healthy to ignore Moses flaws just because he worked great big miracles that none of us ever would and saw God face to face that none of us ever would in this life. Moses does not belong on the pedestal. He is not worthy anyway.

Jethro left and returned to his own country. From this point on Moses was reunited with his wife and two sons and the family would spend the next forty years in the desert with the people.