Update May 21st 2018
Today is the 2nd day of the 7th week of seven weeks. Today is the 44th day of the counting of fifty days from the day of the waving of the Omer on the morrow after the Sabbath.
Original Post May 21st 2012
28 Ziv 1313 BC
Moses takes some time out of his busy schedule for some family time –
Now Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel His people, how the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt. Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness where he was encamped at the mountain of God. And when he sent word to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons with her,” Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him. And they asked each other of their welfare and went into the tent. Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the LORD had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way, and how the LORD had delivered them. And Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the LORD had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians.
Moses always seems to respect his father-in-law, he even asked his permission before leaving on God’s mission to deliver the children of Jacob. Now Moses rushes out to welcome him, he bows down to him and kisses him, his reception for his wife’s father is reminiscent of Joseph’s welcome to his father Israel when he arrived in Egypt Gen 46:29
We are also reminded here that Jethro is a priest, must be a pagan priest, worshiping pagan gods. What did this nomad hear while he was tending his flocks and his family, that the newly escaped Israelites had defeated the mighty Amalek, or the big miracle, our Lord’s parting of the Red Sea.
It is said by Hebrew theologians that Jethro thought that there were two gods: one who does evil and one who does good. Then he heard about Moses’ God who both drowned the Egyptians and saved the Children of Israel at the same time with one blow of the wind, he realized that the same One performs evil and good.
So this idolatrous priest came to convert, he tells Moses –
“Now I know that Jehovah is greater than all gods, because he delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians, when they dealt arrogantly with them.”
And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, offered a burnt offering and sacrifices to God; and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God. Exo 18
Do you think that Moses’ witness, his respectful countenance, had anything to do with Jethro’s conversion, or was it all due to the miracles?
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