Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 18:13-17

13 And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses sat to judge the people: and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening.

14 And when Moses’ father in law saw all that he did to the people, he said, What is this thing that thou doest to the people? why sittest thou thyself alone, and all the people stand by thee from morning unto even?

15 And Moses said unto his father in law, Because the people come unto me to inquire of God:

16 When they have a matter, they come unto me; and I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the statutes of God, and his laws.

17 And Moses’ father in law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good.

Moses had played host to Jethro when he first arrived, but on the next day he had to get back to his work as Israel’s judge. This was quite fortuitous, as it allowed Jethro to observe Moses’s process, and in the following verses we will see the key improvement that he had to offer.

Moses stood between all the disputes and difficulties of the people, delivering God’s judgment for them all. This is a key function that any large populace needs to have filled. Isolated individuals become a unified people in part by having

  1. A shared vision.
  2. Reliable rules that they all adhere to.
  3. Their smaller issues resolved before they can escalate into egregious affronts.

Moses was meeting all of those needs by sitting in judgment. Put more abstractly, a society needs a locus of control, just as an individual does, and without one it will dissolve into anarchy. But since the society is not a single person, that locus of control must be external instead of internal.

Of course, among a people that may have numbered over two million, the number of disputes that Moses heard must have been immense. As we will see tomorrow, this is exactly the problem that Jethro saw in Moses’s approach. Judging two million people was already too great of a burden, and the population was only going to increase, and Moses’s approach would not be able to scale upwards indefinitely. It would become literally impossible for one man to judge these people in this way. Something had to change.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 18:10-12

10 And Jethro said, Blessed be the Lord, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.

11 Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them.

12 And Jethro, Moses’ father in law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God: and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses’ father in law before God.

When we first were introduced Jethro we were told he was a priest in Midian, and I had wondered whether he was priest of the Lord. Today’s verses suggest that this was, indeed, the case. He praises God, making exclamations such as “blessed be the Lord,” and “now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods.”

Another reason to assume that Jethro was a priest of the Lord is the priestly function he then serves in verse 12, making sacrifices that were apparently acceptable before the Lord. It is interesting to note the foreshadowing of this verse. Jethro performs the ritual offering with Aaron present, and of course Aaron and his sons will soon be called to function in the same office. I see in these verses a sort of passing of the torch. Jethro had maintained the faith in Midian while Israel was held captive, and now that they were free he came to show them the rituals and formalities of worshipping God.

Jethro and his flock in Midian must have had a story of their own, but they would fade, while the Israelite story would continue for thousands of years. This reminds me of John the Baptist diminishing so that his cousin Jesus might increase. Jethro and John seem to have been righteous men that magnified their callings and fulfilled their purposes, yet they were willing to make way for the chosen ones that came to take the center stage.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 18:7-9

7 And Moses went out to meet his father in law, and did obeisance, and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare; and they came into the tent.

8 And Moses told his father in law all that the Lord had done unto Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, and all the travail that had come upon them by the way, and how the Lord delivered them.

9 And Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which the Lord had done to Israel, whom he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians.

We never heard what the Moses’s relationship with Jethro was like when he lived in the land of Midian, but from today’s verses it seems clear that Moses held great respect for his father-in-law. Moses met Jethro with utmost decorum and hospitality, and gave a full report of everything that had transpired since they had seen each other last.

It is interesting to hear of Jethro’s joyful reaction to all that Moses relates, given that we have just gone through some depressing chapters, with the Israelites losing the faith and reviling their deliverer time after time. We are even told in verse 8 that Moses specifically mentioned “all the travail that had come upon them by the way.” Yet in spite of all that trouble, it would seem that Jethro was able to see past all the travail to the greater, more optimistic picture. He was able to see with clear eyes the good that had happened, and was continuing to happen, and he rejoiced in the Lord.

We do not know exactly what Moses’s emotional state was in this moment, but the thought occurs to me that Jethro’s visit might have been just the encouragement Moses needed at this time. Jethro might have been an oasis of hope for Moses in the wilderness.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 18:1-6

1 When Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father in law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, and that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt;

2 Then Jethro, Moses’ father in law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her back,

3 And her two sons; of which the name of the one was Gershom; for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land:

4 And the name of the other was Eliezer; for the God of my father, said he, was mine help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh:

5 And Jethro, Moses’ father in law, came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness, where he encamped at the mount of God:

6 And he said unto Moses, I thy father in law Jethro am come unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her.

Back in Exodus 4, when Moses had left the land of Midian to return to Egypt, we were told that Moses had taken his wife, Zipporah, and sons with him. It was during this sojourn that Moses had been reproved for having not yet circumcised his sons, and Zipporah had done the deed for him.

Today we learn from verse 2 that Moses apparently sent his wife and children back to Midian, though, and they had resided there with Zipporah’s father while Moses finished his work in Egypt. We are never given an explanation as to why Moses had sent them back. Perhaps they were in danger from Pharaoh after the curses Moses brought against Egypt. Perhaps Moses’s calling required his constant attention, and they would receive more care in Jethro’s home.

In any case, it may very well have been an extended absence of multiple years, but at last the family was all together again. At the end of this chapter we will hear that Jethro did not stay with the Israelite people in the wilderness, though. He came simply to return Moses’s family to him, observed the good that had been done to the Israelite people, offered some counsel to Moses, and then took his leave and went back to his own land. Being a priest, he must have had a work and a flock of his own to attend to, and he only lingered long enough to show Moses the ropes for leading the sheep in this region.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Remembering Our Own Goodness

Sometimes we pine in the wilderness of our sin and shame, crying for some act of God to show us that we are still loved, even in spite of our wickedness. And, in some cases, maybe that really is what we need. But sometimes, in those situations, what we really need is to know that we can still love, even in spite of our wickedness.

I discovered this for myself recently, when I felt shut in a small room where I could not feel God’s light, even though all my past experiences told me that He still cared for and wanted me. As I prayed for Him to come and find me, I felt instead the urge to start singing. I was guided to a hymn I had never heard before, My Jesus, I Love Thee, and as I sang my redeclaration of love to my savior I felt my cold heart come back to life.

Knowing that God loves us is good, and is the first great testimony that we all require. But after that, the next great testimony is to know that there is an eternal goodness within us that we cannot kill. We need to remember our own spark of divinity, and have faith in ourselves to be better again. We need to learn, as I did that dark day turned bright, that even in the depths of our greatest shame we still have the ability to exclaim, “if ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.”

Posted on by Abe Austin

Called to Wait

I have been guilty of being frustrated when God does not immediately answer the good desires of my heart. If I come to Him in faith, surrender my situation to His care, and believe in His power to do what is right, then why do I not receive the desired results?

And to be clear, I don’t mean going to God and asking Him to give me fame or fortune. I mean asking Him to change my heart, to cure my selfishness and addiction, to mend my brokenness so that I can be a better person. These are clearly good things, ones that I genuinely feel are in alignment with God’s will for me, so why wouldn’t the desire to change be answered with transformation?

Recently, though, I felt this impatience rebuked as I considered the precedent that is set for us in the word of God. I do not feel the scriptures justifies my opinion that God would immediately deliver every good thing that is sought for. Rather, the Bible is full of examples of waiting, sometimes for very long periods of time, before the realization of promised blessings are fulfilled.

Think of Abraham being promised that he would be the father of a great nation, but that not coming to pass for hundreds of years. Think of Jacob having to toil for seven years to marry the woman of his dreams, only to be deceived and committing to serving another seven years for her. Think of Joseph waiting long periods as a slave in Potiphar’s house and then in prison, even though he had done no wrong. Think of Moses trying to help the Israelites, failing, and then living decades in Midian before being called to try again. Think of the Israelites, freed from Egypt, but waiting in the wilderness 40 years before they would receive the Promised Land. Think of Job being left to wallow in his afflictions for a full measure before he was restored. Finally, think of those that Christ healed, and how many of them had been held by their afflictions for years before their deliverance. For the woman with the issue of blood it was twelve years, for the man at the pool of Bethesda it was thirty-eight!

In some of these examples there was a period of waiting because the people were not ready, such as the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. In others, however, there was no personal fault, such as with Joseph, it was simply not yet the right time for his deliverance. So why could not either of these cases be the same with me? Maybe I’m not ready for my deliverance, but if I trust the Lord to prepare me eventually I will be. Or maybe I am ready, but it is not the right time according to the Lord’s wisdom, so I should rest in Him and let the better things come when they may. In either case, the fact that I have not yet been healed is not, in-and-of-itself evidence that something is going wrong. It may still be going exactly right. I might be rightly waiting in the wilderness, just where I’m supposed to be.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 17:13-16

13 And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

14 And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.

15 And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi:

16 For he said, Because the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.

At the end of the day, Joshua and the Israelite army prevailed and the Amalekites suffered a loss. However this was only a setback for the Amalekites, not an utter defeat. Nevertheless, the Lord used this opportunity to vow that He would, ultimately, “utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek.”

It is worth considering, has this vow been fulfilled? Referring to the Biblical record, it was almost accomplished in Saul’s military campaign, but Saul stopped short of the Lord’s mandate, and was sharply reproved for that, allowing the Amalekites to limp on, eventually becoming a thorn in the side of Israel once more.

We have no record that states the Amalekites were ever, completely eradicated, at least not by the Israelites. Perhaps they were conquered by the Assyrians or the Babylonians, or perhaps they were assimilated into other cultures, and the people have been “put out of remembrance” that way. Or, perhaps the people are still present to this day, and the Lord is biding His time before fulfilling His declaration.

A prophecy that we do know was fulfilled was the one given in verse 16. The Lord assured the Israelites that they would war with the Amalekites for generations, and as discussed yesterday, that most certainly did occur. Depending on whatever became of the Amalekites, perhaps in some form the feud still goes on even today.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 17:10-12

10 So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek: and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

11 And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.

12 But Moses’ hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

Moses, Aaron, and Hur climbed to the top of a hill, presumably to have a view of the battle below, and Moses raised his hands, which corresponded with Israel prevailing against their enemy. However, keeping one’s hands elevated for a prolonged time is actually a very difficult physical feat, let alone for someone quite advanced in age, as Moses was. So his hands grew heavy, and when he let them down Israel began to fall to their enemies.

This raises the question of what is the connection between the position of Moses’s hands and the prevailing of the Israelite army? Much like his staff, it seems likely that this was a physical representation of an abstract concept. Perhaps God was using the connection between raised hands and prevailing in battle to teach a lesson that a nation is subject to the strength of its leader, and a church to the strength of its prophet. When our government and spiritual leaders are weak and flawed, we all suffer. When they lack the fortitude to stand for their flock, then wolves begin to sneak in among the sheep.

And what does it mean to be weak and flawed? To not have one’s hands, or one’s labor, directed heavenward. When we lower our hands to the lower, earthward things, that is the precursor to destruction. If our leaders are more concerned with worldly wealth or social trends than acts of righteousness, the people are left vulnerable to their enemies.

And this is where Aaron and Hur come in. Moses couldn’t keep his hands up forever, so they were there to lend him the strength that he lacked, to keep his hands heavenward. So, too, the future Israelite kings were meant to take counsel and direction from the prophet, having their focus raised heavenward so that the people would follow in the right path. Leaders today should also surround themselves with those who have as their primary concern what is right, what is true, and what is good, according to the Lord.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 17:8-9

8 Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim.

9 And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand.

The account makes a sudden and dramatic shift, telling us now of an army of Amalekites that came to fight with Israel, even while they were still in the wilderness. As we have already seen, Israel’s sojourn in the wilderness was a time for them to prepare for life in the Promised Land. They had already had several lessons on how to rely upon the Lord and obey His word exactly, and now they were rehearsing the art of war, something that they would become very familiar with when they strove against the Lord’s enemies in the land of Canaan, including the Amalekites.

This is not the first that we have heard of the Amalekites, either. We heard of their forebearer back in Genesis 36:16, Amalek, who was the grandson of Esau, who was the brother of Jacob, who was himself the forebearer of the Israelites. As noted at the time, many of the nations that Israel fought in Canaan were people that branched off from the covenant bloodline. These fallen-away nations were a perfect foil to the Israelites, because they were similar, with a shared root, but had been twisted in pagan ways. They represent the beast that is too familiar, the evil that is too close for comfort, the worst version of our own selves.

The coming fight with the Amalekites also foreshadows Israel’s future in another way. Moses chose Joshua to lead God’s people in this battle, just as he would be chosen to preside over all of Israel after Moses’s death. Moses explains that he will help Israel in their fight, but from afar, while Joshua would be down in the ranks with them. So, too, Moses’s law would continue to aid and guide Israel after his passing, while Joshua would continue in the ranks.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 17:5-7

5 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go.

6 Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.

7 And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?

As with the story of the manna and the quail, the account given in today’s verses are repeated with more detail in Numbers. And, once again, there is a key difference between the account given here and the one in Numbers. Here God tells Moses “thou shalt smite the rock,” whereas in Numbers he is told only to “speak ye unto the rock.” This matters, because many people have read the Numbers account and interpreted Moses’s striking of the rock as the breach of faith for which God prohibited his entry to the Promised Land. Obviously that assumption would be inaccurate if today’s version of the story is the correct one, in which the Lord had actually instructed Moses to strike the rock. In that case, Moses’s failure must have been something else.

Personally, I see an argument from a narrative perspective as to why today’s account might be the correct one. In verse 5 God mentions that this is the rod “wherewith thou smotest the river,” referring to when Moses smote the river in Egypt and turned it to blood. The staff has a history of being used to smite, both literally and figuratively, and also working wonders upon the waters. It would therefore be thematically consistent for it to once again be used to smite the rock and miraculously bring forth water, all according to God’s wishes.

Moving on from the debate of which account is more accurate, though, let us note the clear symbolism in this verse. Moses smote the rock and water came out of it, providing life-sustenance to the people. In later references we will be told that the rock clave in two, causing a breach from which the water would flow. This immediately calls to mind the spear that pierced the side of Christ, creating the opening from which the water flowed out of his body. And this, of course, is symbolic of the spirit Christ is able to plant in all of our hearts through his sacrifice. This spirit is frequently referred to as a life-sustaining wellspring, constantly refreshing us, just as Israel was refreshed by this miracle in the desert.