Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Exodus 2:16 - 2:16

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com

Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Exodus 2:16 - 2:16


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Here Moses secured for himself a hospitable reception from a priest of Midian, and a home at his house, by doing as Jacob had formerly done (Gen 29:10), viz., helping his daughters to water their father's sheep, and protecting them against the other shepherds. - On the form יֹושִׁעָן for יֹושִׁעֵן vid., Gen 19:19; and for the masculine suffixes to יְגָרְשׁוּם and צֹאנָם, Gen 31:9. תִּדְלֶנָה for תִּדְלֶינָהַ, as in Job 5:12, cf. Ewald, §198a. - The flock of this priest consisted of nothing but צאן, i.e., sheep and goats (vid., Exo 3:1). Even now there are no oxen reared upon the peninsula of Sinai, as there is not sufficient pasturage or water to be found. For the same reason there are no horses kept there, but only camels and asses (cf. Seetzen, R. iii. 100; Wellsted, R. in Arab. ii. p. 66). In Exo 2:18 the priest is called Reguel, in Exo 3:1 Jethro. This title, “the priest of Midian,” shows that he was the spiritual head of the branch of the Midianites located there, but hardly that he was the prince or temporal head as well, like Melchizedek, as the Targumists have indicated by רבא, and as Artapanus and the poet Ezekiel distinctly affirm. The other shepherds would hardly have treated the daughters of the Emir in the manner described in Exo 2:17. The name רֵעוּאֵל (Reguel, friend of God) indicates that this priest served the old Semitic God El (אֵל). This Reguel, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses, was unquestionably the same person as Jethro (יִתרֹו) the חֹתֵן of Moses and priest of Midian (Exo 3:1). Now, as Reguel's son Chobab is called Moses' חֹתֵן in Num 10:29 (cf. Jdg 4:11), the Targumists and others supposed Reguel to be the grandfather of Zipporah, in which case אָב would mean the grandfather in Exo 2:18, and בַּת the granddaughter in Exo 2:21. This hypothesis would undoubtedly be admissible, if it were probable on other grounds. But as a comparison of Num 10:29 with Ex 18 does not necessarily prove that Chobab and Jethro were the same persons, whilst Exo 18:27 seems to lead to the very opposite conclusion, and הֹתֵן, like the Greek γαμβρός, may be used for both father-in-law and brother-in-law, it would probably be more correct to regard Chobab as Moses' brother-in-law, Reguel as the proper name of his father-in-law, and Jethro, for which Jether (praestantia) is substituted in Exo 4:18, as either a title, or the surname which showed the rank of Reguel in his tribe, like the Arabic Imam, i.e., praepositus, spec. sacrorum antistes. Ranke's opinion, that Jethro and Chobab were both of them sons of Reguel and brothers-in-law of Moses, is obviously untenable, if only on the ground that according to the analogy of Num 10:29 the epithet “son of Reguel” would not be omitted in Exo 3:1.