Shadowland: Redemption

Shadowland: Redemption: Week 17

A System of Courts: Exodus 18

We have two interpretations. The differences hinge on whether Moses' acceptance of Jethro's advice was in error - and on whether he sent Zipporah back to her father after their fallout over circumcision, or when they returned to the Mount of God. One interpretation makes Zipporah a type of Israel, the other makes Jethro's advice a lesson in humility.

18:2 "After Moses had sent away his wife Zipporah" - Calvin had "no doubt but that [Moses] underwent, together with his family, that miserable yoke of bondage by which they were long oppressed, and by this proof evidenced his faithfulness, so that greater authority might attend his vocation," and Moses "sent away his wife to his father-in-law" for a visit upon their arrival in Midian.
Pink sees an estrangement between Moses and Zipporah in Exodus 4:25 when she calls him a "bridegroom of blood". That results in Zipporah going back to her father, as Israel's estrangement from Jehovah began with "his blood be on us and on our children". Matthew 27:25
18:3 "I have become a foreigner in a strange land" - the name of Zipporah's first son then foreshadows the scattering of Israel among the nations.
18:4 "God is my helper" - while the name of the second son speaks of God's remarkable preservation of Israel in her banishment.
18:5 "the mount of God" - and the time of her reunion speaks of how Israel will return to God when Christ returns to rule the earth.
18:13 "Moses took his seat to serve as judge" - God had apparently instructed Moses to do this. Matthew 23:2
18:16 "inform them of God's decrees and instructions" - this causes Pink to even see this reunion as not in chronological order, and taking place after the giving of the law.
18:17 What most commentators have against Jethro's advice is not that it wasn't good advice, but that God didn't say it. Pink says, "It is never the fruit of humility to depart from a Divinely appointed post."