EXPOSITION
DEPARTURE OF JETHRO. The time of Jethro's departure, and indeed of his entire visit, has been matter of controversy. Kurtz is of opinion that Jethro waited till the news of Israel's victory over Amalek reached him, before setting out from his own country. Hence he concludes, that "a whole month or more may easily have intervened between the victory over Amalek and the arrival of Jethro," whose arrival in that case "would not even fall into the very earliest period of the sojourn at Sinai, but after the promulgation of the first Sinaitic law." Those who identify Hobab with Jethro find in Numbers 10:29-32 a proof that at any rate Jethro prolonged his visit until after the law was given, and did not "depart to his own land" before the removal of the people from the wilderness of Sinai to that of Paran, "in the 20th day of the second month of the second year" (ib, Numbers 10:11). The position, however, of Numbers 18:1-32; together with its contents—beth what it says and what it omits—are conclusive against this view. Jethro started on his journey when he heard "that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt" (Numbers 18:1), not when he heard that Israel had been victorious over Amalek. His conversation with Moses (Numbers 18:7-11) ranged over the entire series of deliverances from the night of the departure out of Egypt to the Amalekite defeat, but contained no allusion to the giving of the law. The occupation of Moses on the day after his arrival (Numbers 18:13) is suitable to the quiet period which followed the Amalekite defeat, but not to the exciting time of the Sinaitic manifestations. It may be added that the practice of inculcating general principles on occasion of his particular judgments, of which Moses speaks (Numbers 18:16), is suitable to the period anterior to the promulgation of the law, but not to that following it. The argument from Numbers 10:29-32 fails altogether, so soon as it is seen that Jethro and Hobab are distinct persons, probably brothers, sons of Reuel (or Raguel), and brothers- in-law of Moses.