Exodus 3:1-15 CRF – In-Law Problems
Reuel/Jethro/Hobab
When Moses fled to Midian, he was quick to settle down and marry Zipporah. Exodus 2:18 tells us that Zipporah was daughter of Reuel, the priest of Midian. Only a few verses later (but 40 years into the future), we are told that Moses is keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, priest of Midian (3:1). This alone does not present us with much of a problem. Double names are quite common in the Bible (Jacob/Israel, Abram/Abraham, etc.). It is easy to suppose that Reuel changed his name to Jethro somewhere in those 40 years between chapters 2 and 3. Some even suppose he changed it on behalf of his new “royal” son-in-law Moses (“Reuel” means “friend of God” or “shepherd of God,” whereas “Jethro” means “abundance/superiority”; Hannah, “Exodus,” Bible Knowledge Commentary, 111).
However, later passages of Scripture make the matter even more complicated. In Judges 4:11, the author writes, “Now Heber the Kenite had separated from the Kenites, the descendants of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses…” (ESV) So here, Moses’s father-in-law is called Hobab. Is the man known by three names? And why is Hobab said to be a Kenite instead of a Midianite? Perhaps one is a smaller region within the other, or the two are synonymous (Propp, Exodus 1-18, 173). So even here, there are supposedly easy solutions to the problem.
But wait… there’s more! Numbers 10:29 reads: And Moses said to Hobab the son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’ father-in-law, “We are setting out for the place of which the LORD said, ‘I will give it to you…’” (ESV). There, Hobab is called the son of Reuel, and Reuel is back to being called a Midianite again. This is not so easily reconciled. Hobab and Reuel cannot both be the father-in-law of Moses while Hobab is at the same time Reuel’s son.
Liberal scholars attempt to explain the problem away by claiming that these passages were written at different times by different people or schools of people, then the traditions were sloppily stitched together and the contradictions left unreconciled. But this approach blatantly ignores clear teaching from both Testaments regarding Moses’s authorship of the Torah. It is also logically incoherent. Why is it acceptable for a “redactor” (editor who stitched the final product together) to leave such problems, but unacceptable for a single author to have produced this final product? This view is untenable for multiple reasons.
Others have attempted to reconcile the passages with varying degrees of ingenuity. The word “father” in Hebrew can legitimately be understood as “grandfather” (and likewise, “son” can be “grandson” just as easy). If my grandfather were alive, he would be the “father-figure” of our family, even though he is not my “father” in the strictest sense of the term. And many scholars have pointed out that the word “father-in-law” might not be “pointed” correctly (see the discussion below on the Masoretic vowel system – “repointed” means different vowels are exchanged for the ones the Masoretes thought were correct. It doesn’t change the text of Scripture, but the Masoretic interpretation of Scripture). The repointing could lead us to nearly any type of “in-law,” including brother-in-law or son-in-law (Cole, Exodus, 61; Hannah, “Exodus,” Bible Knowledge Commentary, 111; Durham, Exodus, 22).
To summarize, “father” can mean more than just biological father. “Son” can mean more than biological son. “Father-in-law” may have originally been meant to be understood as another type of in-law.
This opens up our options. Here’s what we now “know”:
A) Reuel is a father or grandfather to Zipporah (Ex 2:18).
B) Jethro is Moses’s in-law (Ex 3:1).
C) Hobab is Moses’s in-law (Jdgs 4:11, Num 10:29).
D) Reuel is Hobab’s father or grandfather (Num 10:29).
What can be done with this knowledge? A great deal, to say the least.
One view, dating back to the ancient rabbis, contends that Reuel is Zipporah’s grandfather. Thus as the living head of the family, he could be rightly called the “father” of Zipporah and “father-in-law” of Moses. Jethro would then be Zipporah’s biological father, and he is introduced in Ex 3:1 because by that time his father Reuel had passed and he was now the head of the household. Hobab could then be another son of Reuel, younger brother of Jethro, uncle of Zipporah, or he could be the grandson of Reuel, nephew of Jethro, cousin of Zipporah. Reuel is mentioned in Exodus 2 because he was the head (“father”) of the clan at that time, Jethro is mentioned in Exodus 3 because his father Reuel passed in the intervening 40 years and now he is the “father,” and Hobab is the focus in Numbers because between Exodus 18 and Numbers 10, Jethro died and Hobab took over as head of the clan, Jethro having only seven daughters and no sons (see Garrett, Exodus, 183).
These two options could be charted like this:
The difficulties I see with these two views is it makes Hobab Moses’s uncle-in-law (Option #1) or cousin-in-law (Option #2). Though this may not be impossible with the Hebrew “in-law” term in Jdgs 4:11, it is also not normal, straightforward or the clearest option.
Both of these views assume that Reuel, Jethro and Hobab are different individuals. What if Reuel and Jethro are the same individual with dual names? Then Hobab would either be a son of Reuel/Jethro and brother-in-law to Moses, or Reuel/Jethro would be the grandfather of Zipporah, with Hobab being the biological father of Zipporah and the “father-in-law” of Moses in the traditional sense. These two options could be charted like this:
There are still more options. Jethro and Hobab could be the same person, with Reuel being the grandfather of Zipporah (Houtman, Exodus V1, 81). Hobab could be Moses’s son-in-law, having married an otherwise-unknown daughter of Moses (Propp, Exodus 1-18, 173). And so on.
There is still yet another avenue to explore to solve the mystery of Moses’s in-law(s). Sarna suggests that “Jethro” might not be a proper name, but an honorific or priestly title, meaning something like “His Excellency” (Exodus, 12; cf. Enns, Exodus, 95). This is just another way of identifying Reuel and Jethro as the same individual. Another way to get at the same thing is to say the opposite, that Jethro was the man’s usual name, with Reuel being his clan name (akin to a last name today; see Stuart, Exodus, 99).
These are just a few of the ways around this difficult issue (without castrating the divine authorship of Scripture by positing multiple and contradictory sources). The point is, there is a solution. Moses meant something coherent when he wrote Exodus and Numbers, as did the author of Judges. We should not assume that they were ignorant of the other passages, but rather, that they saw a way these passages connected without contradiction, according to the normal and fair usage of the Hebrew language.
And you thought your in-laws were difficult to handle…
Yahweh + Adonai = Jehovah
You might have noticed when reading your Bible that sometimes the word “LORD” is in all capital letters. This is the translators’ way of letting you know that they are translating the Hebrew word “Yahweh,” God’s personal, covenantal name in the Old Testament. Originally, the word was written only with consonants: YHWH (hwhy). Several centuries after the New Testament was written, a group of Jewish scribes called the Masoretes invented a system of vowels that were placed in, under and above the consonants of the Hebrew alphabet. They did this in order to preserve the exact pronunciation of the Hebrew words. The system ingeniously enabled them to preserve the pronunciation without changing the text of Scripture itself.
Sometime in the second temple period, Jews stopped reading the name “Yahweh” out loud. This was likely done out of reverence for the divine name, and also to avoid breaking the commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain” (Ex 20:7). Instead, when reading Scripture out loud, they would substitute the word hashem (~vh), meaning “the name.” Or, they would read Adonai (ynda), meaning “lord/master.”
Eventually, the Masoretes began to put the vowels of the word Adonai beneath the consonants of Yahweh. To English-ize it, it would look something like this: YaHoWaH. Read that out loud. Does it sound familiar?
That’s right… it’s where we get the word Jehovah. The word “Jehovah” is a misunderstanding and misreading of the Masoretic system of writing the divine name (Schnittjer, The Torah Story, 213-4; Cole, Exodus, 70). “Jehovah” doesn’t actually represent any known pronunciation of God’s name from the Scriptures.
So, I hate to break it to those who love that song “Days of Elijah” where we repeatedly sing the chorus, “There’s no God like Jehovah.” There is no God named “Jehovah.” Jehovah is a misunderstood mix of God’s written name and another word.
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