Exo 18:13-26 | KD | STEP | The next day Jethro saw how Moses was occupied from morning till evening in judging the people, who brought all their disputes to him, that he might settle them according to the statutes of God. על עמד: as in Gen 18:8. The people came to Moses “to seek or inquire of God” ( ), i.e., to ask for a decision from God: in most cases, this means to inquire through an oracle; here it signifies to desire a divine decision as to questions in dispute. By judging or deciding the cases brought before him, Moses made known to the people the ordinances and laws of God. For every decision was based upon some law, which, like all true justice here on earth, emanated first of all from God. This is the meaning of , and not, as Knobel supposes, that Moses made use of the questions in dispute, at the time they were decided, as good opportunities for giving laws to the people. Jethro condemned this plan (Gen 18:18.) as exhausting, wearing out (נבל lit., to fade away, ), both for Moses and the people: for the latter, inasmuch as they not only got wearied out through long waiting, but, judging from , very often began to take the law into their own hands on account of the delay in the judicial decision, and so undermined the well-being of the community at large; and for Moses, inasmuch as the work was necessarily too great for him, and he could not continue for any length of time to sustain such a burden alone ( ). The obsolete form of the inf. const. עשׂהוּ for עשׂתו is only used here, but is not without analogies in the Pentateuch. Jethro advised him (Gen 18:19.) to appoint judged from the people for all the smaller matters in dispute, so that in future only the more difficult cases, which really needed a superior or divine decision, would be brought to him that he might lay them before God. “ I will give thee counsel, and God be with thee (i.e., help thee to carry out this advice): Be thou to the people האלהים מוּל, towards God, ” i.e., lay their affairs before God, take the place of God in matters of judgment, or, as Luther expresses it, “take charge of the people before God.” To this end, in the first place, he was to instruct the people in the commandments of God, and their own walk and conduct (הזהיר with a double accusative, to enlighten, instruct; שדרך the walk, the whole behaviour; מעשׂה particular actions); secondly , he was to select able men (חיל אנשׁי men of moral strength, 1Ki 1:52) as judges, men who were God-fearing, sincere, and unselfish (gain-hating), and appoint them to administer justice to the people, by deciding the simpler matters themselves, and only referring the more difficult questions to him, and so to lighten his own duties by sharing the burden with these judges. מעליך הקל ( ) “make light of (that which lies) upon thee.” If he would do this, and God would command him, he would be able to stand, and the people would come to their place, i.e., to Canaan, in good condition (בּשׁלום). The apodosis cannot begin with וצוּך, “then God will establish thee,” for צוּה never has this meaning; but the idea is this, “if God should preside over the execution of the plan proposed.”

‏ Exodus 18:13-26

The next day Jethro saw how Moses was occupied from morning till evening in judging the people, who brought all their disputes to him, that he might settle them according to the statutes of God. על עמד: as in Gen 18:8. The people came to Moses “to seek or inquire of God” (Gen 18:15), i.e., to ask for a decision from God: in most cases, this means to inquire through an oracle; here it signifies to desire a divine decision as to questions in dispute. By judging or deciding the cases brought before him, Moses made known to the people the ordinances and laws of God. For every decision was based upon some law, which, like all true justice here on earth, emanated first of all from God. This is the meaning of Gen 18:16, and not, as Knobel supposes, that Moses made use of the questions in dispute, at the time they were decided, as good opportunities for giving laws to the people. Jethro condemned this plan (Gen 18:18.) as exhausting, wearing out (נבל lit., to fade away, Psa 37:2), both for Moses and the people: for the latter, inasmuch as they not only got wearied out through long waiting, but, judging from Gen 18:23, very often began to take the law into their own hands on account of the delay in the judicial decision, and so undermined the well-being of the community at large; and for Moses, inasmuch as the work was necessarily too great for him, and he could not continue for any length of time to sustain such a burden alone (Gen 18:18). The obsolete form of the inf. const. עשׂהוּ for עשׂתו is only used here, but is not without analogies in the Pentateuch. Jethro advised him (Gen 18:19.) to appoint judged from the people for all the smaller matters in dispute, so that in future only the more difficult cases, which really needed a superior or divine decision, would be brought to him that he might lay them before God. “I will give thee counsel, and God be with thee (i.e., help thee to carry out this advice): Be thou to the people האלהים מוּל, towards God,” i.e., lay their affairs before God, take the place of God in matters of judgment, or, as Luther expresses it, “take charge of the people before God.” To this end, in the first place, he was to instruct the people in the commandments of God, and their own walk and conduct (הזהיר with a double accusative, to enlighten, instruct; שדרך the walk, the whole behaviour; מעשׂה particular actions); secondly, he was to select able men (חיל אנשׁי men of moral strength, 1Ki 1:52) as judges, men who were God-fearing, sincere, and unselfish (gain-hating), and appoint them to administer justice to the people, by deciding the simpler matters themselves, and only referring the more difficult questions to him, and so to lighten his own duties by sharing the burden with these judges. מעליך הקל (Gen 18:22) “make light of (that which lies) upon thee.” If he would do this, and God would command him, he would be able to stand, and the people would come to their place, i.e., to Canaan, in good condition (בּשׁלום). The apodosis cannot begin with וצוּך, “then God will establish thee,” for צוּה never has this meaning; but the idea is this, “if God should preside over the execution of the plan proposed.” Exo 18:24

Moses followed this sage advice, and, as he himself explains in Deu 1:12-18, directed the people to nominate wise, intelligent, and well-known men from the heads of the tribes, whom he appointed as judges, instructing them to administer justice with impartiality and without respect of persons. Exo 18:25-27

The judges chosen were arranged as chiefs (שׂרים) over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, after the analogy of the military organization of the people on their march (Num 31:14), in such a manner, however, that this arrangement was linked on to the natural division of the people into tribes, families, etc. (see my Archäologie, §140). For it is evident that the decimal division was not made in an arbitrary manner according to the number of heads, from the fact that, on the one hand, the judges were chosen from the heads of their tribes and according to their tribes (Deu 1:13); and on the other hand, the larger divisions of the tribes, viz., the families (mishpachoth), were also called thousands (Num 1:15; Num 10:4; Jos 22:14, etc.), just because the number of their heads of families would generally average about a thousand; so that in all probability the hundreds, fifties, and tens denote smaller divisions of the nation, in which there were about this number of fathers. Thus in Arabic, for example, “the ten” is a term used to signify a family (cf. Hengstenberg, Dissertations v. ii. 343, and my Arch. §149). The difference between the harder or greater matters and the smaller matters consisted in this: questions which there was not definite law to decide were great or hard; whereas, on the other hand, those which could easily be decided from existing laws or general principles of equity were simple or small. (Vide Joh. Selden de Synedriis i. c. 16, in my Arch. §149, Not. 3, where the different views are discussed respecting the relative positions and competency of the various judges, about which there is no precise information given in the law.) So far as the total number of judges is concerned, all that can be affirmed with certainty is, that the estimated number of 600 judges over thousands, 6000 over hundreds, 12,000 over fifties, and 60,000 over tens, in all 78,600 judges, which is given by Grotius and in the Talmud, and according to which there must have been a judge for every seven adults, is altogether erroneous (cf. J. Selden l.c. pp. 339ff.). For if the thousands answered to the families (Mishpachoth), there cannot have been a thousand males in every one; and in the same way the hundreds, etc., are not to be understood as consisting of precisely that number of persons, but as larger or smaller family groups, the numerical strength of which we do not know. And even if we did know it, or were able to estimate it, this would furnish no criterion by which to calculate the number of the judges, for the text does not affirm that every one of these larger or smaller family groups had a judge of its own; in fact, the contrary may rather be inferred, from the fact that, according to Deu 1:15, the judges were chosen out of the heads of the tribes, so that the number of judges must have been smaller than that of the heads, and can hardly therefore have amounted to many hundreds, to say nothing of many thousands.