Exodus 18 Summary and Study Guide

Moses had faced down Pharaoh and outlasted Amalek, and the man who finally told him he was doing something wrong was his wife’s father. This Exodus 18 summary and study guide follows a Midianite priest into Israel’s camp, where he worships Israel’s God and then tells Moses to rebuild Israel’s courts.

Setting the Stage

Moses ran from Egypt as a young man after killing an Egyptian, and settled in Midian, the desert country east of the Red Sea. There he married Zipporah, the daughter of Midian’s priest, and kept his father in law’s sheep for forty years. Out with those sheep one day, at a mountain the Bible calls the mount of God, he heard God speak from a burning bush and send him back to Egypt (Exodus 3:1-10).

He went. Somewhere along the way he sent Zipporah and their two sons back to her father, and Scripture says nothing more about them until this chapter. Ten plagues and a sea crossing later, Israel is camped at that same mountain, and Moses is leading a nation. Now his father in law walks into camp with the family Moses sent home.

Comprehensive Exodus 18 Summary

Word of what God had done for Israel reached Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he set out to see his son in law. He brought Zipporah with him, and her two sons, whom Moses had sent back to Midian earlier. Their names told Moses’ own story: Gershom, because he had lived as a stranger in a foreign country, and Eliezer, because God had been his help against Pharaoh’s sword.

At the camp by the mountain of God, Moses came out to meet him, bowed, and kissed him. Inside the tent he told Jethro everything: what God did to Pharaoh and Egypt, the hardships on the road, and how God rescued them every time.

Jethro was glad. He blessed the LORD and said he now knew the LORD was greater than all gods, because God had beaten Egypt at the point where Egypt was proudest. Then he offered a burnt offering and other sacrifices, and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to share that meal with him before God.

The next morning Moses sat as judge, and the people stood in front of him from sunrise to sunset. Jethro asked why he was handling it alone. Moses answered that the people came to him for God’s ruling, and that he settled their disputes and taught them God’s laws.

Jethro told him plainly that it was not good, that he and the people would both wear out, and that the job was too heavy for one man. Keep the parts only you can do, he said: carry the people’s cases to God and teach them how to live.

Then appoint capable, God fearing, honest men as judges over groups of a thousand, a hundred, fifty, and ten. Small cases would stop there, and hard cases would still come up to Moses. Moses did all of it, and sent Jethro home to his own country.

One Word Summary

• Counsel: the chapter turns on advice given, tested, and taken.
• Burden: the chapter’s own word for what Moses was carrying alone.
• Shared: the load is carried with Moses, not taken from him.

In One Sentence

Jethro, the priest of Midian, comes to Moses at the mountain of God, worships the LORD after hearing what He did to Egypt, then tells Moses that judging Israel alone will wear him out and persuades him to appoint judges over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.

Theme of Exodus 18

Exodus 18 is about the limits of one man standing between God and a nation, and about the help God provides for him. Moses can carry Israel’s case to God, and he cannot settle every quarrel among them himself, and Jethro says so.

Two more ideas run alongside that one. God’s reputation travels, since a Midianite priest hears what He has done and comes to bless Him for it. And Moses keeps his usefulness here because he can still be told he is wrong.

Exodus 18 Outline

• Exodus 18:1-4: Jethro hears what God has done and receives Moses’ wife Zipporah and his two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, whom Moses had sent back.
• Exodus 18:5-6: Jethro brings the family to Moses in the wilderness at the mount of God and sends word ahead that he has come.
• Exodus 18:7-8: Moses goes out, bows, kisses him, and tells him everything the LORD did to Pharaoh and everything Israel suffered on the way.
• Exodus 18:9-11: Jethro rejoices, blesses the LORD for the rescue, and declares that the LORD is greater than all gods.
• Exodus 18:12: Jethro offers a burnt offering and sacrifices, and Aaron and all the elders of Israel eat bread with him before God.
• Exodus 18:13: Moses sits to judge the people, and they stand before him from morning until evening.
• Exodus 18:14-16: Jethro asks why Moses sits alone, and Moses answers that the people come to enquire of God, and that he judges between them and makes known God’s statutes and laws.
• Exodus 18:17-18: Jethro tells him the thing is not good, that he and the people will wear away, and that the work is too heavy for him alone.
• Exodus 18:19-20: Jethro tells Moses to keep standing before God for the people and to teach them the way they must walk and the work they must do.
• Exodus 18:21-23: Jethro sets out the qualifications for judges, the four ranks, the split between great and small matters, and the two results if God approves the plan.
• Exodus 18:24-26: Moses does all of it, chooses able men, makes them heads over the people, and keeps the hard causes for himself.
• Exodus 18:27: Moses sends his father in law away, and Jethro goes home to his own land.

The Judges Moses Appointed

Verses 21 to 23 set out who could be trusted with a share of Moses’ work and what each man would handle. Four things had to be true of him before he was given anything.

Four ranks were then set over the people, and each rank had a defined reach.

Two things stayed with Moses. Hard cases still came to him, and so did the work of representing Israel to God and teaching them His laws. The routine work went out; the go-between’s work stayed where it was.

Moses’ own account of this, given forty years later, adds a step the chapter here leaves out. In Deuteronomy 1:13 he tells them, “Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you.” The people named the men; Moses gave them their authority. The apostles did the same thing in Acts 6:3, telling the church to choose the seven.

Observations from Exodus 18

Moses is called someone’s father in law thirteen times in twenty-seven verses

The phrase “father in law” appears in verses 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12 twice, 14, 15, 17, 24 and 27. Every time Jethro is mentioned, Moses’ relationship to him is mentioned with him. The man who corrects the leader of Israel is family and an outsider at once, and the chapter keeps both facts in front of us while he speaks.

Jethro says “hand” three times in one sentence of blessing

In verse 10 Jethro says, “Blessed be the LORD, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.”

He is saying that God pulled Israel out of Egypt’s grip, out of Pharaoh’s grip, and out from under Egypt’s grip on them as a people. A man who was not there says the word again and again, and each time he names a grip God broke.

The chapter’s argument sits in two words: alone and with

Jethro’s question in verse 14 is “why sittest thou thyself alone.” His diagnosis in verse 18 is “thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.” His promise in verse 22 is that the new judges “shall bear the burden with thee.”

He is asking Moses to move from one word to the other. Nothing in his counsel takes the burden off Moses; it puts other shoulders under the same load.

The counsel and the obedience are printed in matching words

Verse 21 has “rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.” Verse 25 says the same of the men Moses chose.

Verse 22 divides great matters from small, and verse 26 shows that division working. Moses did not adapt the plan or improve on it. He did what he was told, in the words he was told it in.

The word for a heavy thing follows Moses through three chapters

In Exodus 17:12 “Moses’ hands were heavy” while Israel fought Amalek, and Aaron and Hur held them up. In Exodus 18:18 Jethro says “this thing is too heavy for thee.” Much later, in Numbers 11:14, Moses tells God, “I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.” The same man keeps arriving at the same word, and each time God sends other people to stand under it with him.

Difficult Verses Explained

Is Exodus 18 out of chronological order?

The chapter may be arranged by subject rather than by date, and Bible teachers have argued it both ways for centuries without a verdict Scripture settles. The case for a later date is that Jethro finds Israel “encamped at the mount of God” in verse 5, though Israel does not reach Sinai until Exodus 19:1, and that Moses’ own account in Deuteronomy 1:9-15 places the appointing of judges after Sinai, as Israel prepared to leave.

The case for the order we have is also drawn from the text: in verse 16 Moses says he makes the people “know the statutes of God, and his laws” case by case, which fits a time before there was a written code, and his long report to Jethro in verse 8 covers the exodus and the road without one word about the covenant at Sinai. Nothing the chapter teaches depends on which reading is right.

Is Moses’ father in law called Reuel, Jethro, or Hobab?

Scripture uses more than one name, and it does not stop to explain why. Exodus 2:18 calls Zipporah’s father Reuel, while Exodus 3:1 and 18:1 call him Jethro, and Numbers 10:29 calls Hobab “the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses’ father in law.” Two names for one man is ordinary in the Bible, as with Jacob and Israel or Simon and Peter, so Reuel and Jethro may be the same person.

The Hebrew word rendered “father in law” is also broad enough to cover other male relatives by marriage, which is why some teachers read Jethro as Moses’ brother-in-law and Reuel as his father. Hobab looks like a different man again, because Exodus 18:27 has Moses sending Jethro away while Numbers 10:29-32 has Moses pleading with Hobab to stay.

Was Jethro converted in verse 11, or did he already believe?

The text reports what Jethro said and did and never describes his heart, so the honest answer is that we are not told. He says in verse 11, “Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods,” which means he had learned something he did not know before.

In the next verse he offers a burnt offering and sacrifices, and Israel’s leaders sit down at that sacrifice with him, which reads like the act of a man already accepted as a worshipper of the true God. Some read verse 11 as the moment he came to faith; others read it as an established believer responding to fresh evidence.

Why had Moses sent Zipporah back to her father?

The Bible gives no reason. Verse 2 mentions the fact in passing, “after he had sent her back,” and Scripture had said nothing about Zipporah since Exodus 4:26. Bible teachers have suggested a rift after the strange incident on the road to Egypt in Exodus 4:24-26, or a decision to keep his wife and sons out of the danger he was walking into. Both are guesses, and the chapter neither confirms them nor blames Moses for the separation.

Was Jethro objecting to Moses sitting while the people stood?

No, and reading it that way misses his point. Bible scholars point out that in the courts of that world, sitting was the judge’s posture and standing belonged to the people bringing a case, so verse 13 is describing a court in session. The emphatic word in verse 14 is “alone.” Jethro’s complaint is the size of one man’s caseload, not the seating.

Did Jethro’s plan actually solve the problem?

It helped a great deal, and the weight Moses carried stayed with him. Verse 23 promised that Moses would “be able to endure,” and the courts described in verses 25 and 26 clearly worked.

Yet in Numbers 11:14 Moses tells God, “I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me,” and God answers by putting His Spirit on seventy elders. In Deuteronomy 1:9-12 Moses is still describing the load as more than one man can carry. Good structure lightened the work; it could not make a man into what only God is.

Common Misunderstandings

• That this is a chapter about time management. Jethro is not asking Moses to be more efficient. He is drawing a line between the work God gave Moses alone and the work any God fearing man of integrity could do, and the whole plan in verses 19 to 22 follows that line.
• That Moses was proud or wanted the attention. The chapter gives no motive. It shows him bowing to his father in law in verse 7, giving a straight answer out of God’s law for what he was doing in verses 15 and 16, and obeying without argument in verse 24. Numbers 12:3 calls him the meekest man on earth.
• That delegating means handing the work away. Verse 22 says the new judges “shall bear the burden with thee,” and verse 26 says “the hard causes they brought unto Moses.” The load was shared and the leader stayed in place.
• That the chapter ends the problem for good. Numbers 11:14 has Moses saying the same thing again, in the same words, long after these courts were running.

Christ Connection

Moses is doing three things at once for Israel in this chapter. He carries their cases to God, he judges between them, and he teaches them God’s law.

That is the work of a go-between, and it points forward to Christ, who is called “one mediator between God and men” in 1 Timothy 2:5, meaning the one person who stands between God and us and brings the two together. But the picture breaks at verse 18, and the break is where the gospel comes in.

Jethro tells Moses, “Thou wilt surely wear away,” which means Moses will wear out and fail like anything else that decays. Israel’s go-between would run down and stop.

Hebrews 7:23-25 takes up that exact problem and answers it: the priests under the old covenant “were not suffered to continue by reason of death,” but Christ “continueth ever” and so “is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” Jethro hoped Moses would be able to endure. Christ is the mediator who does.

The other half of Jethro’s diagnosis meets Christ just as directly. “This thing is too heavy for thee” (18:18) is answered by the invitation in Matthew 11:28-30: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest… for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Christ does not offer a better system for carrying an impossible load; He offers to carry it. One more scene in this chapter belongs beside that.

A Midianite priest offers sacrifice, and Aaron and all the elders of Israel sit down and eat with him in God’s presence (18:12), before Sinai, before the priesthood, before any wall between Israel and the nations had been built.

It pictures something Paul would later say had happened in fact, that those who were “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel” have been “made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:12-13), and it echoes Jesus’ own promise that “many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11).

When, Where, and Why

• When: After Israel’s victory over Amalek in Exodus 17 and before the covenant at Sinai in Exodus 19. Exodus 16:1 dates Israel’s arrival in the wilderness of Sin and Exodus 19:1 dates their arrival at Sinai in the third month, so the visit likely falls in the short span between them. The Bible gives no year for it, and some teachers place the visit itself later than its position in the book.
• Where: In the wilderness, “where he encamped at the mount of God” (18:5), meaning Horeb or Sinai. This is the same mountain where God had called Moses out of the burning bush while he was keeping Jethro’s flock (Exodus 3:1). Midian, where Jethro lived and where he returned in verse 27, is generally placed east across the gulf.
• Why: The chapter records Israel’s courts being set up before the law those courts would administer arrives. It also shows the reach of what God had just done, since a priest outside Israel heard about the exodus, came, and blessed the LORD for it. The last voice heard before Sinai belongs to a Midianite saying that Israel’s God is greater than all gods.

Key Verses

“Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them.”

Exodus 18:11

Jethro’s point is that God proved His superiority at the very place where Egypt was most arrogant. This is the chapter’s confession, and it comes from an outsider who was not at the Red Sea and only heard the report.

“The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.”

Exodus 18:17-18

Jethro says the arrangement is harming Moses and the people alike, and that effort will not fix it because the work is more than one man’s strength. He names the people as casualties alongside their leader.

“Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness.”

Exodus 18:21

Choose men who are capable, who reverence God, who tell the truth, and who hate the thought of a bribe. Three of the four requirements are about character rather than skill.

“If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace.”

Exodus 18:23

Jethro makes his own advice conditional on God’s approval before Moses acts on it, and then names two outcomes: Moses lasts, and the people reach their destination without strife.

Key Lessons from Exodus 18

• What God does for His people is heard by people who never saw it, and it can bring them to bless Him (18:1, 18:9-11).
• Moses told Jethro about the hardships on the road as well as the rescues, and a full account is a truer testimony than a tidy one (18:8).
• A servant of God who cannot be told he is wrong can wear himself out, and Moses’ greatness shows in verse 24 as much as in verse 13 (18:17-18, 18:24).
• Help that God sends is meant to be taken, and the one who takes it still carries the hard cases himself (18:22, 18:26).
• Good advice is still worth submitting to God before acting on it, which is what Jethro himself asked Moses to do (18:23).

For a much fuller treatment of what this chapter asks of us, read our companion study: 28 Life-Changing Lessons from Exodus 18.

Bible Study Questions

1. What had Jethro heard before he set out (18:1), and what did hearing about it produce in him when he arrived (18:9-12)?
2. Moses gives two reasons in verses 15 and 16 for handling everything himself. Were they good reasons, and what did Jethro answer?
3. Verse 21 lists four requirements for the men Moses was to appoint. Which one would be hardest to test in a person before giving him authority, and why?
4. Verse 22 says the new judges would bear the burden “with” Moses, and verse 26 says the hard cases still came to him. What does that tell you about what sharing a load is and is not?
5. Jethro makes the whole plan conditional on “and God command thee so” (18:23). What would it look like for you to test good advice that way?
6. Moses bows in verse 7 and obeys in verse 24. What does the chapter show about the place of correction in a life that serves God?

To test what you remember of the chapter, try our Exodus 18 Quiz with Answers, or step back and see where this chapter sits in The Book of Exodus Summary by Chapter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Exodus 18, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 When Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father in law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, and that the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt;

2 Then Jethro, Moses’ father in law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her back,

3 And her two sons; of which the name of the one was Gershom; for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land:

4 And the name of the other was Eliezer; for the God of my father, said he, was mine help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh:

5 And Jethro, Moses’ father in law, came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness, where he encamped at the mount of God:

6 And he said unto Moses, I thy father in law Jethro am come unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her.

7 And Moses went out to meet his father in law, and did obeisance, and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare; and they came into the tent.

8 And Moses told his father in law all that the LORD had done unto Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, and all the travail that had come upon them by the way, and how the LORD delivered them.

9 And Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which the LORD had done to Israel, whom he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians.

10 And Jethro said, Blessed be the LORD, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.

11 Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them.

12 And Jethro, Moses’ father in law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God: and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses’ father in law before God.

13 And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses sat to judge the people: and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening.

14 And when Moses’ father in law saw all that he did to the people, he said, What is this thing that thou doest to the people? why sittest thou thyself alone, and all the people stand by thee from morning unto even?

15 And Moses said unto his father in law, Because the people come unto me to enquire of God:

16 When they have a matter, they come unto me; and I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the statutes of God, and his laws.

17 And Moses’ father in law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good.

18 Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.

19 Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to God-ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God:

20 And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do.

21 Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:

22 And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.

23 If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace.

24 So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father in law, and did all that he had said.

25 And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.

26 And they judged the people at all seasons: the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves.

27 And Moses let his father in law depart; and he went his way into his own land.