Monday, February 27, 2023

Umberto Cassuto on the use of "Jethro" and "Reuel" for Moses' Father-in-law

  

His father-in-law is called here [in Exo 3:1] Jethro, and seemingly this presents a difficulty, for earlier the Bible refers to him as Reuel. The difficulty is not to be explained by the usual premise that the redactor excerpted mechanically texts from different sources, for it is inconceivable that the editor should not have noticed the discrepancy between the sources, and should unwittingly have put the two conflicting names within a few lines of each other. It seems more probable to suppose that there existed among the Israelites variant traditions concerning the man’s name, which were well known to the people, and that the Torah deliberately chose the name Reuel when alluding to him only as the priest of Midian, but preferred to use here, when speaking of him as Moses’ faither-in-law, the name Jethro [‎יִתְר֥וֹ Yithrō, from a stem meaning ‘abundance’, ‘superiority’], the more honoured designation, which points to his pre-eminent status. His importance rose in our estimation when he became Moses’ father-in-law. (Umberto Moshe David Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus [trans. Israel Abrahams; Varda Books, 2005], 30, comment in square brackets added for clarification)

 

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