Why art thou alone? (Exod 18)

Exodus 18 is pretty easy, because the notes here are mostly ones that have already been covered, I think, very well in this blog. The issue of the correct name of Moses' father-in-law is addressed here, while the question of the number of Gods there are is addressed here. The only other note given here is on the matter of an apparent lack of greeting for Moses' wife. There are a lot of things that could be said for that, such as the concept that this may be a cultural thing, but I think the best thing to point out is that the Bible does not say that Moses ignored his wife; it only makes special note of his greeting for his father-in-law. It may be that he did kiss his wife, but the fact that a man should kiss his wife is so commonplace as to be not worth mentioning. I don't know that I've ever mentioned kissing my wife in any of my blog entires, but if you assumed that mean that I never do, then you'd be quite mistaken. (FYI, I've never kissed my father-in-law.)

There is some interesting stuff here about Moses being advised to delegate some authority, which he does to apparently good end. One thing that's interesting about it is Moses' mention of "the statutes of God, and his laws." This is before our story has included any mention of God's law other than the Passover law. Is this story out of sequence, or has Moses already learned much of the law that is later formally presented, or is Moses assuming he alone knows what God wants? One could speculate endlessly.