Moses' father-in-law clearly has a great deal of management experience. It is no accident that he is the one who advises Moses to create the first administrative apparatus in the history of the people. One might think that the point here is only Moses' desire to shift part of the burden of governing the people onto others. And that is understandable: why should he personally decide every case and sort out every problem that arises? His task is prophetic ministry; he must be the mediator between God and the people, since the people need a mediator. The rest can be entrusted to others.

In reality, however, everything is more complicated. In addition to easing Moses' own burden, there is also an attempt here to make the people at least somewhat responsible for their own life and their own affairs, because those who rule over the people are chosen by the people themselves. No one chose Moses; he is a leader appointed by God. Any claims can be made against him without taking responsibility for anything: after all, he, Moses, is the initiator of everything he does. God leads him, so let him solve his own and our problems with God while we wait.

Now everything changes: the people choose the new leaders for themselves. Now it will no longer be possible to remove responsibility from oneself completely, because the one who chooses is always responsible for those whom he chooses. Besides, now disobedience to these chosen leaders becomes, at the very least, obviously inconsistent for everyone. First choose elders for yourselves, and then ignore their instructions, not listen to orders, simply disregard them? Any reasonably normal person in such a case would simply stop respecting himself, and those around him would scarcely take him seriously either.

The issue, then, is training in the most elementary responsibility: responsibility connected with authority, with its delegation, and with conscious obedience to those whom one has chosen as leaders. Of course, not everything always goes smoothly here, but people learn from mistakes, and there is no other way to learn responsibility. The people will still have to settle the land promised to them by God, and the experience gained in this way will be very useful there. Without it, no more or less normal life can be arranged on the land given by God.

On the one hand, this is a story that, in legendary form, tells of the beginning of "civilization," of organization within the people who left Egypt for the wilderness with Moses. On the other hand, behind this organization one can see the ambiguity of any mediation between God and people. Moses, as prophet and "spiritual leader" of Israel, is condemned to this mediation, but its burden is unbearable for a human being, because only God Himself can fully bear it. To ease his task, Moses appoints many "leaders" who are ready to share with him responsibility for the people before God. The more people are able to stand before God on their own, the closer His goal becomes: each person's involvement in a relationship of love with the Creator. Later, in a similar episode (Numbers 11), we will see that in the Bible such participation in common responsibility is understood as participation in God's Spirit, in whom this love is brought about...

Today's passage tells of Moses meeting his father-in-law Jethro in the wilderness. It is no surprise that when they meet, Moses tells him about everything that happened in Egypt and on the way to Sinai (vv. 5-8). What is more unusual is Jethro's reaction: he in fact acknowledges the God of Moses as the true God (vv. 9-12). Still, there is a logic to such an acknowledgment. After all, in the Bible Jethro is called a "prophet" (v. 1; Ex. 2:16, 3:1). Not a "priest," as we read in the Synodal translation, but precisely a "prophet," because the Hebrew word used here, "kohen," denotes a priest only when it refers to the Levitical priesthood that appeared later and existed only among the Jews. Before the Levitical priesthood appeared, this word denoted precisely a prophet, as did words related to it in other Semitic languages.

Which god Jethro served is something we can only guess, because practically nothing is known about the religion of the Midianite tribe, or about the tribe itself. But something else is known: prophets of all times and peoples were distinguished by having direct contact with higher powers and often communicating directly with the gods they served. From there, everything depended only on Jethro's readiness to hear the God of Moses and accept Him.

For mystical experience in itself is neutral. The person who undergoes it differs from other people only in that he possesses certain special psychic abilities that others do not possess, or possess to a lesser degree. How he uses these abilities depends on the person himself. They can be used for self-assertion, or they can be used for serving God. One can listen to the voices of numerous spirits, or one can listen to the voice of God. And of course it depends only on the person himself whether he listens to the witness of someone who has experienced a meeting with the One, or leaves that witness unnoticed. In the second case, no mystical abilities will help him: he will never come to know the one true God. In the first case, he will know Him, and his special mystical giftedness will help him know Him even more deeply and communicate with Him more intensely.

Like any gift, the prophetic gift can either bring a person closer to God or move him farther from Him. Here everything depends on the person's own choice.