Although the installation of elders on Moses' part came to pass in
accordance with the command of God, still it was Jethro upon whose
advice Moses besought God to lighten his burden, and to permit him
partly to transfer the leadership of the people to others. [166] Hence
he did not conceal the name of the adviser, but announced it to all the
people, and immortalized him as such in the Holy Scriptures; for he
deemed it praiseworthy to appreciate duly the merits of others. [167]
It had, however, been part of God's scheme to reward Jethro for the
love he bore the Torah; and for this reason did He allow it to come to
pass that Moses had to have his attention called to the plan of
installing the elders through his father-in-law, that the Holy
Scriptures might devote a whole chapter to the plan of Jethro. [168]
This, however, is not the only reward for Jethro's piety, who, in his
love for the Torah, excelled all proselytes. A miracle occurred on the
very first day of his arrival in camp for manna in his honor descended
at the noon hour, the hour of his arrival; and, moreover, in as great
quantities as was wont to rain down for sixty myriads of Israelites. He
did not have to exert himself to gather the food, for it came over his
body, so all he had to do was to carry his hand to his mouth to partake
of it. [169] Jethro, nevertheless, did not remain with Moses, but
returned to his native land. Moses, of course, tried to persuade his
father-in-law to stay. He said to him: "Do not think that we shall
continue to move thus slowly through the desert, nay, we shall now move
directly to the promised land." Only to urge Jethro to stay longer with
them did Moses use the words "we move," so that his father-in-law might
believe that Moses too would enter the promised land, for otherwise he
would hardly have allowed himself to be persuaded to join the march to
Palestine. Moses continued: "I do not want to mislead thee, hence I
will tell thee that the land will be divided only among the twelve
tribes, and that thou has no claim to possession of lands; but God bade
us be kind to the proselytes, and to thee we shall be kinder than to
all other proselytes." Jethro, however, was not to be persuaded by his
son-in-law, considering himself in duty bound to return to his native
land. For the inhabitants of his city had for many years made a habit
of having him store their valuable, as none possessed their confidence
in such a measure as he. If he had stayed still longer with Moses,
people would have declared that he had absconded with all these things
and fled to Moses to share it with him, and that would have been a blot
on his fair name and that of Moses. Jethro had furthermore made many
debts during the year in which he came to Moses, for, owing to the hail
God had sent upon Egypt before the exodus of Israel, a great famine had
arisen in Jethro's home too, and he had found himself obliged to lend
money for the support of the poor. If he were not now to return to his
home, people would say that he had run away in order to evade his
creditors, and such talk concerning a man of piety would have been
desecration of the Divine Name. So he said to Moses: "There are people
who have a fatherland, but no property there; there are also
property-holders who have no family; but I have a fatherland, and have
property there as well as a family; hence I desire to return to my
fatherland, my property, and my family." But Moses would not yield so
soon, and said to his father-in-law: "If thou dost not accompany us as
a favor, I will command thee to do so, that the Israelites might not
say thou hadst been converted to our religion only in the expectation
of receiving a share in the promised land, but hadst returned to thy
home when thou didst discover that proselytes have no claim on property
in the Holy Land. Through thy refusal to move with us, thou wilt give
the heathens an opportunity to say that the Jews do not accept
proselytes, since they did not accept even their own king's
father-in-law, but allowed him to return to his own land. Thy refusal
will injure the glory of God, for the heathens will keep away from the
true faith. But if thou wilt wander with us, I assure thee that they
seed shall share with us the Temple, the Torah, and the future reward
of the pious. How canst thou, moreover, who hast seen all the miracles
of God wrought for us during the march through the desert; who wert a
witness of the way in which even the Egyptians became fond of us - how
canst thou now depart from us? It is a sufficient motive for thee to
remain with us, in order to officiate as a member of the Sanhedrin, and
teach the Torah. We, on our part, want to retain thee, only that thou
mightest in difficult cases enlighten our eyes; for thou wert the man
who gave us good and fair counsel, to which God Himself could not
refuse His assent." Jethro replied: "A candle may glow in the dark, but
not when the sun and the moon; of what avail would my candle-light be?
I had, therefore, better return to my home city that I may make
proselytes of its inhabitants, instruct them in the Torah, and lead
them under the wings of the Shekinah." Amid great marks of honor, and
provided with rich gifts, Jethro returned to his home, where he
converted his kinsmen and his compatriots to the belief in the true
God, as he had intended. [170]
The descendants of Jethro later settled in Palestine, where the
fruitful land of Jericho was allotted to them as a dwelling place.
After the capture of Palestine, the tribes, by mutual consent, agreed
that the fertile strip of land at Jericho should fall to the share of
the tribe on whose land the Temple was to be erected. But when its
erection was postponed for a long time, they agreed to allot this piece
of land to Jethro's sons, because they, being proselytes, had no other
possession in the Holy Land. Four hundred and eighty years did the
descendants of Jethro dwell in Jericho, when, upon the erection of the
Temple at Jerusalem, they relinquished it to the tribe of Judah, who
claimed it as an indemnity for the site of the Temple. [171]
Jethro's descendants inherited his devotion to the Torah, like him
dedicating their lives entirely to its study. So long as Joshua lived,
they sat at this master's feet, but when he died, they said: "We left
our fatherland and came here only for the sake of studying the Torah;
if we were now to spend our time in cultivating the soil, when should
we study the Torah?" They therefore gave up their dwelling-place in
Jericho, and moved to the cold barren wilderness, to Jabez, who there
had his house of instruction. But when they there beheld the priests,
the Levites, and the noblest of the Jews, they said, "How can we,
proselytes, presume to sit beside these?" Instead of sitting within the
house of instruction, they remained at the entrance of it, where they
listened to the lectures, and in this manner made further progress in
the study of the Torah. [172] They were rewarded for their piety, their
prayer was heard by God, and their good deeds served as a protection to
Israel; and on account of their pious actions they were called "the
families of the scribes," the Tirathites, the Shimeathites, and the
Suchathites, names designating their piety and devotion to the Torah.
One of the descendants of Jethro was Jonadab, son of Rechab, who, when
he heard from a prophet that God would destroy the Temple, bade all his
children, as a toke of mourning, to drink no wine, use no oil for
anointing themselves, nor cut their hair, nor dwell in houses. The
Rechabites obeyed this command of their sire, and as a reward for this,
God made a covenant with them that their descendants should always be
members of the Sanhedrin, and teachers of Israel. The covenant with the
Rechabites was even stronger than that with David, for to the house of
the latter God promised to keep the covenant only if his descendants
were pious, but He made an unconditional covenant with the Rechabites.
God rewarded them for their devotion to Him in this way, although they
did not belong to the Jewish nation. From this one can gather how great
would have been their reward if they had been Israelites. [173]