After Moses had sent away his wife Zipporah, his father-in-law Jethro received her and her two sons. The verse acknowledges a domestic complexity that Exodus has not explained: Moses had sent Zipporah away at some point during the journey. The sending away is recorded without elaboration, and Jethro brings them back. The reunion is a family act that precedes the professional counsel Jethro will offer. Moses the leader of a nation is also a husband and father, and the reunion of his family is part of the wilderness story. The God who attends to cosmic events — parting seas, raining bread — is also the God who attends to family reunions in the desert. Nothing in the human story is too small for the narrative to record.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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