God spoke to Moses, did he not? Yet Moses very prudently and humbly yielded to the advice of his father-in-law, foreigner though he was, with regard to governing and directing such a mighty nation. For he realized that from whatever intellect right counsel proceeded, it should be attributed not to him who conceived it but to the One who is the Truth, the immutable God.

Moses, who speaks with God, is judged by the reproof of Jethro, a man of alien race, on the ground that he devotes himself by his ill-advised labor to the earthly affairs of the people. At the same time counsel is given him to appoint others in his place for the reconciling of quarrels, so that he himself may be more free to learn the secrets of spiritual matters for teaching the people.

Moses in fact took care to appoint teachers of reading and writing for God’s people before they had any written record of God’s law. The Septuagint Scripture calls these instructors grammatoeisagogoí,^[1] which is Greek for bringers-in of letters, because they brought them, in a sense, into their students’ minds or perhaps introduced their students to them.

For nothing was ever more humble than he, who, being leader of so great a people, and having overwhelmed in the sea the king and the host of all the Egyptians, as if they had been flies, and having wrought so many wonders both in Egypt and by the Red Sea and in the wilderness, and received such high testimony, yet felt exactly as if he had been an ordinary person. As a son-in-law he was humbler than his father-in-law; Moses took advice from him and was not indignant. Nor did he say, What is this? After such and so great achievements, have you come to us with your counsel?