Exodus 18:14, commentary and pictures

Moses sat alone to judge and hear the people's disputes and questions, while all the people stood waiting by him from morning until evening. When his father-in-law Jethro saw all that he did, he asked what he was doing to the people and why he sat alone in this work. His work was to decide between one person and another and to answer by making God's will, statutes, and laws known. That arrangement was not good, for the thing was too heavy for one man to carry alone and would surely wear away both him and the people with him. The burden was to be shared with able, trustworthy men who fear God, love truth, and hate covetousness, to judge small matters at all seasons while only great and hard matters came to Moses, so that he would bring the causes to God and teach the people the way to walk, and he could endure and the people could go to their place in peace.

Moses Sitting Alone

Moses sat by himself to judge and hear the disputes and questions of the people, while all the people stood by him waiting from morning until evening. His work in that place was to decide between one person and another and to answer their questions by making known God's will, statutes, and laws. In doing this he acted as God's agent to receive and declare the words of the law, while the Lord Jesus Christ was Israel's Redeemer. When Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, saw all that Moses did to the people, he asked what Moses was doing to the people and why he sat alone in this work.

Jethro belongs to the account as a witness from the Gentile world chosen by God to reveal the principles of heaven. He helped Moses in many ways toward a correct faith, as far as he himself understood. When Zipporah rejoined her husband in the wilderness, she saw that this solitary judging from morning to evening was wearing away his strength and made her fears known to Jethro, after which Jethro suggested the measures for his relief. Moses readily accepted Jethro's counsel, but Aaron and Miriam resented that counsel and the appointment of seventy elders to help govern Israel, though they had not borne the burdens that made the help necessary. Miriam resented Zipporah for this intervention, regarding her as the cause of supposed neglect toward herself and Aaron and concluding that Zipporah's influence had kept Moses from taking them into his counsels as formerly.

Distributing Leadership's Burden

Jethro's question exposes an unsound arrangement in which one man was carrying the people's disputes and needs by himself from morning until evening while they stood waiting, and that sitting alone to judge and teach is the thing that is not good. God did not design that one man should carry all the responsibilities of judging and teaching alone. The charge was too heavy for Moses to perform alone and would surely wear away both him and the people with him.

The question therefore introduces the counsel that the burden of God's work must be shared and distributed, with others provided to help carry the responsibilities forward instead of leaving them on one person or on a ruling group. That distribution is taught as the true position of counsellors and boards of directors, and as a lesson that different regions should be managed with regard to their particular needs. Those chosen to help were to be able and fit, capable, wise, trustworthy, God-fearing, truthful and unselfish men, men of truth who hate covetousness, to serve as rulers of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens.

This description gives the standard for the men wanted as counsellors, with need for young men in different branches of the work and for old men as counsellors who answer to that standard, so that those entrusted with responsibility must be chosen carefully. The appointed judges were to judge ordinary, small, and lesser matters at all seasons, while only every great matter and the hardest cases were to be brought to Moses as chief leader. The chief leader's true place in that order is to bring the causes to God and to teach the people the ordinances, laws, and way to walk. In this way he can endure and the people can go to their place in peace.