Troublesome Topic: EXODUS 18 ON HUMAN JUDGES AND ELOHIM

Let’s take a closer look at Exodus 18 regarding the term Elohim and the word judge.

Ex 18:13         Moses sat to judge the people.

Ex 18:14         Jethro said, “you sit alone [to judge]”

18:15               Moses: “because the people come to me to inquire of God (Elohim)”

18:16               Moses contd: “they come, I judge between one and another and make know the statutes of haElohim (the Elohim) (Elohim after the preposition “of” has an article), and his laws (plural noun with singular pronoun).

18:19               Jethro said, “Now listen to my voice, I will give you counsel, and [may] God (Elohim) be with you (plural noun and singular verb); you stand for the people before God (the Elohim, or the mighty one/ones) and you bring in the cases to God (the Elohim, or the mighty one/ones) (Elohim after the preposition “to” has an article).

18:21               Moses was advised by Jethro to choose men who fear God, men of truth who hate covetousness, to serve as rulers over thousands, hundreds and tens.

18:22               “and let them judge the people.”

18:25               Moses chose men and made them heads/chiefs over the people, rulers over thousands, hundreds and tens.

18:26               so they judged the people.

Summary:  In Exodus 18 the situation is definitely about Moses and then other humans serving as judges for the people. They did this using the decrees and laws given to them by God, just as Moses had done (v. 16). People were inquiring of God and they heard the will of God through human judges that knew God’s statues well and could apply them to situations that may not have been mentioned specifically in the law.

Michael Heiser claimed that the supposed gods of the council of gods helped the God of creation in giving the law to the people of Israel. Therefore, Heiser assumed that these supposed gods served as judges for the people of Israel and were referred to in Exodus chapters18, 21 and 22.

But as you can clearly see above, the intent of Exodus 18 is to communicate that Moses chose men from the people of Israel, not lesser gods, to help him in judging the people. I have a separate lesson on exodus 21 and 22.What about the use of the article before Elohim in verses 16 and 19? They follow the grammatical patterns (I don’t know if there were actual “grammatical rules” in ancient times, but at least there were patters that were often followed, but not absolutely always). For more on this topic go to my lesson called

The next lesson in this series is