Contemplative Bible Reading

Exodus 18:10-11 (New Living Translation)

10 “Praise the Lord,” Jethro said, “for he has rescued you from the Egyptians and from Pharaoh. Yes, he has rescued Israel from the powerful hand of Egypt! 11 I know now that the Lord is greater than all other gods, because he rescued his people from the oppression of the proud Egyptians.”

Jethro is the father-in-law of Moses. Jethro speaks to Moses after God has brought the people of Israel from 400 years of bondage in Egypt to freedom. That is an amazing thing!

Jethro is not part of the families descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is an in-law or something. Yet Jethro has this insight: Jehovah, the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is greater than all the other gods. Jehovah whipped all those Egyptian gods by showing power over the sun god, the river god, etc. Jehovah rescued the people that Jehovah designated as his people.

Folks, this is an old story, and we know how it ends. Consider, however, what it means. 400 years in captivity in a foreign land. That was the wrong place to be and that was too long. Civilizations and people vanished in history. We have a few “ghost towns” in America. In ancient times, they had ghost peoples and ghost civilizations. The descendants of Abraham, the people chosen by the God Jehovah should have disappeared and become one of those ghost peoples that might have been written in one line in an ancient text. Instead, Jehovah rescued them, brought them to a land promised to them, and this all lives today.

That is an amazing thing from history. That is an amazing thing today.

Jehovah is greater than all other gods.