Skip to content
Wellsprings
Yitro

Yitro

· Biblical era · Midian

Yitro was the priest of Midian and the father-in-law of Moshe. When Moshe fled Egypt, he defended the priest's seven daughters at a well. Their father, called Reuel in this passage, welcomed him and gave him his daughter Tzipporah as a wife (Exodus 2:15-21). Moshe was tending Yitro's flock when he came to Horeb, the mountain of God, and saw the burning bush (Exodus 3:1). Moshe asked his leave before returning to Egypt (Exodus 4:18). After the Exodus, Yitro brought Tzipporah and her two sons to Moshe's camp in the wilderness. He rejoiced at what God had done, declared 'Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods', and offered sacrifices (Exodus 18:1-12). Watching Moshe judge the people alone from morning to evening, he advised him to appoint capable, God-fearing officers over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens, keeping only the hardest cases for himself. Moshe followed this advice (Exodus 18:13-26). Rashi, drawing on the Mekhilta, records a tradition that Yitro had seven names, among them Reuel, Hobab and Keni (Rashi on Exodus 18:1).

See Yitro’s journey on the map →

Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→Trace on the map →

Stop 1 of 2Home and priesthood

Midianמדין

What they did here

Priest of Midian, where Moshe found refuge and married his daughter (Exodus 2:15-21; 3:1). Midian is a region generally placed in north-western Arabia, east of the Gulf of Aqaba. The pin is regional.

About Midian

Midian was a region inhabited by the Midianite people, generally located in the northwestern Arabian Peninsula east of the Gulf of Aqaba. According to the Torah, Moses fled to Midian after leaving Egypt, married Zipporah the daughter of the Midianite priest Jethro, and encountered the burning bush there.

See other sages who lived in Midian→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Yitro’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Works

No works attributed in the corpus yet.