< Previous | Contents | Next >
•JETHRO his excellence, or gain, a prince or priest of Midian, who succeeded his father Reuel. Moses spent forty years after his exile from the Egyptian court as keeper of Jethro’s flocks. While the Israelites were encamped at Sinai, and soon after their victory over Amalek, Jethro came to meet Moses, bringing with him Zipporah and her two sons. They met at the “mount of God,” and “Moses told him all that the Lord had done unto Pharaoh” (Exodus 18:8). On the following day Jethro, observing the multiplicity of the duties devolving on Moses, advised him to appoint subordinate judges, rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens, to decide smaller matters, leaving only the weightier matters to be referred to Moses, to be laid before the Lord. This advice Moses adopted (Exodus 18). He was also called Hobab (q.v.), which was probably his personal name, while Jethro was an official name. (See MOSES.)
•JETUR an enclosure, one of the twelve sons of Ishmael (Genesis 25:15).
•JEUEL snatched away by God, a descendant of Zerah (1 Chronicles 9:6).
•JEUSH assembler. (1.) The oldest of Esau’s three sons by Aholibamah (Genesis 36:5, 14, 18).
(2.) A son of Bilhan, grandson of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 7:10). (3.) A Levite, one of the sons of Shimei (1 Chronicles 23:10, 11). (4.) One of the three sons of Rehoboam (2 Chronicles 11:19). (5.) 1 Chronicles 8:39.
•JEW the name derived from the patriarch Judah, at first given to one belonging to the tribe of Judah or to the separate kingdom of Judah (2 Kings 16:6; 25:25; Jeremiah 32:12; 38:19; 40:11; 41:3), in contradistinction from those belonging to the kingdom of the ten tribes, who were called Israelites.
During the Captivity, and after the Restoration, the name, however, was extended to all the Hebrew nation without distinction (Esther 3:6, 10; Daniel 3:8, 12; Ezra 4:12; 5:1, 5).
Originally this people were called Hebrews (Genesis 39:14; 40:15; Exodus 2:7; 3:18; 5:3; 1 Samuel 4:6, 9, etc.), but after the Exile this name fell into disuse. But Paul was styled a Hebrew (2 Corinthians 11:22; Phil. 3:5).