Exodus 2:16-22

"Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. And the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock. And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon today? And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and moreover he drew water for us, and watered the flock. And he said unto his daughters, Where is he? Why is it that ye have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell with the man.' and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. And she bare a son, and he called his name Gershon,' for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land."

What a comprehensive summary we have here! Moses, because of the conflict at the well, in which he defended the young women against the shepherds, was taken into Reuel's home, perhaps upon such an arrangement as that between Laban and Jacob, received Zipporah for his wife, and, in time, became the father of Gershon. Moses' status for the ensuing forty years would be that of a subordinate in the home of the priest of Midian.

"Priest of Midian ..." We believe that Reuel was a priest of the one true God, [~'Elohiym], as indicated by his name, Reuel. "This name is given as Raguel in Numbers 10:29, but the Hebrew spelling is the same in both places. The word means `friend of God,' and implies monotheism."[28] As for the name Jethro, as applied to Moses' father-in-law elsewhere in Scripture, (this is disputed), "If Reuel be identified with Jethro, then Reuel was his proper name, and Jethro, which means Excellency, was his official designation."[29] There is no reason to suppose, as some have done, that Moses learned of Jehovah (Yahweh) from the Midianites."[30]

In the Tyndale Bible, we find this footnote: "The Reuel mentioned here is not Jethro, but the father of Jethro, the grandfather of Zipporah, and also the priest of Midian.[31] If this is correct, it would explain why the grandfather did not himself help his daughters (granddaughters) against the shepherds, due to his age. Jethro might have been absent at the time.

Despite Moses having received Zipporah for a wife, the bitterness and loneliness of Moses in his long residence far from his own people seems to have been acute, as attested by the name he gave his firstborn Gershon, which means "Banishment."[32] The name of Moses' second son was Eliezar, meaning, "The God of my father is my help, and has delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh."[33] The proud arrogance in which Moses had first offered himself as a champion of the Chosen People was at last broken down by his long and trying discipline, and, as indicated by the names of these sons, he was approaching the time when he would be fully qualified to "draw out from" Egypt the Israel of God. "This preparatory sojourn of Moses in Midian may be compared to that of John the Baptist in the wilderness (Luke 1:80), and that of Paul in Arabia (Galatians 1:17)."[34]