Readers Guide: “The Word for Today” Wednesday, October 10, 2012 Read – Exodus 17 & 18 Chapter 17 continues the story with more complaining and more providing. It is going to take God some time to train these people. Is it any wonder that it takes God a long time to train us too? Chapter 18 brings us back in touch with Moses’ father-in-law who we met earlier. I didn’t mention anything about him back there but Jethro proves to be an interesting character in this story. Jethro seems to understand things better than the people God is freeing from Egypt and perhaps even Moses at times. Just who is this Jethro character? Unfortunately we don’t have enough information to say much. In this story and in other places Jethro, who is also known as Ruel, seems to be a worshipper of Yahweh, even before Moses’ encounter at the burning bush. The Bible does leave a few loose ends for us to simply observe and ponder. Jethro/Ruel is one of them.