I love paying close attention to parentheses whenever they occur in the Bible. Dr. John M. Asquith said, “A set of parentheses is used whenever the translators identified a thought within a thought.  Wherever parentheses are employed in your Bible, it is possible to read the surrounding verse or verses without the words in parentheses and have it still make sense.” (purecambridgetext.com). Though the removal of parentheses will not alter the meaning of a text, the thought within a thought that they convey will be lost without it. A good place where parentheses were employed is in John 2:9 – “When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom.” (NKJV). The thought within the parenthesis could be the fact that everyone has their place – including servants.

Our text is a parenthesis, and it tells us a lot about Moses. Yesterday, we noted how Jethro corrected his administrative style. Someone without meekness would have been offended. After all, it was Moses whom God called, not Jethro. It was also Moses who saw God’s face and received the commandment. Jethro who tried to fix him did not only lack all the supernatural encounters of Moses, he was not even of the tribe of Israel. Yet, it was this stranger who had a clearer understanding of administration. Listening to what Jethro had to say must have taken a huge dose of meekness from Moses. The Bible is clear: only the meek can be taught and guided.