Daily Devotion for September 17, 2026
Moses is depicted with Joshua and Hur, in the battle against the Amalekites. (Exodus 17:8-13)
Prayers
Scripture
Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.
I love the last verse of this happy song: “He gave us eyes to see them, And lips that we might tell, How great is God Almighty, Who has made all things well.”
1. All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
2. Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings.
3. The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them high and lowly,
And ordered their estate.
4. The purple headed mountain,
The river running by,
The sunset and the morning,
That brightens up the sky.
5. The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden,
He made them every one:
6. The tall trees in the greenwood,
The meadows where we play,
The rushes by the water,
We gather every day;
7. He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell,
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.
Music from an English folk song, adapted by William Henry Monk (1879)
Lyrics by Mrs. Cecil F. Alexander (1848)
For Salvation
O Lord God of Israel, who has come to all the nations through your Son, Christ Jesus, there is no god like you in heaven or earth, for you are loving and kind and you keep your promises to your people if they only have faith and seek to follow your commandments. You have fulfilled your promise to our fathers Abraham and David, who were your servants, through the mightiest and humblest of all men ever to live: the Word made flesh.
And now, O Lord our God, fulfill your promise to all who confess the name of Jesus Christ, I pray, that we may live in faith of Him, loving you and following your ways as He did, that we might be sanctified as your children and heirs.
Prayer for Enthusiasm
Holy God, I have spent many hours trying to do Your will, but sometimes I do not feel the excitement and freshness I once felt in my prayers, in my charitable work, in my giving, in my Bible study—in all the ways I try to serve and please you in my life. Let me not become weary in doing Your work. I pray for Your Holy Spirit to grant me a sense of enthusiasm, lest I be led astray and into sin by boredom and unconcern. “Thy will be done” in all things and in every way.
Meditation
“In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.“
Benediction
Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted me as a living member of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and you have blessed me with the grace of forgiveness through the sacrifice He made for me and for all people. Send me now into the world in peace, and grant me strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart; through Christ our Lord.
Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.
Michael, the leader of God’s army in Revelation, is the only being specifically described as an “archangel” in the Bible. Many scholars identify him with the angel promised to lead the Israelites in Exodus 23, but there is no scriptural reference to prove this.
Psalm 90:10-12 (NKJV)
The days of our lives are seventy years;
And if by reason of strength they are eighty years,
Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow;
For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Who knows the power of Your anger?
For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath.
So teach us to number our days,
That we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Exodus 18:13-27 (ESV)
Jethro’s Advice
he next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning till evening?” And Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God; when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his laws.”
Moses' father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone.
Now obey my voice; I will give you advice, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God, and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do.
Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you.
If you do this, God will direct you, you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.”
So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said.
Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And they judged the people at all times. Any hard case they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves.
Then Moses let his father-in-law depart, and he went away to his own country.
Notes on the Scripture
Moses praying.
Moses was a great prophet — he and Elijah appear to Christ at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-13) — but he is unprepared for the absolute leadership that has been dropped into his lap. We have seen him seek help before. He is not an orator — he possibly has a physical speech impediment — and even before he accepted Yahweh’s commission, Aaron became his spokesman. Aaron has more and more come to act like a minister, in both senses of the word: a subordinate political official, as well as the high priest of Yahweh. So Moses has much-needed assistance for one aspect of his rulership.
We have also just seen Moses delegate another important function of governance, for it was the young, vigorous, and capable Joshua who acted as the Hebrews’ general in their first battle, against the Amalekites at Rephidim.
But it is, surprisingly, an outsider who first organizes a judicial system. The claims of later kings to be divinely ordained notwithstanding, God has generally seemed impartial to temporal politics; to organize a government, Moses is on his own. His father-in-law, an experienced leader (as the priest of the Midianites), gives him good counsel.
The division of the Israelites into thousands, hundred, fifties, and tens will endure. Likely, this hierarchy and terminology was already in place. Jethro strengthened it, and possibly modified it, rather than inventing it. The use of numbers was descriptive, not proscriptive. Unlike the Romans, the leaders did not count off 100 random soldiers and call it a “century”; rather, the Hebrews chose a kinship unit, perhaps the male descendants of a grandfather, and called it a “hundred”; we would call these units tribes, clans, extended families, and immediate families.
Oddly, recounting that the judicial organization of Israel originated with a non-Hebrew man, rather than a commandment of God through Moses, lends credibility to Exodus as an historically accurate work. For if Exodus were a biased or fictionalized account seeking only to convince readers of God’s power, it would never credit the intelligence and experience of a human mind with such a major role, much less the advice of a Midianite.
Also the phrase “let them judge the people at all times” will stay with us throughout the Old Testament. Before Israel got a king, the civil/military leaders would be called judges, and the title gives its name to the book (Judges) describing Israel’s early centuries in Canaan.
