Jethro. In the Hebrew Bible, Jethro or Reuel was Moses' father-in-law, a Kenite shepherd and priest of Midian. In Exodus, Moses' father-in-law is initially referred to as Reuel but then as Jethro. He was the father of Hobab in the Book of Numbers 10:29. He is also revered as the spiritual founder and chief prophet in his own right of the Druze religion and is considered an ancestor of all Druze. Jethro is called a priest of Midian and became father-in-law of Moses after he gave his daughter, Zipporah, in marriage to Moses. He is introduced in Exodus 2:18. Jethro is recorded as living in Midian, a territory stretching along the eastern edge of the Gulf of Aqaba, northwestern Arabia. Some believe Midian is within the Sinai Peninsula. Biblical maps from antiquity show Midian on both locations. Jethro's daughter, Zipporah, became Moses's wife after Moses had fled Egypt, having killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave. Having fled to Midian, Moses intervened in a water-access dispute between Jethro's seven daughters and the local shepherds; Jethro consequently invited Moses into his home and offered him hospitality. However, Moses remained conscious that he was a stranger in exile, naming his first son Gershom, meaning stranger there. Moses is said to have worked as a shepherd for Jethro for 40 years before returning to Egypt to lead the Hebrews to Canaan, the promised land. After the Battle at Rephidim against the Amalekites, word reached Jethro that under Moses' leadership the Israelites had been delivered out of Egypt, so he set out to meet with Moses. They met in the wilderness at the Mountain of God; Moses recounted to Jethro all that had taken place, and then, according to Exodus 18:9-12a: Jethro rejoiced for all the good which the Lord had done for Israel, whom He had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Jethro said, Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh, and who has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods; for in the very thing in which they behaved proudly, He was above them. Then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took a burnt offering and other sacrifices to offer to God. Following this event, it was Jethro who encouraged Moses to appoint others to share in the burden of ministry to the nation Israel by allowing others to help in the judgment of smaller matters coming before him. These events take place in the Torah portion Yitro. There is some disagreement over the name of Moses' father-in-law. In the KJV translation of Judges 4:11, a man named Hobab appears as Moses' father-in-law, while Numbers 10:29 makes him the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses' father in law. Reuel is noted Exodus 2:16, as a priest of Midian who had seven daughters. Exodus 2:18 the girls returned to Reuel their father. Reuel becomes Moses' father in law in Exodus 2:21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. In Numbers 10:29, the Hebrew for the name Raguel is the same as the Hebrew for Reuel. The reason for the difference is that the Hebrew character in is sometimes used merely as a vowel and sometimes as g, ng, and gn, because of the difficulty of its pronunciation by European speakers. Re-u-el, with the first syllable strong accented, is nearer to the true pronunciation. Some suppose he was father to Hobab, who was also called Jethro, a likely possibility. It became, however, generally accepted that he had seven names: Reuel, Jether, Jethro, Hobab, Heber, Keni, and Putiel; Eleazar's father-in-law being identified with Jethro by interpreting his name either as he who abandoned idolatry or as who fattened calves for the sake of sacrifices to the idol.