Exodus 18:12: Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.
When Abram returned from defeating the kings who had taken Lot captive, Melchizedek met him with bread and wine. A Gentile God-fearer, King of Salem and priest of the Most High God, brings food for the Abram.
Jethro is a new Melchizedek. He is also a Gentile priest, but one who worships the God of Israel. And after Moses has led Israel in the defeat of the Amalekites, Jethro brings out an ascension offering and sacrifices and prepares a meal for Moses, Aaron, and the elders of Israel. (Significantly, Genesis 14, the chapter that mentions Melchizedek, is also the first place in Scripture that refers to the Amalekites).
This is not the first time Moses has eaten bread with his father-in-law.
When Moses first enters Midian fleeing from Pharaoh, he defends Jethro’s daughters from the shepherds who harass them and Jethro invites him to come to his house to “eat bread” (Exodus 2:20). In that earlier episode, Moses gave water to the daughters, fought those who harassed them, and then ate bread with Jethro. What happens to Moses alone now happens again to Moses with all Israel: First Moses brings water from a rock, then he leads Israel in the battle with the Amalekites, then shares bread with Jethro along with Israel’s elders.
In each case, too, the meal with the Gentile priest precedes the appearance of God in blazing fire. After Melchizedek brings Abram bread and wine, Yahweh cuts covenant with Abram in a blazing fire like a smoking furnace (Genesis 15). After Moses eats bread in Jethro’s house, he encounters the burning bush. Soon after he eats bread with Jethro, Aaron, and the elders, the Lord descends on Sinai in smoke, fire, thunder and lightning. After this second meal, not just a bush but the whole mountain blazes with fire like a furnace. First a Passover meal with bread, and then Yahweh comes in the fire of His Spirit.
This too is a meal of bread and wine, bread then fire, bread then Spirit.
Thanks to Toby Sumpter for suggesting this line of thought.
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