11 This verse may seem out of place, since the report has already been given that they came to the desert. It begins to provide details of the event that the previous verse summarizes. The announcement in verse 6 may have come in advance by means of a messenger or at the time of arrival, either of which would fit with the attention to formal greetings in verse 7. This would suit a meeting between two important men; the status of Moses has changed. The solves the problem by taking the pronoun “I” as the particle “behold” and reads it this way: “one said to Moses, ‘Behold, your father-in-law has come.…’ ”

In other versions

And when he sent word to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons with her,”

Jethro had sent word to him, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons.”

He sent word to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons.”

Jethro had sent a message to Moses, saying, “I, Jethro, your father-in-law, am coming to see you with your wife and your two sons.”

And he said to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you and your wife and her two sons with her.”

And he said unto Moses, I thy father in law Jethro am come unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her.

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