---
title: Exodus 18:2 (JPS 1917) — And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after… · tree and pragmatics
description: And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her away, Who acts: Jethro. Exodus 18:2 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Exodus 18:2 · JPS 1917

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And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her away,

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**Who acts:** Jethro · **What happens:** take, send away · **To what, where:** Zipporah

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This is Exodus 18:2 · JPS 1917 in the English of the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 translation, from Mova's open Bible corpus. The page gives the sentence's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies, parsed by Mova and checked by a teacher model — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Jethro), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it. The original of the verse links back to its own tree and to the Targum.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = jps:EXO:502
# text = And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her away,
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
2	Jethro	Jethro	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
4	Moses	Moses	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nmod:poss	_	_
5	'	'	PART	POS	_	4	case	_	_
6	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	appos	_	_
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	_
10	law	law	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
12	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	Zipporah	Zipporah	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	Moses	Moses	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nmod:poss	_	_
16	'	'	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	appos	_	_
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	after	after	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	sent	send	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
23	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	_
24	away	away	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | Jethro |  | Zipporah |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument zipporah=Destination |
| 2 | **send away** | past · perfect | Jethro | Zipporah |  |  |  | away *property* | vn fire-10.10 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

## The Hebrew of this verse {#hebrew}

<!-- .vhe dir=rtl lang=hbo -->
וַיִּקַּ֗ח יִתְרוֹ֙ חֹתֵ֣ן מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֶת־צִפֹּרָ֖ה אֵ֣שֶׁת מֹשֶׁ֑ה אַחַ֖ר שִׁלּוּחֶֽיהָ׃

[Exodus 18:2: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/EXO.18.2/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:EXO:502` of Mova's parse database.

**The tree and the speech act** come from Mova's cycle: the small model's draft, read by a large model as teacher, passed by Mova's gates (Elamur Cosmic License). **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the chapter read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence of the chapter.

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