In the Book of Exodus, Zipporah was one of the seven daughters of Jethro, aKenite shepherd who was a priest ofMidian.[2] InExodus 2:18, Jethro is also referred to as Reuel, and in the Book of Judges (Judges 4:11) asHobab.[3] Hobab is also the name of Jethro's son inNumbers 10:29.
While theIsraelites/Hebrews were captives in Egypt, Moses killed an Egyptian who was striking a Hebrew, for which offensePharaoh sought to kill Moses. Moses therefore fled from Egypt and arrived in Midian. One day while he sat by a well, Jethro's daughters came to water their father's flocks. Other shepherds arrived and drove the girls away, so that they could water their own flocks first. Moses defended the girls and watered their flocks. Upon their return home, their father asked them, "How is it that you have come home so early today?" The girls answered, "An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds; he even drew water for us and watered the flock." "Where is he then?", Jethro asked them. "Why did you leave the man? Invite him for supper to break bread." Jethro then gave Moses Zipporah as his wife (Exodus 2:11–21).
After God commanded Moses to return to Egypt to free the Israelites, Moses took his wife and sons and started his journey. On the road, they stayed at an inn, where God came to kill Moses. Zipporah quickly circumcised her son with a sharp stone and touched Moses' feet with the foreskin, saying "Surely you are a husband of blood to me!" God then left Moses alone (Exodus 4:24–26). The details of the passage are unclear and subject to debate.
After Moses succeeded in leading the Israelites out of Egypt, and won a battle againstAmalek, Jethro came to the Hebrew camp in the wilderness of Sinai, bringing with him Zipporah and their two sons, Gershom and Eliezer. The Bible does not say when Zipporah and her sons rejoined Jethro, only that after he heard of what God did for the Israelites, he brought Moses' family to him. The most common translation is that Moses sent her away, but another grammatically permissible translation is that she sent things or persons, perhaps the announcement of the victory over Amalek.[4] The word that makes this difficult isshelucheiha, the sendings [away] of her (Ex. 18:2).[citation needed]
Moses' wife is referred to as a "Cushite woman" inNumbers 12. Interpretations differ on whether thisCushite woman [he] was one and the same as Zipporah, or another woman, and whether he was married to them simultaneously, or successively.[5][6] In the story,Aaron andMiriam criticize Moses' marriage to a Cushite woman. Thiscriticism displeases God, who punishes Miriam withtzaraath (often glossed as leprosy). Cushites were of the ancestry of eitherKush (Nubia) in northeastAfrica, orArabians. The sons ofHam, mentioned within theBook of Genesis, have been identified with nations in Africa (Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya), the Levant (Canaan), and Arabia. The Midianites themselves were later depicted at times in non-Biblical sources as dark-skinned and calledKushim, a Hebrew word used for dark-skinned Africans.[7][8] One interpretation is that the wife is Zipporah, and that she was referred to as a Cushite though she was a Midianite, because of her beauty.[9]
The text of Numbers preserves only consonants. Jewish reading traditions pronounce the description of Moses's wife as "kushit" meaning "the Cushite woman". However, the oral reading tradition of theSamaritan Pentateuch pronounces the description ofMoses's wife as "kaashet," which translates to "the beautiful woman."[10]
"Cushite woman" becomes Αἰθιόπισσα in the GreekSeptuagint (3rd century BCE)[11] andAethiopissa in the LatinVulgate Bible version (4th century).Alonso de Sandoval, 17th centuryJesuit, reasoned that Zipporah and the Cushite woman was the same person, and that she was black. He puts her in a group of what he calls "notable and sainted Ethiopians".[12]: 248, 253–254
In theDruze religion, Zipporah's father Jethro is revered as the spiritual founder, chief prophet, and ancestor of all Druze.[13][14][15][16][17] Moses was allowed to wed Zipporah after helping save Jethro's daughters and their flock from competing herdsmen.[18] It has been expressed by prominent Druze such asAmal Nasser el-Din[19] and Salman Tarif, who was a prominent Druze shaykh, that this makes the Druze related to the Jews through marriage.[20] This view has been used to represent an element of the specialrelationship between Israeli Jews and Druze.[21]
^Tsedaka, Benyamim, and Sharon Sullivan, eds. The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah: First English Translation Compared with the Masoretic Version. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2013.ISBN978-0802865199.
^Nettler (1998).Muslim-Jewish Encounters. Routledge. p. 139.ISBN1-1344-0854-4.
^Nisan, Mordechai (1 January 2002).Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression, 2d ed. McFarland. p. 282.ISBN9780786451333.
^Rogan, Eugene L.; Shlaim, Avi (2001).The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (illustrated, reprint ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 72.ISBN9780521794763.
^Weingrod, Alex (1 January 1985).Studies in Israeli Ethnicity: After the Ingathering. Taylor & Francis. p. 273.ISBN9782881240072.
Pardes, Ilana (1992). "Zipporah and the Struggle for Deliverance" inCountertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.ISBN9780674175426
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