Zipporah: Exploring the Origins of Moses' Wife and the "Cushite Woman"

Anyone even a little familiar with the Bible will have heard the story of how the baby Moses was saved from the murderous designs of an unnamed Egyptian pharaoh. Three heroines are at the center of the tale-Moses’ mother Jochabed, his older sister Miriam, and the pharaoh’s daughter.

The Bible does not say much about Moses’ wife, Zipporah. We know that she was the daughter of a man called Jethro (or Reuel), who was a priest in the land of Midian (Exodus 3:1; cf. 2:18). In later chapters Reuel is called Jethro. There is no explanation for this name change, but the title “priest of Midian” accompanies both names, and he is called Moses’ father-in-law, so it is safe to assume this was the same man.

According to the biblical telling, while still a prince in Egypt Moses killed an Egyptian taskmaster whom he witnessed beating a Hebrew slave. Upon discovering that the murder was not a secret, Moses fled Egypt to Midian, an area directly west of the Red Sea in the Sinai Peninsula.

Moses first encounters Zipporah at a well as she, along with her six sisters, are trying to water their father’s flock. Other shepherds are interfering, but Moses rises to their defense. This leads to Moses’ meeting Zipporah’s father.

Interpreters often note that Zipporah and her sisters introduce Moses to their father as “an Egyptian,” and there is no evidence in the text that Moses ever corrected them.

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While the Israelites/Hebrews were captives in Egypt, Moses killed an Egyptian who was striking a Hebrew, for which offense Pharaoh 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?

Moses’ wife, Zipporah, is mentioned again in Exodus 4:20: “Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt.” Wife is singular, and there is no mention of any other wife or wives that Moses had.

After informing Jethro of his intention to return to Egypt, the Bible implies in Exodus chapter four that Moses began the journey accompanied by Zipporah and their two sons, Gershom and Eliezer. Yet, later in chapter 18 it appears that Zipporah and the boys had stayed in Midian. 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.

After Moses succeeded in leading the Israelites out of Egypt, and won a battle against Amalek, Jethro came to the Hebrew camp in the wilderness of Sinai, bringing with him Zipporah and their two sons, Gershom and Eliezer.

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). After this event, it seems that Moses sent Zipporah and his sons back home to stay with Jethro.

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This textual difficulty aside, the narrative relates that, on their way to Egypt the family stopped to lodge for a night. While modern English translations tend to remove it, there is ambiguity in the Hebrew text regarding the identity of God’s target in this scene. The Hebrew text allows for its being either Moses or one of the couple’s sons. Either way, for some reason Moses takes no active role in this event.

Though various cultures in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world practiced circumcision, the Bible presents it as a unique sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham. As heirs of the covenant, all male descendants of Abraham were to be circumcised. Interpreters suggest that Zipporah’s use of circumcision to deflect God’s attack draws on this biblical aspect of the practice’s significance. Perhaps the text intends for the reader to understand the fact that Moses’ son had not yet been circumcised as evidence of Moses’ hesitation to fully embrace his Hebrew identity.

A straightforward reading of the Bible suggests that Moses married at least two women, neither of whom was Israelite. Zipporah is identified as a Midianite, while Moses’s other wife, who is left unnamed, is described as Cushite.

Moses' wife is referred to as a "Cushite woman" in Numbers 12. Interpretations differ on whether this Cushite woman was one and the same as Zipporah, or another woman, and whether he was married to them simultaneously, or successively.

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. The word that makes this difficult is shelucheiha, the sendings [away] of her (Ex.

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Now, this is a problem because Zipporah, according to what was said above, was not Ethiopian; she was Midianite, daughter of Jethro, priest of Midian. How could she be from Midian, in southwest Asia, yet be Ethiopian at the same time? She wasn’t from Ethiopia. The woman who became Moses’ wife in Numbers 12 was from Ethiopia.

The Kingdom of Cush is a relatively active presence in biblical history whose realm lay to the south of Egypt-quite far from Zipporah’s homeland in Midian. By contrast, the Cushites do not have direct conflict with Israel in the Bible, and later defend the Kingdom of Judah against the Assyrians.

Some ambiguous elements in the Moses saga have made it difficult for interpreters to understand his relationship with Zipporah, and leave unanswered questions about her background. One such element regards Moses’s wholesale slaughter of “the Midianites” described in the biblical book of Numbers. Moses’ extreme hostility toward Midian in this account is difficult to square with his familial ties to the group.

Further questions arise due to the context of the Cushite woman’s presence in the text. The text says that Moses’ older brother and sister had a dispute with him regarding his Cushite wife. Yet, the text suggests the dispute was about Moses’ prophetic status. The nature of their objection to his wife is left unclear.

That brings us to Numbers 12:1 and the reference to Moses’ marriage to the Cushite, or Ethiopian. It is possible, though not probable, that the Cushite is Zipporah. Arguing against that possibility are two facts: 1) the link between Midianites and Ethiopians is very difficult to trace convincingly; and 2) the objection to the marriage raised by Miriam and Aaron seems to indicate a recent event. Moses and Zipporah would have been married for over 40 years by this time, and it is unlikely that Moses’ siblings would just then be protesting.

In the story, Aaron and Miriam criticize Moses' marriage to a Cushite woman. This criticism displeases God, who punishes Miriam with tzaraath (often glossed as leprosy). Cushites were of the ancestry of either Kush (Nubia) in northeast Africa, or Arabians.

The sons of Ham, mentioned within the Book of Genesis, have been identified with nations in Africa (Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya), the Levant (Canaan), and Arabia.

The text of Numbers preserves only consonants. Jewish reading traditions pronounce the description of Moses's wife as "kushit" meaning "the Cushite woman". "Cushite woman" becomes Αἰθιόπισσα in the Greek Septuagint (3rd century BCE) and Aethiopissa in the Latin Vulgate Bible version (4th century).

Alonso de Sandoval, 17th century Jesuit, reasoned that Zipporah and the Cushite woman was the same person, and that she was black.

Indeed, the Bible uses the term Kush for the area south of Egypt in several passages. Jer 13:23 Can the Kushite change his skin, or the leopard his spots? If African Kush is the intended referent in Numbers 12, then this source either had a different tradition about whom Moses married or believed Moses had a second wife. Indeed, Rashbam (R. Samuel ben Meir, ca.

The biblical author ends with a parenthetical comment, acknowledging the truth of Miriam and Aaron’s claim, כִּי אִשָּׁה כֻשִׁית לָקָח “for he had married a Kushite woman.” As R.

These toponyms are all in Iraq, and refer to cities of Sumer, Akkad, and Babylonia. Most scholars identify the Kush of Genesis 10 as a reference to the Kassites (Kaššu/Kuššu in the cuneiform texts, Greek Kossaioi) of Mesopotamia who overthrew the first Babylonian dynasty in 1595 B.C.E. I am not suggesting that Moses’ Kushite wife was Mesopotamian, but the use of the name for an area in Mesopotamia highlights that Kush may refer to more than one place.

Like the Midianites, also an Arabian people, the Kushites may have had groups living in the northwestern part of Arabia or even the Negev. In fact, Middle Egyptian execration [cursing] texts (19th or 18th century B.C.E.) and possibly other Egyptian sources as well, refer to a group of nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes located in the Negev or on the southern border of Israel, as Kushu (kwšw). The most important such reference for our purposes comes from the psalm at the end of Habakkuk, which describes how YHWH leaves his home in the south and heads north. Midian and Kushan here are parallel. Since Midian is located in the same general area as these Negev/north-Arabian Kushu, that is northwest Arabia, and since the name Kushan is a lengthened form of Kush, scholars have therefore concluded that there is some historical connection between Kush(an) and Midian. Some earlier sources make the connection between Midian and Kush as well.

Thus, the Hellenistic-Jewish author Demetrius the Chronographer (3rd cent. Similarly, Demetrius’ contemporary, Ezekiel the Tragedian (3rd/2nd cent. Stranger, this land is called Libya. It is inhabited by tribes of various peoples, Ethiopians, black men. One man is the ruler of the land: he is both king and general. He rules the state, judges the people, and is priest. Similarly, the church father Augustine of Hippo (d.

Rabbinic tradition interprets the word “Kushite” in the verse metaphorically, implicitly understanding that Moses married only one woman, Zipporah the Midianite. About the Kushite woman? Was she really a Kushite? Was she not a Midianite? This interpretation is part of a larger exegesis that viewed a number of references to Kush in the Bible as metaphors for that which is different or distinctive, usually in appearance or good character. In addition to Zipporah, this interpretation is applied to King Saul (“Kush the Benjaminite” in Ps 7:1), the people of Israel (Amos 9:7, “Are you not like Kushites to me, O Israel?”), and Ebed-melech the Kushite (Jer 38:7). In these cases biblical Kush is not taken literally but metaphorically, as that which is different in a positive way. In addition, rabbinic sources preserve another explanation of the Kushite in Num 12:1: that it means “beautiful.” Thus we see that the rabbinic interpretation of Kushite in Numbers 12:1, whether as a metaphor for distinctiveness or beauty, implicitly understood that Moses’ wife was Zipporah the Midianite.

Some see in Moses’ marriages to two Gentiles as prefiguring the gospel message going into all the world, blessing even the Gentiles (see Acts 1:8). Zipporah the Midianite was related to the Israelites but only through Abraham’s son by a concubine (Genesis 25:1-2); the Cushite was farther removed from the lineage of Israel.

The Bible does not explicitly say that Moses had more than one wife. However, Numbers 12:1 leads many to surmise another wife: “Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite.” The question of the number of Moses’ wives hinges on the identity of this Cushite (or Ethiopian) woman. Is this a reference to Zipporah?

While he was still in Egypt, Moses killed an Egyptian guard who was assaulting a Hebrew slave, and he hid the body. Soon, Moses got word that Pharaoh knew what he had done and was going to kill him, so he fled from Egypt to the land of Midian to avoid prosecution. When he got to Midian, he sat down by a well, and there he encountered a family living in that area. The priest of Midian had seven daughters, shepherdesses who came to water their father’s flock. Some shepherds tried to drive the women away, but Moses fought the shepherds off and helped the women, even drawing water for their animals. The seven reported this heroic action to their father, and he asked Moses to come and eat with his family.

First, he simply refers to the person of Numbers 12 as a mere Cushite, a mere African person. However, the Bible is more specific than this: not only does it give the race of the individual, but it also tells us that this particular wife mentioned in Numbers 12 is not only African but also Ethiopian: that is, of a particular country in Africa. Miriam spoke (Greek ἐλάλησε) with Aaron against Moses, because the woman (Greek γυναικὸς) he received (or took to be his wife, married) was Ethiopian (Greek Αἰθιοπίσσης) because she was an Ethiopian woman. The Greek word Αἰθιοπίσσης, transliterated “AithiopissEs,” refers to “Ethiopian.” Moses’ wife was Ethiopian, and this was the one thing Miriam had against Moses’ wife: she was Ethiopian, she was African.

Remember the Egyptians? They were African and they had enslaved the Jews. Why would Miriam have spoken against an Ethiopian woman? I’ve preached in a sermon before that Miriam was racist (and perhaps she was), but I’ve thought since that sermon that there could have been other reasons she opposed Moses marrying an Ethiopian: perhaps 1) she didn’t want Moses marrying outside of his Jewish roots; perhaps 2) she had an issue with the woman’s Ethiopian identity and African race because the Africans (Egyptians) had enslaved the Jews. She didn’t want Moses marrying into the race that had enslaved them, because for her, that was tantamount to falling in love with the oppressor. There are some African-American families that teach their children to “marry within their race,” that is, just as they are African, to marry African. I say this from personal experience. And so, perhaps Miriam wanted Moses to find another wife who would suit him from within his Jewish roots.

Moses’ second wife, after the death of Zipporah (she had to be dead because Moses wouldn’t have angered God by marrying a second woman while his first wife lived), was from Ethiopia. This would have been a new wife Moses married, and this woman, being Ethiopian (and not Midian, as Zipporah was), would have angered Miriam because this second wife was an African woman and not a Jewish woman, perhaps. Perhaps she thought Moses should marry from his own people that had been freed instead of a “foreign” God-fearer. That was her own preference, perhaps, but in any case, God was not pleased with how she spoke against Moses (Numbers 12:1-15).

Ethiopia existed long before Numbers 12, and Miriam’s issue was against the Ethiopian woman. Perhaps she bristled up against Moses and his prophetic gift because she thought that, since she was one of God’s prophets, He spoke to her the way He spoke to Moses.

Even DeMille disagrees with the assumption of Pastor Henderson that Zipporah was Ethiopian. DeMille and I disagree on keeping the Ethiopian off-screen, but I agree with the underlying assumption behind such a decision (that is, that Zipporah and the Ethiopian aren’t the same person).

As those in charge of leading God’s flock, we have to do a better job of leading people into truth than just being controversial when we believe it suits a particular political purpose.

She was Asian, a brown-skinned Asian at that. Since my Native American ancestry ties me to Asia, cuzn Zipporah (as I’ll call her here; my DNA has confirmed I am related to the Levitical priesthood, and thus, Moses, Miriam, and Aaron; Zipporah was his wife, and Moses and her were one, so that makes her a cousin of mine) was a beautiful brown-skinned woman. But as beautiful as she was, make no mistake: Zipporah was no African woman. Moses’ wife mentioned in Numbers 12 remains a mystery, but one thing we know is that she was a “sistah.” Cousin Zipporah, as much of a POC as she was, was not.

The distinctions are valid and important. In this post, we are going to look at the claim by Pastor Keion Henderson that says 1) Zipporah was black and 2) Zipporah was the woman mentioned in Numbers chapter 12. Zipporah was not black because first, her father, Jethro, was priest of Midian, and thus, a Midianite. The Midianites originated from the Arabian Desert, which is in southwestern Asia according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Southwestern Asia, not southwestern Africa. So, Zipporah’s ancestry would be based on her parents because “ancestry” is “ancestor story.” Zipporah, according to Scripture, was a daughter of Jethro whom Jethro gave to Moses as his wife (Exodus 2:21). Midian is not considered to be African, but Asian. I will elaborate more on this in the next section. Numbers Chapter 12 refers to an African; in that, Pastor Keion Henderson is right. However, he is wrong about his understanding of Numbers 12 for two reasons.

Some would think that this points to the opposing argument (that is, DeMille thought Zipporah was the Ethiopian woman, too), but that’s not the case at all. The reason? Zipporah isn’t African. In DeMille’s on-screen portrayal, Zipporah is a woman of color (and she is beautiful, no doubt), but she isn’t Ethiopian African. Zipporah is not portrayed as a dark-skinned woman. Moses isn’t portrayed as a dark-skinned man, even though a number of cartoons and productions surrounding Moses make him dark-skinned. After all, it was 1956, and putting a bonafide African woman in the role as Moses’ new wife would have surely offended racist Europeans who would have been turned off by seeing it. In the 1950s, African-Americans still were not fully recognized as equals to white Americans. But DeMille was onto something when he “resurrected” Zipporah and continued her on-screen years: he did it so that he wouldn’t have to include the Ethiopian woman in a premier role. Zipporah was designed to keep the Ethiopian off-screen. If Zipporah had been the Ethiopian, why would he have put her on-screen to start with? The fact that DeMille kept Zipporah on-screen suggests that, in his estimation, she and the Ethiopian woman were two distinct individuals.

Dr. Henderson draws his conclusions with regard to Zipporah, the Ethiopian woman, and even Moses’ mother, but I’d like to challenge his assumptions. Where does he get these from? Why does he assume Moses’ mother was black just because she was born in Egypt? Why does he assume Zipporah is Ethiopian? What evidence in Scripture is there to justify such assumptions? I realize his original article throws these thoughts out in the open “to be controversial,” but assumptions of this sort without Scriptural evidence are not healthy to be tossed around. Tossing around controversial subjects and statements, with no scriptural support, are prone to be picked up by others who will run with them because “pastor so and so said it.” There are some believers in the Church today who just don’t know how to disseminate sources and information. They don’t know who to trust, and will trust anything that remotely sounds okay to them. This is not to say that we all aren’t prone to false teaching, because we are; but some are mature and can sense when a teaching is false and heretical. Some believers are babes in Christ and cannot distinguish truth from lies.

What was the ethnicity of Zipporah? Was she the same person as the Cushite woman mentioned in Numbers 12? These questions have been debated for centuries, with various interpretations arising from biblical texts, rabbinic traditions, and historical contexts. The identity of Zipporah and the "Cushite woman" remains a complex and fascinating topic for biblical scholars and theologians alike.

Here's a table summarizing the key points of contention: