Lives of Scripture

Zipporah was one of seven daughters of Jethro, a priest of Midian, whom Moses met and defended at a well after fleeing Egypt as a fugitive; grateful, Jethro gave Moses Zipporah in marriage (Exodus 2:15-21). She bore a son, Gershom, whose name Moses gave in memory of his own displacement — 'a sojourner in a foreign land' — and later a second son, Eliezer (Exodus 2:22; 18:3-4). The most dramatic and least-explained scene involving Zipporah comes on the road back to Egypt: at a lodging place, the LORD sought to kill Moses (the text's own phrasing leaves ambiguous whether the threat was against Moses or the child), and Zipporah acted immediately, circumcising their son with a flint knife and touching the foreskin to Moses, declaring him 'a bridegroom of blood' — after which the threat passed (Exodus 4:24-26). Scripture offers no explanation of what had been neglected, only that her swift action saved her family. After the Exodus, Jethro brought Zipporah and her sons to Moses at the mountain of God, and their reunion is recorded warmly; Jethro went on to advise Moses to delegate judicial authority rather than carry Israel's whole burden alone (Exodus 18:1-6, 13-27). A separate, disputed difficulty concerns Numbers 12:1, where Miriam and Aaron 'spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married' — some interpreters identify this woman with Zipporah, others suppose an otherwise-unmentioned second wife; Scripture does not settle the question.