Zipporah#Background

File:Hamel-Fille de Jethro.jpg, c. 1850]]

In the Book of Exodus, Zipporah was one of the seven daughters of Jethro, a Kenite shepherd who was a priest of Midian.Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto, California: Mayfield. 1985.{{page needed|date=April 2014}} In {{bibleverse|Exodus|2:18}}, Jethro is also referred to as Reuel, and in the Book of Judges ({{bibleverse|Judges|4:11}}) as Hobab.{{cite web |url= http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0704.htm#11 |title= Judges 4 / Hebrew – English Bible / Mechon-Mamre |publisher= mechon-mamre.org |access-date= 2014-04-05}} Hobab is also the name of Jethro's son in {{bibleverse|Numbers|10:29}}.

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? Invite him for supper to break bread." Jethro then gave Moses Zipporah as his wife ({{bibleverse|Exodus|2:11–21}}).

{{Main|Zipporah at the inn}}

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 ({{bibleverse|Exodus|4:24–26}}). The details of the passage are unclear and subject to debate.

File:Miriam and Aaron complain against Moses.jpg (1908)]]

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. 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.See e.g. Ibn Ezra on Exodus 18:2 – ור׳ ישועה אמר: ששלוחיה הוא דורון ומנחה, כמו: שלוחים לבתו (מלכים א ט׳:ט״ז). והטעם: אחר שיגרה דרונה וזה קרוב אלי. The word that makes this difficult is shelucheiha, the sendings [away] of her ({{bibleverse|Ex.|18:2}}).{{citation needed|date=May 2019}}

File:Jacob Jordaens - Moses and his Ethiopian wife Sephora.jpg (Mozes en zijn Ethiopische vrouw Sippora). Jacob Jordaens, c. 1650]]

Moses' wife is referred to as a "Cushite woman" in {{Bibleverse|Numbers|12|HE}}. Interpretations differ on whether this {{ill|Cushite woman|he|האישה הכושית}} was one and the same as Zipporah, or another woman, and whether he was married to them simultaneously, or successively.{{Cite web |last=Skinner |first=Shlomo |date=2012-06-07 |title=The Mystery of the Cushite Woman |url=https://thinkingtorah.com/the-mystery-of-the-cushite-woman/ |access-date=2023-12-11 |website=Thinking Torah |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=Filler |first=Elad |title=Moses and the Kushite Woman: Classic Interpretations and Philo's Allegory – TheTorah.com |url=https://www.thetorah.com/article/moses-and-the-kushite-woman-classic-interpretations-and-philos-allegory |access-date=2023-12-11 |website=www.thetorah.com}} 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 Midianites themselves were later depicted at times in non-Biblical sources as dark-skinned and called Kushim, a Hebrew word used for dark-skinned Africans.David M. Goldenberg. The curse of Ham: race and slavery in early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, chapter 8. p. 124.{{Cite book |last=Shahak |first=Israël |url=http://archive.org/details/jewishhistoryjew00isra |title=Jewish history, Jewish religion : the weight of three thousand years |date=1994 |publisher=London; Boulder, Colo. : Pluto Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-7453-0818-0 |page=25}} 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.{{cite web |last1=Filler |first1=Elad |title=Moses and the Kushite Woman: Classic Interpretations and Philo's Allegory |url=https://thetorah.com/moses-and-the-kushite-woman-classic-interpretations-and-philos-allegory/ |website=TheTorah.com |access-date=10 May 2019}}

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 the Samaritan Pentateuch pronounces the description of Moses's wife as "kaashet," which translates to "the beautiful woman."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. {{ISBN|978-0802865199}}.

"Cushite woman" becomes Αἰθιόπισσα in the Greek Septuagint (3rd century BCE){{cite web |title=Cush from the McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia. |url=https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/C/cush.html |website=McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia Online |access-date=3 May 2023 |language=en}} 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. He puts her in a group of what he calls "notable and sainted Ethiopians".{{cite journal |last1=McGrath |first1=Elizabeth |author1-link=Elizabeth McGrath (art historian) |title=Jacob Jordaens and Moses's Ethiopian Wife |journal=Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes |date=2007 |volume=70 |pages=247–285 |doi=10.1086/JWCI20462764 |jstor=20462764 |s2cid=193538684 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20462764 |issn=0075-4390}}{{rp|248, 253–254}}

In the Druze religion, Zipporah's father Jethro is revered as the spiritual founder, chief prophet, and ancestor of all Druze.{{cite book|last=Corduan|first=Winfried|title=Neighboring Faiths: A Christian Introduction to World Religions|year=2013|isbn=978-0-8308-7197-1|page=107|publisher=InterVarsity Press }}{{cite book|last=Mackey|first=Sandra|title=Mirror of the Arab World: Lebanon in Conflict|year=2009|isbn=978-0-3933-3374-9|page=28|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company }}{{cite book |last=Blumberg |first=Arnold |url=https://archive.org/details/zionbeforezionis0000blum/page/201 |title=Zion Before Zionism: 1838–1880 |publisher=Syracuse University Press |year=1985 |isbn=0-8156-2336-4 |location=Syracuse, New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/zionbeforezionis0000blum/page/201 201]}}{{cite book|last=Rosenfeld|first=Judy|title=Ticket to Israel: An Informative Guide|year=1952|page=290}}{{cite web |url= http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/140251 |title= MK Kara: Druze are Descended from Jews |last= Lev |first= David |date= 25 October 2010 |work= Israel National News |publisher= Arutz Sheva |access-date= 23 March 2015}} Moses was allowed to wed Zipporah after helping save Jethro's daughters and their flock from competing herdsmen.{{cite book |last= Nettler |title= Muslim-Jewish Encounters |year= 1998 |isbn= 1-1344-0854-4 |page= 139|publisher= Routledge }} It has been expressed by prominent Druze such as Amal Nasser el-Din{{cite book |author1=Nisan |first=Mordechai |title=Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression, 2d ed. |date=1 January 2002 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=9780786451333 |page=282}} and Salman Tarif, who was a prominent Druze shaykh, that this makes the Druze related to the Jews through marriage.{{cite book |last1=Rogan |first1=Eugene L. |title=The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 |last2=Shlaim |first2=Avi |date=2001 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521794763 |edition=illustrated, reprint |page=72}} This view has been used to represent an element of the special relationship between Israeli Jews and Druze.{{cite book |author1=Weingrod |first=Alex |title=Studies in Israeli Ethnicity: After the Ingathering |date=1 January 1985 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9782881240072 |page=273}}

File:Sandro Botticelli 035.jpg's Youth of Moses, c. 1480]]

Like many other prominent biblical characters, Zipporah is depicted in several works of art.

In Marcel Proust's story Swann's Way (1913), Swann is struck by the resemblance of his eventual wife Odette to Sandro Botticelli’s painting of Zipporah in a Sistine Chapel fresco, and this recognition is the catalyst for his obsession with her.{{cite journal |last1=Meyers |first1=Jeffrey |title=Proust's Aesthetic Analogies: Character and Painting in Swann's Way |journal=The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism |date=1972 |volume=30 |issue=3 |pages=377–388 |doi=10.2307/428744 |jstor=428744 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/428744 |access-date=1 July 2022 |issn=0021-8529}}

Zipporah is often included in Exodus-related drama. Examples include the films The Ten Commandments (1956),{{cite web|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/11/AR2007011102187.html|title=Yvonne De Carlo, 84; Said Her "Munsters" Role Made Her Hot|first=Bob|last=Thomas|date=12 January 2007|access-date=7 March 2018|via=www.washingtonpost.com}} The Prince of Egypt (1998),{{cite book |last1=Laird |first1=Paul R. |title=The Musical Theater of Stephen Schwartz: From Godspell to Wicked and Beyond |date=2014 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=9780810891920 |pages=246 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1uBhAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA246 |access-date=7 September 2019 |language=en}} and Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014).{{cite book |last1=Tollerton |first1=David |title=Biblical Reception, 4: A New Hollywood Moses: On the Spectacle and Reception of Exodus: Gods and Kings |date=2016 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=9780567672339 |page=41 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MJmCDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA41 |access-date=7 September 2019 |language=en}} She is the main character in Marek Halter's novel Zipporah, Wife of Moses (2005).{{cite web |title=Zipporah, Wife of Moses |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4000-5279-0|publisher=Publishers Weekly |access-date=10 September 2019|author-last1=Halter|author-first1=Marek}}

• {{ill|Cushite woman|he|האישה הכושית}} on Hebrew Wikipedia
• Sephora, cosmetics store named after Zipporah
• Tharbis – according to Josephus, a Cushite princess who married Moses prior to his marriage to Zipporah as told in the Book of Exodus

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{{reflist}}

• Pardes, Ilana (1992). "Zipporah and the Struggle for Deliverance" in Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|9780674175426}}
• {{cite web |first=John |last=Piper |author-link=John Piper (theologian) |date=September 2007 |title=Did Moses Marry a Black Woman? |url=http://www.9marks.org/journal/did-moses-marry-black-woman |publisher=9Marks}}
• [https://thetorah.com/moses-and-the-kushite-woman-classic-interpretations-and-philos-allegory/ Moses and the Kushite Woman: Classic Interpretations and Philo’s Allegory], thetorah.com

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