This solves everyone's problem. Moses is purified. Zipporah and her son are no longer slaves. God has prepared his man for the work he has for him. Queue the music and roll up the credits.

Next we'll get into all the details.

Birth and Impurity

We don't understand some of the things of God very well. They just don't make sense to us and the Bible doesn't explain them. We might understand that, if we could understand those things, we would understand God better. But that evades us.

One of those things is the impurity that results from birth. It doesn't make sense to us that the glorious creation of a new life would result in those involved becoming impure. Also the purification process is different based on the gender of the newborn. How does that make sense?

We know these things for sure about birth. After giving birth the mother becomes impure and that requires her purification. If the newborn is a boy he is also impure and that requires purification.

We see birth very differently from God. For us, it's all "Isn't he cute" and "Aww, she's so pretty". For God, though, it's a big ugly mess that needs to be cleaned up.

Jewish sage's think they understand why giving birth should make everyone impure. They see birth as being close to death, for both the mother and child. Therefore a purification from death is needed. I think they are wrong. I think these sages lived in a time different from ours where the death of mother or child was far more common than in our time. It would be easy for them to think of birth in terms of death and life. I think that shaped their thinking. I don't have a better answer though.

Fortunately, we don't need to understand why. We can just accept it and move forward.

The first question that comes up in this is, "What about daughters?". Surely they must be impure at birth as well. How are they purified? The Bible doesn't say. There are 4 possibilities:

• The daughter is purified after some time passes. Time is definitely a part of the purification process but not all of it so that seems doubtful
• The daughter is purified through the mother's purification. This is likely the correct answer. It explains why the purification process took twice as long for a newborn girl as for a boy
• The daughter is purified through her own purification after her first menstruation. This is interesting because the law on this from Leviticus 12 does mention menstruation
  • When a woman gives birth and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean for seven days, as in the days of her menstruation she shall be unclean (Leviticus 12:1)
• The daughter is purified through her purification after her first child. This seems unlikely and also something that the Bible would have mentioned. It would be a very long time to be in an impure state.

The Bible seems to indicate that once the mother's purification time is complete, everyone is purified.

Circumcision

And if a son is circumcised on the Sabbath day because the Law (Torah) of Moses should not be broken, do you complain about me because I have completely healed a man on the Sabbath day? (John 7:23)

We understand that circumcision was a sign of the Old Covenant, beginning with Abraham. Jesus shows here that he also considers circumcision to be a form of healing, a healing from the impurity of birth.

Prior to the law-giving at Mount Sinai, circumcision was performed on the children of Abraham in a less regulated way. It seems the rule was "sometime after birth", not specifically on the 8th day.

Purification

Impurities make us ugly to God. Just as we have trouble working with ugly people, so does God. Beginning with the Old Covenant, God wanted to be closer to his people. This required them to be purer. God told them how to purify themselves for various situations.

It hadn't mattered so much before the Old Covenant, but now there were going to be holy things and holy places that needed to remain pure. We see this specifically in the purification for a woman after birth. She would be unclean for 7 days after. Then, it the baby was a boy, he would be circumcised, but the process is not yet complete.

Then she shall remain in the blood of her purification for thirty-three days; she shall not touch any consecrated thing, nor enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are completed. […] ⁶ When the days of her purification are completed, for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the doorway of the tent of meeting a one year old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering. (Leviticus 12:4,6)

Notice something interesting about the purification period, it is 40 days long (for a boy). The number 40 in the Bible is used to mean purification. It was the 40 days and nights of rain that purified the earth and it was 40 days that Jesus was purified from death before he ascended to Heaven.

We'll return to purification later.

A Difficult Story

Time

Moses' life comes in three 40-year stages (there is the number 40 again). He spends his first 40 years in Egypt as a prince. He kills an Egyptian taskmaster and runs away to the land of Midian and spends the next 40 years of his life there. Then God sends him to Egypt to free his fellow Israelites and he spends his last 40 years wandering in the wilderness with them. At the end of his 120 years, he is still vital.

The Zipporah part of Moses' story starts during his time in Midian. She isn't referred to much after that.

The difficulty here is that the story is told without any indication of the passage of time.

The 40-year Midian period of Moses' life is covered by only three chapters of Exodus but half of that is allocated to the Burning Bush event. The outcome of having so few verses and no indication of passage of time is the following verses, where Moses arrives in Midian, meets Jethro, is given Zipporah, and she has a baby.

Moses was willing to dwell with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses. ²² Then she gave birth to a son (Exodus 2:21-22)

After this, another boy is born but his birth isn't mentioned at all. We only learn there is another boy when Moses and Zipporah go to Egypt. The Bible refers to "the boys". From that, we know there is more than one boy but we don't know how many. It isn't until the wilderness years that we learn there are two boys.

We know nearly 40 years passed during this one verse (v21), in fact, right after the comma. We know this because Zipporah gave birth to the first boy in that verse and both boys are still young when they go to Egypt, at the end of the 40 years. We know they are young because they and Zipporah can ride together on one donkey. (Exodus 4:20)

Therefore, the boys must be very young when they go to Egypt and thus the birth of the first boy must be recent. It isn't reasonable that Moses and Zipporah went almost 40 years without a child. So, Zipporah isn't given to Moses until after almost 40 years. This does make sense because wives were often given after years of service.

This jump in time can be very confusing. It's important to understand or the ages of the boys seem wrong when they go to Egypt.

Difficult

Yes, this passage is made more difficult because it is difficult. Translators (and teachers) don't understand and so they translate the text into something they can understand - to try to make it easier for others. Because they don't understand, they are really messing up everyone else who can't read Hebrew.

Translators want the circumcision story to be an ordinary circumcision. It goes like this. God is very angry with Moses because he hasn't circumcised his son. So, Zipporah circumcises the son and everything is good.

This isn't an ordinary circumcision though. That can be seen by how the ordinary circumcision doesn't explain all of what happens.

• Doesn't explain why God is so upset that he wants to kill Moses
• The covenant does not require the father to do the circumcision
• The covenant makes the individual responsible for his own circumcision
• Doesn't explain why Moses does and says nothing when God is angry
• Doesn't explain why Zipporah throws the foreskin at Moses' feet
• Hebrew actually says she touches his feet with it (translator bias)
• Doesn't explain what Zipporah means by what she says afterward

Something very unordinary is going on.

Moses and Zipporah

The story of Moses and Zipporah occupies only a few verses in the Bible, yet there are challenging questions in the story.

Cushite?

Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman) (Numbers 12:1)

A Cushite is a person from the land of Cush, which is now called Ethiopia. Her skin would be dark black. Abraham's people are a shade from white.

The Bible says Zipporah is the daughter of Jethro / Reuel, who is from Abraham's people. So, how could Zipporah be Ethiopian?

People can't explain that so they wonder if Moses had another wife. But there is no mention of a second wife.

There is also a very odd duplication that appears to be pointless. Why say again that he had married a Cushite woman, when you've just made the point that he married a Cushite woman? We know God does not do pointless things, so this must mean something

Blood Bridegroom?

Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and threw it at Moses' feet, and she said, "You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me." ²⁶ At that time she said, "You are a [bride]groom of blood" - because of the circumcision. (Exodus 4:25-26)

What on earth does Zipporah mean by this "bridgroom of blood"? Most people don't know but there are lots of different guesses. Because of the general lack of understanding here, the translators are also guessing and coming up with different interpretations.

Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me. (NIV)
Now you are a bridegroom of blood to me. (NLT)
Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. (KJV)

Strong's Concordance says that the words translated as "surely" or "now" should be "for" or "when." The word "bridegroom" could also be "daughter's husband". The word "of" is not in Hebrew but proper English requires a preposition here. But is "of" the right preposition? We'll see later that "by" makes more sense.

As we saw in the previous question, there is a strange duplication in the verse. It seems pointless to repeat the "bridegroom of blood" part. NASB even goes so far as to render the second one as "groom" instead of "bridegroom." I guess that is just to show some difference. The Hebrew for each is identical.

The Repetitions

For the Cushite question above, most people don't know how to fit that in and it is usually handled by ignoring it.

For the Bridegroom of Blood question above, there is no agreement on the meaning of what Zipporah is saying.

The duplication in these two passages is calling for our attention, however. If we look closely, we can see they are very similar in the way they repeat and they are on the same topic - Moses' marriage. In one case it says "had married a Cushite woman" in the other it says "is a bridegroom to Zipporah."

This is not a coincidence. These verses are being linked together by the repetition. They link "had married a Cushite woman" to "is a bridegroom to Zipporah", an event (had married [past]/ is bridegroom [present]) and a person (Cushite woman / Zipporah). By linking these together, two points come out.

• (person) Zipporah is the Cushite woman
• (event) They became married when Zipporah says "bridegroom of blood", at the time of the circumcision.

These are key pieces of information. Without them this puzzle cannot be solved.

Their First Meeting

After the murder by Moses became public, he ran away to the land of Midian (Southeast of Egypt, north of Ethiopia, middle of nowhere).

Moses was willing to dwell with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses. (Exodus 2:21)

Zipporah is given to Moses 30+ years later. This isn't surprising. There are similar cases in the Bible where a person needed to work for the householder for some time to earn something. We see this with Jacob working for Laban to earn 2 wives.

Despite the linkage above saying Zipporah is an Ethiopian, it's still hard to see how that could be if she is the daughter of Jethro who is descended from Abraham. Really, what would an Ethiopian be doing in that household anyway?

The important thing to note here is the word "daughter." At first glance, from our cultural context, it seems obvious that Zipporah would be a biological daughter. The Hebrew word used for daughter here, however, can refer to almost any young woman in a hyper-extended family.

The answer is easy and it will explain other things. Zipporah was the slave daughter of a slave in the household of Jethro. In that context she would still be called a daughter.

Slaves were part of the family. They would have done the chores around the house just as the biological daughters would have done. The difference would be in the rules governing them.

Next we address the idea that there was a marriage here. We need to do so because some translators are adding the words "to be his wife" to the verse above and, to us, that means marriage. The Hebrew does not have those words, though. The NASB translation above renders it correctly.

So, is this a marriage? Is Zipporah becoming the wife of Moses? No, not the way we think of a wife and marriage. We'll cover that in the next section.

Zipporah is being given to Moses to be his slave. She is changing owners.

Another consideration here is that Moses was an Israelite. Even before the Old Covenant law forbidding marriage to Gentiles, the fathers were avoiding marriages to outsiders. So it would be unusual for him to marry a Cushite, without a good reason.

So far we've seen there are good reasons to believe that Zipporah was an Ethiopian slave who was given to Moses to be his slave, not his married wife.

Difficult - Slave Wife

Another thing that makes this passage difficult to understand by people of our time is that we have no way of understanding a slave wife.

A slave wife is a wife but not a married wife. For us, "married woman" and "wife" are practically synonyms and an "unmarried wife" is an oxymoron. The difference is significant. The owner could have children by the slave wife and then sell or give her to someone else who might have children by her. Marriages were permanent relationships.

Any children she had would be born as slaves and they could be sold as well, with or without the mother.

Generally, slaves were not sold to someone outside of the household, though. They were part of the family. They might be given to someone who was part of the family or perhaps earned by someone.

An owner might get rid of a slave wife if she was a trouble maker or couldn't be accepted by other members of the family. We see that with Abraham in the Bible. He freed his slave, Hagar, and sent her away.

Slave wives were not unusual in the Bible and God never gave any indication of having a problem with the practice. In fact, God provided many rules for the management of slaves. Four of the twelve tribes came from slave wives.

A slave-wife in the Bible was usually just called a wife and her slave-sons were just called sons. That is the case in the story of Zipporah. Usually the difference didn't matter but, in this case, though, it can confuse those of us who know nothing of slavery, about the marital status.

A Boy is Born

Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, "I have been a sojourner in a foreign land." (Exodus 2:22)

We see a bunch of strange things here that are explained by Zipporah being an Ethiopian slave. In the very next verse after she was given to him, she gives birth. There is no mention that Moses and her were together ("he knew her", "he laid with her"). There is no mention that the child is Moses' son.

Moses names the boy, as is the right of the owner. The name Moses gives him is also odd. It only makes sense if the boy is also a wanderer in a foreign land. But, in what sense is a newborn boy a wanderer? If he is far from his native land, it makes sense. The boy is an Ethiopian, far from Ethiopia.

Moses does not circumcise the boy. We know that to be a fact and we'll see the verses later, where that circumcision happens. What Israelite would fail to circumcise his son? What wife of an Israelite would allow him to go uncircumcised. We know that circumcision was well known in Jethro's household because later on, Zipporah shows a very deep understanding of it and performs it herself.

The rules for circumcision had been given to Abraham, long before Moses' time.

But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant. (Genesis 17:14)

So it's still a little odd that Moses wouldn't have circumcised the boy. Moses was born and raised Egyptian but had lived in Jethro's household for decades, where they practiced circumcision. It seems Moses did not see the boy as his or part of his household. Perhaps Moses doesn't see himself as having a household because he is living in the household of Jethro, and thus sees it as Jethro's duty. The Bible is silent here.

Everything we've seen here is consistent with the boy not being the son of Moses. This means Zipporah became pregnant by someone else and probably was already pregnant when she was given to Moses. Moses becomes the owner of the boy because he was born to a slave Moses owned. Moses feels no compunction to circumcise a Gentile who is not his son.

Was Moses Born Without a Foreskin?

There is disagreement about this in Jewish circles because the evidence is not as clear as we would like.

It is not uncommon to be born without a foreskin. In fact, some boys are born with too much foreskin which requires circumcision for proper function. Some boys are born with no foreskin.

It happens often enough that Jewish rabbis are taught how to handle the situation. The Bris ceremony, which marks the coming of age, can only be undergone by boys who are circumcised. These boys do not have a record of their circumcision because none was ever performed on them.

There are three pieces of evidence in the Bible that Moses was born without a foreskin. First, his mother described him in an odd way when he was born.

And the woman conceived and gave birth to a son; and when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months. (Exodus 2:2)

The word "beautiful" above is translated in different ways. It is "fine child" in NIV and others, "special baby" in the NLT and others, "goodly child" in the KJV and others, and "excellent, perfect" in Strong's Concordance.

No mother looks at her child and says "what an ugly child"; every mother says their child is beautiful. So what is the point of saying anything here about his appearance? Most translations recognize that this indicates that he was visibly special. The most likely case is that he was born without a foreskin.

The Israelites, having descended from Abraham, were doing circumcision on the 8th day after birth. Moses was hidden for 3 months before he was put in the Nile river. So, he would have been circumcised if it was possible.

Another piece of evidence comes from Pharaoh's daughter when she first sees Moses. She says, "This is one of the Hebrews' children." To her eyes, he appears to have been circumcised.

The last piece of evidence comes from the Zipporah passages we are studying. The problem has something to do with the circumcision of Moses. When Zipporah touches him with the foreskin from his son, the problem goes away. The passage doesn't make sense except if Moses was born without a foreskin and could not be circumcised.

The Boy(s)

Some time passes and another son is born. There no mention of the birth and hardly any mention of the boy or his name until the Israelites are wandering in the wilderness. The first indication of a second son is when Moses puts his sons (plural) on a donkey to take them and Zipporah to Egypt.

We do see a sign in this that the boys are different in the family. The Bible text refers to "his boys" here but later it refers to "Zipporah's son" (singular). This seems to be an indication that the first boy is not genetically the son of Moses.

The Circumcision

Now we come to the strangest sequence of events about Zipporah, but it all makes sense in the way we have been thinking.

The Incident

Now it came about at the lodging place on the way that the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. ²⁵ Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and threw it at Moses' feet, and she said, "You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me." ²⁶ So He [God] let him alone. (Exodus 4:24-26)

The NASB translation uses the word "threw" here but the Hebrew word means "touched". Many other translations translate it as "touched". The word "touched" shows that this incident is about an impurity in Moses related to circumcision, not about a lack of circumcision for the boy.

Jewish sages believe Moses was born without a foreskin and never had been circumcised because he could not be circumcised. They have good reason to believe this. If Moses had been circumcised, there wouldn't have been a problem. If Moses had a foreskin but had never been circumcised, all he had to do was be circumcised; he doesn't do that … or anything. The only answer is that Moses lacked circumcision because circumcision wasn't possible.

It seems God has been tolerating Moses' uncircumcised state because there was nothing that could be done about it. In the verses immediately before these, God has just given Moses signs to perform, "in Moses' power" (Exodus 4:21-23). This new power, combined with the uncircumcised state, is no longer tolerable to God.

Zipporah shows an amazing level of understanding about circumcision. She realizes the circumcision blood from the son can be sprinkled on the father and heal him. The Abrahamic Covenant, which came before this, and the Law of Moses, which comes later, did not make this clear, either. Her understanding, though, is very much in line with a mother's purification after birth also purifying the daughter, but in reverse and for the men.

Zipporah also sees the opportunity here for her. As a slave, Moses could sell her or her child at any time - not a situation any mother would want. She would rather settle down and make a home for her family. But she sees the catch. The boy must be the son of Moses for his circumcision blood to heal Moses. She throws the circumcision at his feet and says, essentially, "If you pick that up to use it, we are married and he is your son." She gets an upgrade from slave to wife.

Seeking to Put Him to Death

Was God really seeking to kill Moses? It's hard for us to understand because we don't know the future the way God does.

Yes, God was upset enough by the situation that killing Moses was a solution to it. But God didn't vent that anger when Moses was given the power to do those miracles. God waited until Zipporah was around because God had arranged for Zipporah to resolve to situation. She had the understanding and the uncircumcised son to do that. She also wants to be a wife and Moses will need a wife.

God knew that, if he let Moses know how upset he was, the situation would be resolved. So Moses was never in any danger, though he likely felt that way.

From our perspective, God applied a little pressure. He had brought all the pieces together but it needed a little spark to make it happen.

The Ethiopian Problem

We looked at this verse at the start.

Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman) (Numbers 12:1)

By this time, the Law of Moses has been given that prohibits God's people from marrying Gentiles. Miriam and Aaron are thinking that Moses should have gotten rid of Zipporah, but he hasn't. Therefore they are thinking that he is no better than them.

Moses can't annul the marriage, even if he wanted to. That annulment would mean that the marriage was a mistake and never valid and should never have happened. That would annul his circumcision.

God weighs in on this but he doesn't resolve the issue of the marriage. That isn't the real problem, just one reason for Miriam and Aaron to find fault in Moses to support their agenda. God slaps down that idea.

Summary

The story of Zipporah is a wonderful story about God preparing a man for ministry. It's largely a hidden story, though, much like the problem is hidden.

We see how God sees things differently than we do. Impurities, which are unseen by us, are seen by him and are offensive to him.

Moses does not see an impurity he has had from birth. Even if he was aware of it, he has no idea how to resolve it.

God is very aware of the impurity, though. It cannot go on if God will be as close to Moses as he needs to be. Unlike Moses, God knows there is a solution and brings all the pieces together to make it happen. The solution comes from a unexpected place, a slave woman.

When Zipporah is given to Moses, she is a slave in the house of Jethro … and she is pregnant. There is no information on how that came to be.

She very quickly gives birth to a son, whom Moses names, as is his right. The name reflects a commonality that Moses feels with the baby - strangers in a strange land. Moses does not circumcise the baby as would have been expected of a son.

Moses was born without a foreskin and could not be circumcised. Therefore, Moses is still impure from his birth.

Later, God has been frustrated with this ongoing impurity. He now empowers Moses to perform miracles in Egypt. That combination is too much. It is also likely that God has been setting up the circumstances so Zipporah is ready to play her part. Now is the time to make this purification happen.

Zipporah sees the solution and the opportunity it presents for her. She circumcises the son and gives the foreskin to Moses. She also informs him that he must become the father, by blood, for this to count and that means she must be his wife. From then, they are married. Her years of slavery and the slavery of her sons are now behind her.