Zipporah lived approximately 1500 years before Christ and she was the wife of Moses. She acted decisively in a crucial moment to protect her family, and she helped her husband fulfill his obligation to God. After four hundred years in Egypt, the Israelites cried out for God to rescue them from slavery, and God raised up Zipporah’s husband. She shouldered grave burdens of her own when she married the man who would accept this extraordinary mission. Zipporah was a determined wife and mother who did what she could to protect her family. We would do well to follow the example of faithful action, even if our task is difficult.
Zipporah, Midianite Shepherd
Zipporah’s father, Jethro, was a priest of Midian, but we do not know what pagan god he served. Jethro was in the lineage of Abraham through his mother, Keturah, who was one of Abraham’s wives. Near his death, Abraham sent his concubines and children to “the land of the east” (Genesis 25:6). Since Jethro served a pagan god, we can assume he did not raise his children in the faith of Abraham. However, he might have known about Him.
Like many young women of the day, Zipporah and her six sisters cared for her father’s flocks of sheep. Moses met the young women at a well where they were trying to water their flock. Little did he know that one of them would save his life, and that he would eventually receive much needed advice and support from her father, Jethro.
Zipporah, Wife and Mother
Zipporah’s introduction to Moses would make a great romantic movie plot: mysterious stranger comes to her rescue and he turns out to be a sophisticated, educated Egyptian—the rest is history. As a child, Moses had led a charmed life in Egypt, protected by God at a time when the Pharoah had ordered midwives to kill baby boys at birth. The Pharaoh’s daughter rescued him from the Nile River where his mother had tried to hide him. Miraculously, Pharoah’s daughter chose his own mother to nurse him.
But when he was 40 years old, Moses made a blunder. He took justice into his own hands to avenge the death of a fellow Hebrew and ran for his life to the land of Midian (modern-day Saudi Arabia). He stopped to get a drink at a well and met the seven sisters. (Incidentally, wells are a strategic meeting place for the patriarchs and their wives; both Isaac and Jacob had met their brides at a well.)
Moses showed his sense of justice again; this time he rescued the women from rowdy shepherds who drove the flocks away after they had drawn water for them. “Moses…saved them” (Exodus 2:17, ESV). When they told their father, Jethro, about the adventure, he immediately ordered them to bring Moses into their home. Moses stayed to live with them and eventually Jethro gave his daughter, Zipporah, to be Moses’ wife. They had two sons, Gershom, and Eliezer (Exodus 18:3-4).
“Moses stayed to live with them and eventually Jethro gave his daughter, Zipporah, to be Moses’ wife.”
Zipporah, Moses’s Ally When He Set out for Egypt
Zipporah would have learned about the one true God of Israel from Moses, and her later actions show she believed. By the grace of God, Moses was raised by his Hebrew mother who would have taught him the ways of the one true God, including the promise of a Savior through their lineage. Moses had to have understood the covenant God had made with the patriarch, Abraham. Forty years after he went to live with Zipporah’s family (Acts 7:30), God appeared to Moses in the burning bush as he was tending the flocks and enlisted him to deliver the Hebrew people from Egypt.
The name Moses gave one of his sons also indicates his beliefs. The record from Exodus explains the meaning of his children’s names.
“Now Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, had taken Zipporah, Moses’ wife…along with her two sons. The name of the one was Gershom (for he said, ‘I have been a sojourner in a foreign land’), and the name of the other, Eliezer (for he said, ‘The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh’).” (Exodus 18:2-4, ESV)
Moses asked for and received Jethro’s permission to obey God’s command and take his family to Egypt. The nature of a personal and miraculous call, and the fact that Moses would return to the land he had fled years before, show how critical the task was. Zipporah must have understood the importance of their journey and that it related to the covenant. But along the way God stopped Moses in his tracks: “At a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to put him to death” (Exodus 4:24, ESV).
“God appeared to Moses in the burning bush as he was tending the flocks and enlisted him to deliver the Hebrew people from Egypt.”
Zipporah, Surrogate for Her Husband
We have no way of knowing what happened in Moses’s deadly struggle with God, but Zipporah somehow knew the cause was his noncompliance with the law of circumcision. Zipporah is most known for circumcising her son to save her husband’s life:
“Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it and said, ‘Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ So he let him alone. It was then that she said, ‘A bridegroom of blood,’ because of the circumcision.” (Exodus 4:25-26, ESV)
To understand what was at stake when Moses and Zipporah arrived at that stopping place, we must understand the relationship between God and his people. Three essential aspects of God’s agreement with Abraham from Genesis 17:1-14 are its covenant, descendants, and eternal nature. The word “covenant” controls the passage. Abraham made a binding agreement with God. The Hebrews were to pass the covenant from generation to generation. The covenant created a relationship with God and his people that would last for eternity. The promised seed of the woman in Genesis (3:15) was not just any seed. The Messiah, the Savior, the only begotten Son of God, would come through the lineage of Abraham and Sarah.
Who was Zipporah in the Bible? “Zipporah is most known for circumcising her son to save her husband’s life.”
The covenant was “everlasting,” not because the original agreement with Abraham would be eternal, but because God’s gift of salvation through His Son is eternal. God had called Moses to deliver those descendants from extermination in Egypt to protect that very progeny. Zipporah’s actions saved Moses and allowed him to continue to Egypt so that all humankind could someday hear the good news of salvation.
What Zipporah did related directly to Moses’ neglect of God’s covenant. For Abraham’s descendants, circumcision revealed who they were and whose they were. Moses had been circumcised, but he had neglected his obligation to circumcise at least one of his sons. It was even more abominable because of the nature of God’s command. God wanted His people to keep their part of the covenant so He could keep His part! His people were to lead their children into a covenant relationship with Him so the relationship would never be broken. If Moses could not do that with his own family, how would he succeed as a leader of the nation?
This helps us understand why, in Exodus 4, God would force Moses to recognize the consequences of this carelessness. It also sheds light on why God was so patient and merciful to His covenant people throughout their long and sordid history. God loves His people, and He wants the relationship to endure.
“God loves His people, and He wants the relationship to endure.”
Zipporah’s words in Exodus 4:26, “You are a bridegroom of blood to me,” are confusing. While they seem like an insult or an accusation against Moses, several commentators suggest it revealed her relief instead of anger or disgust. Because God was punishing Moses in some way, her husband could have been taken from her. But now, through the blood of her son, Moses had been restored. The mention of the bridegroom might have implied that they would have the chance to begin again. Although we may never know what those words meant, Zipporah did what her husband should have done. She knew she had to do it, so she acted to appease God’s anger at her husband, and God accepted her action!
The narrative in Exodus continues with the story of Moses’ confrontation with the Pharoah in Egypt. The Hebrews miraculously escape through the Red Sea and under Moses’ leadership begin the journey to the promised land. Then we learn about a family reunion in Sinai from Exodus 18:1-11.
“Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. Now Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, had taken Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her home,along with her two sons. And when he sent word to Moses, ‘I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons with her,’Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him. And they asked each other of their welfare and went into the tent. Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way, and how the Lord had delivered them. And Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians.
Jethro said, ‘Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.’ And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices to God; and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.” (Exodus 18:1-12, ESV)
“We learn about a family reunion in Sinai.”
After the incident at the lodging place, Moses must have sent his family back to Jethro for protection. But they were reunited when Jethro met them in Sinai. We learn that Jethro stayed with the Israelite camp for a time and was a mentor to Moses when he needed help. There is no further mention of Jethro, nor Zipporah or the two sons. We do not know if they stayed with Moses or returned once again to Midian.
The Need for Rescue
Desperate times call for desperate action. Zipporah intervened to save her husband’s life and in doing so, she played a key role in God’s plan. We can look back at her life and see God’s providential preparation for Jesus.[1] We still need to be prepared to face challenges and peril with courage. Paul writes to the Philippian believers, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13, ESV). We can also look forward with anticipation to Jesus’ return. Until then we are called to obey, to work out our own salvation, and to be “shining stars” in this world.
There are people all around us who need to be rescued from sin and suffering. The heart of God has not changed. We too must be ready to do what we must to make sure every generation carries the message of salvation to the next. Christians are still in a covenant relationship with God through faith and the Holy Spirit. He is calling us to take action to save lives and souls. We may rationalize that it is someone else’s responsibility, but like Zipporah, God may be calling you. Who will lead your children to the Lord? Who will direct and serve in benevolence and rescue ministries? Who will lead your neighbor to salvation? There are some things we know we must do.
[1] Randall C. Bailey, Exodus, College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin: College Press, 2007), 78.
