Zipporah

Also known as: Moses's unnamed wife (Chapter 077) · Family: Midian · Role: Moses's future wife · First appears: Jethro

On the very day Moses arrived in Midian, he met Zipporah at the well. She first refused his marriage proposal, explaining that her father tested suitors with a tree, and during the seven years Moses was imprisoned in a pit, she secretly supplied him with food. Jethro later gave her to Moses as his wife, with a condition that their children be divided equally between Israelite and Egyptian upbringing.

Zipporah bore Moses two sons. He circumcised their first son, Gershom (son of Moses), and named him; after nursing him for two years, Zipporah bore their second son in the third year. When Moses set out for Egypt intending to raise the second boy as an Israelite, Satan appeared as a serpent and swallowed him. Zipporah recognized that the danger was connected to their son’s uncircumcision and circumcised him; after she applied the blood, a heavenly command made the serpent release Moses.

On the journey to Egypt, Moses also travelled with Zipporah and their children. In another account of the road, the angels Af and Hemah swallowed Moses until Zipporah circumcised Gershom (son of Moses) and touched her husband’s feet with the blood. After Aaron objected to bringing them to Egypt, Moses sent Zipporah and their sons back to Jethro.