Did Moses have children?

Apparently Moses took his wife Zipporah and Gershom, his son, to Egypt when he returned there at God's call (Ex. 4:24-26). Likely his second son Eliezer, was born in Egypt, for we are told in this chapter (v. 2) that “he (Moses) had sent her (Zipporah) back,” evidently to stay with her parents until God set Israel free. Now Jethro, her father, hears of all that has taken place (v. 1), and he comes with Zipporah and her two sons to meet Moses (vv. 2-5). The meaning of the name of Eliezer (“my God is a help”) seems to indicate that he was born during the time of Moses' contention with Pharaoh, for Moses said then that God had been his help in delivering him from the sword of Pharaoh (v. 4).

And I would add this, that Moses got a wife and children when he was, through their unbelief and rejection of him, separated from his brethren, the children of Israel, and when, consequently, as he says himself, he was an "alien in a strange land" (Ex. 2:22; Ex. 18:3). And so has the Lord been brought in among the Gentiles through the unbelief and rejection of Israel, and is gathering a church, a wife and children, out from among them. And thus, in all this, Moses is strikingly in character with the Lord in the present dispensation and calling of the church, bearing upon him much more of the heavenly than of the earthly calling, exhibiting the Lord in connection with the church rather than with Israel. "This is he that was in the church in the wilderness."*

Moses had two sons, Gershom (A Stranger There) and Eliezer (My God is an Help), names which bear bright witness to the true and faithful heart of their father. In Exodus 4:24, 26 we have a hint that all was not well in Moses' own household, and evidently Zipporah refused to allow the sons to be circumcised, for to her, apparently, it appeared to be a cruel, unnecessary custom. But Zipporah not only was quite out of her place of subjection, but quite wrong in choosing her own way, instead of bowing to God's order. But before God could use His servant this must be set right, and his household, as well as he himself, must bear the mark which testifies of death. Finally, to save her husband's life, Zipporah herself performs the act on her sons, but with the complaint: "Surely a bloody husband art thou to me!" It is well for us to remember that we cannot with impunity set aside God's order, even though we may prefer our own way. Both Aaron's family and Moses' family tell us that we may not trifle, or choose our own path, in the things of God. Well is it indeed when father and mother together, with one heart, can join in acknowledging through God's method, that death and blood-shedding is the only portion that is due by right to our offspring.

Strange indeed it is, that the chief record of the forty long years spent by Moses in Midian, is the fact that he called his son by the Egyptian name Gershom, which means banishment, "for," said he, "I have been a stranger in a strange land." Even the name of his second son, born in Midian, is not mentioned in the book of Exodus until Moses had led Israel out of Egypt. Forty long years of schooling, and yet hardly a word said about this one-third of Moses' life! At the close of the forty years, as the summer's heat parched the herbage of the lower valleys, the shepherd of Midian sought in the higher parts of Horeb food and water for his flock, and thus Moses led Jethro's sheep to the mountain slopes for food, then, it is supposed, rich in pasture. This region still affords a scanty pasturage, and a shrubby acacia still grows here and there, so that some of the smaller details, as well as the broad features of the country, are the same now as they were in the time of Moses.

The number of the generation following the twelve patriarchs is no way decided. To begin the computation one really ought to take, at any rate, one hundred and thirty-nine, not seventy; that is, take the females in. So the children of Dinah and Serah do not appear at all. The fact of a number of children in one generation says nothing as to the result. Benjamin had many; Reuben had many: neither were large tribes. Does Dr. C. suppose that a forger would have been insensible to this if he had been inventing? It is the strongest possible proof that the account is historical, drawn from facts, for no one would have laid himself open to the objection. There was no need whatever, but that the facts were so, to lend a handle to objectors. It was unnatural, if it were not true. Dr. C. states that Moses' children were only two: I doubt it much. They were only two by Zipporah, but he had married also an Ethiopian woman. It did not concern the scripture history to say anything of children by her. We see from the genealogies that families were reckoned all under one head, if they were not numerous, so as to make a distinct family (1 Chron. 23:10-11); or they might come in as two, when properly the head should have been but one, as Ephraim and Manasseh. If Joseph had had a dozen sons afterwards, they would not have formed distinct families; Gen. 48:6. They would have merged in the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.*

Second son of Moses and Zipporah, so named by Moses because 'God' had been 'his help.' He, with his mother and his brother were left in the care of Jethro until after the Exodus, when they joined Moses in the wilderness. Ex. 18:4; 1 Chr. 23:15, 17; 1 Chr. 26:25.

Eldest son of Moses and Zipporah, born in Midian. Ex. 2:22; Ex. 18:3; Judges 18:30 (see MANASSEH); 1 Chr. 23:15-16; 1 Chr. 26:24.

There, in his retirement, he receives from Jethro his daughter a stranger given him to wife, who bears him a son, the name of whom tells whither his heart turns. "I have been a stranger in a strange land," is the word of comment that is made upon him. He was called Gershom, which means this — "a stranger here."

As he sat by the well, came the seven daughters of Reuel with their father's flock. But the shepherds drove them away from the troughs they sought to fill for watering the sheep. Moses interposed, and so helped the maidens that they returned soon enough to excite their father's inquiry how it came to pass, and a message sent that the stranger should partake of his hospitality. The gift of his daughter as wife followed, and the birth in due time of a son, whose name expressed the father's sense of strangership in a foreign land, in striking contrast with Joseph's forgetfulness of all his toil and all his father's house, under similar circumstances.

When they told their father, Reuel, of the Egyptian who had helped them, he answered them, “And where is he? Why is it that you have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread” (v. 20). This hospitality developed into an arrangement pleasing to Moses, that he might make his home with Reuel. From Reuel's family Moses then received his wife, Zipporah, who bore him a son, to whom he gave the name Gershom, meaning “a stranger here.”