Who are the wives of Moses in the Bible?

Daughter of Reuel, or Jethro, and wife of Moses. Apparently she circumcised her second son, and declared that Moses was 'a husband of blood' to her. She had been sent back during the tribulation and deliverance of Israel, and then was brought by Jethro with her two sons to Moses. Jethro is a type of the Gentile rejoicing in the deliverance of Israel, and bringing back the loved remnant thereof in the last days. Ex. 2:21; Ex. 4:25; Ex. 18:2.

Miriam would seem to have been the instigator of the rebellion, for she is first named, and on her falls the weight of the chastisement. The occasion, or the ostensible occasion, was the fact that Moses had married an Ethiopian woman. This he had certainly done, but it was long before he was appointed to be a ruler and deliverer of his people — when indeed he had been rejected of Israel in Egypt, and driven into exile by the wrath of the king. In this position therefore the very marriage of which they complained was the exhibition in type of the sovereign grace of God, who, on the rejection by Israel of His beloved Son, would give Him a bride from among the Gentiles, to be His companion for ever in glory. Miriam and Aaron were thus not only blind to the actings of the sovereign grace of Jehovah, but they also were forgetful that they themselves were debtors to that same grace; for He who had called Moses to be the mediator, had also assigned to them their respective places.

Miriam would seem to have been the instigator of the rebellion, for she is first named, and on her falls the weight of the chastisement. The occasion, or the ostensible occasion, was the fact that Moses had married an Ethiopian woman. This he had certainly done, but it was long before he was appointed to be a ruler and deliverer of his people - when indeed he had been rejected of Israel in Egypt, and driven into exile by the wrath of the king. In this position therefore the very marriage of which they complained was the exhibition in type of the sovereign grace of God, who, on the rejection by Israel of His beloved Son, would give Him a bride from among the Gentiles, to be His companion for ever in glory. Miriam and Aaron were thus not only blind to the actings of the sovereign grace of Jehovah, but they also were forgetful that they themselves were debtors to that same grace; for He who had called Moses to be the mediator, had also assigned to them their respective places.

Open rebellion against Moses by his own brother and sister is the next step in the story of failure. Envy was at the bottom of it. The words Miriam and Aaron spoke reveal that they aimed at Moses' position. Miriam was a prophetess (Exod. 15:20). Aaron had the dignity of the priesthood. Pride, the crime of the devil (1 Tim. 3:6), lead them to speak against their own brother. Miriam was the leader in this rebellion, for her name stands first and the judgment falls upon her. She may have been moved to jealousy by the elders having received the Spirit and exercising the gift of prophecy among the people. And Aaron reveals the weakness of the flesh. It is the second time he failed in this manner. He could not resist the clamoring of the people when they demanded the golden calf and here he cannot resist his sister, who became the willing instrument of Satan, like the first woman (1 Tim. 2:14). Moses had a Cushite woman for wife. This typifies the great truth of the union of Christ and the church, that Gentiles were to be joint-heirs and joint-members of the same body. But it seems that the Cushite wife of Moses was only a subterfuge and an attempt to reflect upon the moral character of the man of God, whose position they envied.

You will recall that in Exodus 2:21, we read of Moses' marriage to Zipporah, daughter of Reuel (Ex. 2:18), or Jethro (Ex. 18:5). We must remember that Zipporah was a Gentile woman; and I hope that at some time you will each read and enjoy Mr. J. G. Bellett's remarks about the line of famous Gentile women that entered into the most illustrious places in Israel. Zipporah was one of this remarkable line, which tells out to those who have ears to hear, of the Gentile bride that our Lord is preparing for Himself at the present time.

He became an exile in Midian and met Reuel. His name also is Jethro (3:1). Reuel means "friend of God." He also was a priest, no doubt a true worshipper of God. Moses received a daughter of the Midianite, Zipporah, for his wife. Rejected by his own people, he entered into union with a Gentile. All this is typical. Christ after His first coming, rejected by His own, receives her, who shares His rejection and who will come with Him, when He comes the second time. The church is here indicated.

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.”

At first Moses' service to those Midianitish women meets no requital, even as Joseph's to the chief butler; but it must not remain so. Reuel, their father, sends for him in virtue of his service to his daughters, provides a home for him, and gives him his daughter Zipporah to wife: and we read, "she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom; for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land."

When forty years of age he visited his brethren, and seeing one ill-used he defended him, and slew the Egyptian; but the next day, on seeing two of the Israelites contending, he reminded them that they were brethren, and would have judged between them; but the wrong-doer repulsed him, and asked whether he would kill him as he had killed the Egyptian. Moses, finding that his deed was known, feared the wrath of the king, and fled from Egypt. He had acted with zeal, but without divine direction, and had therefore to become a fugitive for forty years (being the second period of forty years of his life, as the forty years in the wilderness was the third). In the land of Midian he married Zipporah, daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian, by whom he had two sons.

And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.

Exodus 2:21