Who did Moses marry first?

Forty years of exiledom are appointed for Moses; but whether those years should be one uninterrupted season of sorrow and gloom, or whether they should be mitigated by sources of solace and cheer, depends on the manner in which the disciplined one receives the discipline. Will he bow himself and accept the will of the Lord? Will he prove himself here a deliverer of the distressed, in principle and heart, as well as for his own people? If he will, he accepts God's discipline; and, therefore, his lot may be less trying and oppressive. The moment subjection is established discipline becomes effective, and may be relaxed. Though not removed, the scene may be brightened. And thus was it with Moses. He acts the part of a deliverer to the women at the well, who were driven away by the shepherds. Although he has been denied to declare himself as such in a large circle, he does not refuse it in a very insignificant one; he does not brood in listless sorrow over his own reverses, like the fool eating his own flesh, but he submits to his circumstances, and rises above his own feelings, in his interest to serve others. Until I am superior to a trial I must be under it; and, while under it, not free to serve with whole-heartedness, or cheerfulness of spirit, which latter is always the mainspring of service. Nothing proves more the divinity of our mission than ease and readiness to accord it in the most retired and unknown quarters, as well as the most attractive and congenial. And when we fully surrender ourselves to the position the Lord has ordered for us, serving Him therein, He makes the desert land (the place of discipline), to brighten up, and provides rest and solace in that on which we entered in sorrow and desolation of heart.

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.

What could he do but escape from Egypt entirely? He took a long journey to Midian, possibly nearly one hundred miles, thus being separated altogether from his own people Israel as well as from Egypt. How intense must have been his loneliness! But it was God who had led him there. Sitting down to rest by a well, he witnessed a scene that again stirred his concern for those who were oppressed. Seven daughters of one man, the priest of Midian, came to water their father's flock of sheep, but other shepherds came to drive them away. Moses took up the cause of the weak, helping the young women and watering their flock (v. 17).

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.”

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.

The forty years spent by Moses in Midian were, as we express it, the best years of his life. He had forty years' training in Egypt , and then the Lord took him aside into His school to train him for the great work for which he had been chosen. In the obscurity of the desert he was prepared to be "a vessel fit for the Master's use." How blessed must have been his experience, away from man, away from Egypt 's pleasures, alone with God. Thus the Lord has dealt with all His servants. Elijah came forth out of the wilderness and went back to Cherith, Ezekiel was alone at the river Chebar. Paul spent his schooling days in Arabia . Blessed are His servants who follow His leading into the desert place, to find their never-failing source of strength in communion with their Lord, who receive their service from Himself, and then go forth to serve.

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.

The instruction found in this chapter is most striking and solemn instruction never more needed than at the present moment. "Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married." In the previous chapter the people had fallen into sin, complaining of the hardships and deprivations of their pilgrim life; and Moses, chafed in spirit at the conduct of the people, and weary of his service, also failed; and now Miriam and Aaron rise up in rebellion against Moses as the leader of the people. Miriam was a prophetess, and Aaron was the priest, while Moses was "king in Jeshurun." It is the rebellion of the people therefore (for Miriam and Aaron are representatives of Israel) against the rights and authority of Christ; or, to speak more accurately, it is the people using their privileges as being the messenger of Jehovah, entrusted with the communications of His mind, and hence His witnesses, and as enjoying access to Him through the priest, to cast off the authority conferred on Moses as the faithful servant and administrator of Jehovah's house. It is a solemn thing when the people of God employ the position which grace has bestowed upon them, to claim the rights which belong alone to Christ; as if the dignities which have flowed from grace could ever be independent of their source.

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.

The years go by, and in Number 12:1 we read, "Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman." We know the stern rebuke that the Lord administered to Aaron and Miriam, and the terrible punishment of leprosy that fell on Miriam, for speaking against Moses. But that did not justify Moses in what he had done. As we remember that Moses was used of God to write these Books, we may read his own acknowledgement and confession of his act in these words, "For he had married an Ethiopian woman." We are not told whether Zipporah was dead, or whether Moses had taken this woman, as well as his own wife. When Moses married Zipporah he was not in a position to take a wife of his own people; but now there was no such reason for taking one outside the people of God. However, the grace of God has drawn a veil over all the details of this matter, and we would not join with Aaron and Miriam in speaking against God's honoured servant. It is good to remember that it is no delight to the Spirit of God to expose the failings of the Lord's people. Love covers sin when it can rightly do so, and so our God mercifully acts towards us.

Ques. What of this Ethiopian woman whom Moses had married?

They were glad of an excuse to blame Moses; it took place, I suppose, at the time he was driven out of Egypt. It would most likely be a different woman from Zipporah, because she would be a Cushite, and not an Ethiopian.

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.

Here in Num. 12 we have two different lessons to which we will do well to take heed. The one is to beware of spiritual pride, and to bow to God's will in the order of His house; the other, God's intervention on behalf of His despised servant. "And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married." Moses rejected by Israel (Acts 7:27) and in exile marrying a Gentile was the foreshadowing of the rejection of One greater than he, of One who during the time of His rejection calls His bride from among the Gentiles. It was only a shadow, and the substance was needed to learn its import. The True Light dissolves all shadows. But this marriage affords a specious opportunity for disputing the position of Moses whose meekness, so marked in wishing that all the Lord's people were prophets, does not shelter him from envy and depreciation. Indeed it not infrequently happens that the most meek are the most exposed to the shafts of envy, to the disparaging statements of those who are greatly inferior. And we have an instance here that not even the tie of kindred prevented Miriam and Aaron from speaking against their brother. The pretence is his marriage with the Ethiopian woman. It was only a peg whereon to hang their jealousy. The Pharisees showed a kindred spirit when, in their envy of the Lord and hatred of His grace, they objected to His eating with publicans and sinners. And this spirit is as insidious, as various in its aspects. The Pharisaic brethren in Jerusalem were not free from its influence when they charged Peter with going to men uncircumcised and eating with them.