TORAH FOR CHRISTIANS
MOSES AND HIS WOMEN
SEASON SIX EPISODE TWELVE
Moses was a Momma’s boy. And thank God for that! I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.
MUSIC
Welcome to Torah for Christians. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr.
We have now come to the Book of Exodus. The tenor of the Hebrew Bible changes with the shift from Genesis to Exodus. In Genesis, we learned how things came to be, from the creation of the world to the Abrahamic clan and the descent into Egypt. Now that we are in Exodus, we will begin to learn the story of the transition of the wandering Hebrew tribe into the Children of Israel. And the key figure in this transition is, of course, Moses.
We won’t go into why Pharaoh might have decreed the death of the Israelite male babies; for that, you can go to previous episodes. In this episode, we will focus on the women in Moses’ life, the women who saved his life, and the women who sustained him during his wilderness journeys.
Let’s start at the beginning. Moses’ mother Yocheved gave birth to Moses just as Pharaoh’s decree of genocide came down. Along with other Israelite women, she used Egyptian midwives to deliver their babies. These midwives, Shifra and Puah, whom we can assume helped Yocheved when she went into labor, lied to the Egyptian authorities when they said that Israelite women give birth so quickly, they don’t have time to get to their homes. Being a dude, Pharaoh believed them.
Shifra and Puah are the first women we commend; without their quick thinking, Moses, along with other Israelite baby boys, would have been thrown into the Nile River. Their actions saved lives; the Torah commends them, and later Midrash turns them into heroes.
After a few months, Moses grew too big to hide. In desperation, Yocheved decided to place Moses in a basket and send him down the Nile River. She was hoping that someone would find him and care for him; she knew that if she kept him at home, Moses, and probably Yocheved herself, would be put to death. Like Noah in the Book of Genesis, Moses’ Ark served as the saving remnant for the people. To make sure that all went well, Yocheved sent Miriam, Moses’ older sister, to watch over him and report back.
At this point, I should note that Moses’ father has not yet been named. In fact, he is never named in the entire Book of Exodus. Not knowing the name of his father is significant; often we know a father’s name but never learn the name of the mother, such as the mother of Judah’s sons in the Tamar story, or Samson’s mother in the Book of Judges. As important as they are, they are never named. So, when we don’t learn the name of Moses’ father immediately, yet learn the name of Moses’ mother and sister, we realize that in this case, the women drive the story; it is not until Moses is grown do we see him encountering male authority figures; even Pharaoh is unimportant to the story right now.
But Pharaoh’s daughter is crucial to the story. She comes down to the Nile to bathe and sees the basket, the little ark in which Moses is lying.
We don’t know anything about Pharaoh’s daughter, not even her name. For example, is she married herself? Does she have other children? Is she simply a young girl who suddenly decides to adopt a stray Israelite baby, just as we might adopt a shelter dog? We just do not know.
Once Pharaoh’s daughter pulled Moses from the bullrushes, Miriam appeared and suggested that she hire an Israelite woman to nurse the baby, whom Pharaoh’s daughter named Moses. Pharaoh’s daughter had recognized that this was an Israelite baby; saving him was itself an act of protest. She readily assented and Miriam ran back home and enlisted their mother to go to the palace and be Moses’ nursemaid.
I’ve often wondered what happened in the years between Moses’ ride down the river and his assault on the Egyptian taskmaster. How was he raised? Who raised him?
My assumption is that Yocheved, Moses’ mother, whispered into his ear. While the language of the palace was, of course, Egyptian, I can imagine Yocheved speaking to Moses in Hebrew, reminding him daily of his Israelite heritage. To me, there is no other motivation for Moses to kill the Egyptian taskmaster; he had to feel empathy for the Israelite slaves. And his mother had to have been the one to instill this empathy within him.
To summarize, prior to Moses fleeing to Midian, the women in his life literally saved his life. Shifra and Puah left him with his mother and did not throw him into the Nile. Yocheved and Miriam ensured that he would survive. And Pharaoh’s daughter saved him from a certain death on the Nile. Until this point, the Moses saga is also a story of righteous and independent women, women who changed the course of history.
When Moses arrived in Midian, he met the Priest Jethro, who played a prominent role in teaching Moses leadership skills – and may also have introduced him to the God of Israel, YHVH. We’ll save that story for another day but Jethro also gave Moses his daughter Zippora in marriage. They had two sons, who disappeared from history.
We don’t know that much about Zippora. It’s clear that she was the daughter of a powerful priest, Jethro, and that she was loyal to him and to his faith. But she was also loyal to Moses. After all, she bore him those two sons and presumably raised them. And it also seems that she adopted the worship of Moses’ new and relatively unknown deity.
There is one peculiar episode which stands out. As Moses and his family are returning to Egypt, an angel appeared to Moses at night, seeking to kill him. Zippora grabbed a flint blade and circumcised Moses and their two sons, saving them from death. According to the English translation, she declared that Moses was a “bridegroom of blood,” whatever that means. Then, we hear little more about Zippora until she dies.
When the Israelites crossed the Sea of Reeds and saw the Egyptian army floating on the waters, they broke out into song. After the men finished their famous song, Miriam broke out her timbrel and led the women in song, repeating the first verses of the men’s song, “I will sing to YHVH for YHVH is great. Horse and rider YHVH has thrown into the sea.”
So is Miriam a musician? Who knows! More importantly though, Miriam was a leader of women. At a time when gender roles were very specific and well defined, Miriam exemplified a woman in a position in power, even more than Zipporah. We see that in the following story.
The story of the Cushite woman, found in the Book of Numbers, is an intriguing one. After Zipporah’s death, Moses married a Cushite woman. Cush is probably modern-day Ethiopia. The Cushites, such as the Queen of Sheba and the women mentioned in the Song of Songs, are black. We don’t know how Moses found, never mind marry, a Cushite woman, but he did.
To put it bluntly, Moses married a black woman. Aaron and Miriam cursed Moses for marrying her. In return, God cursed Aaron and Miriam, giving her leprosy. Moses prayed to God to remove her affliction, which he did. Miriam especially is the villain in this story, due to her leadership position.
The lesson here is quite powerful. Aaron and Miriam engaged in a racist attack on Moses and especially upon the Cushite woman. Perhaps they were upset that Moses found love after Zippora’s death but nevertheless, they were not happy. This story tells us that color does not matter; what matters is a sense of mutual love: love of each other and love of God.
In conclusion, we have learned that the women in Moses’ life play an outsized role in his story. We know that the midwives saved him from certain death. Yocheved and Miriam saved him by floating him down the river, saved by Pharaoh’s daughter. And then, Zipporah saves his life by circumcising him and their sons. And even though she reacts terribly to the Cushite woman, she became the acknowledged leader of the Israelite women.
Next week, we will discuss the most powerful woman in the entire Bible, the warrior-judge Deborah, a female general and leader of the people.
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In conclusion, let me say again, Hinei … L’hitra’ot, till we meet again. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.