Zipporah

But then you look at the story of Moses, and you don't really get a wife story.

We hear about Zipporah a little bit.

We hear, like, she's there.

We know that Miriam was unhappy because, uh, M- his sister was unhappy 'cause she was, like, darker or something.

So, so before he goes to Egypt, the angel of the Lord is gonna meet him by...

Like, in our English B- Bibles today, we read it and we've been taught that the angel of the Lord Gets mad at Moses, goes and, and is going to kill him, by the way.

But then Zipporah takes her knife and circumcises him, h- her firstborn son, and throws the foreskin on Moses' feet and says, "You're a bloody bridegroom-

Ugh

He started by helping others, and others helped him.

Then Moses was content to live with the man, and he gave Zipporah, his daughter, to Moses as a wife.

You see small marriage, you want to marry, you propose, they bounce you.

You propose, they bounce.

And then later on, we see in Exodus 18.

Jethro coming back with Zipporah after she had been sent out and with his children.

It almost seems as though Jethro is coming to make some kind of order in the family.

In other words, that he has a role that normally the father-in-law would not have.

Like, you have a house and bread? I'm your guy.

Then he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah.

He gets married.

She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom.

Moses is 40, and he's just starting to enter into adult masculine responsibility.

He's got a wife.

Her name is Zipporah.

You gotta come back, learn about this girl.

Abraham working through this gave him the opportunity to hear from God for himself and then provide direction for the entire family.

including ishmael so we're going to take a minute because this is so important to consider a few passages on the subject of life-saving easers in the law prophets and writings oh yeah abraham's descendant moses and his wife zipporah are prime examples consider exodus 4 verse 24 it says at a lodging place on the way the lord met him and sought to put him to death jesus Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it and said, surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.

So he let him alone.

It was then that she said a bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision.

After Moses had met with God at the burning bush and received his divine commands, he was on his way to deliver the people.

However, he would have died before he ever got started if it was not for a life-saving easer who watched over the word of God and aided her husband by doing what the word commanded.

By the way, Zipporah was not an Israelite, but she knew God's word anyway.

Moses' choice in a wife and investment in that wife quite literally saved his life and his entire calling.

But the biblical picture of women... it's not that they are praised for their motherhood necessarily.

I mean, you look at Zipporah, Moses' wife, and the biggest thing that she's mentioned for in scripture is telling her husband off.

And, you know, circumcising The kids and him, right? Because that must be the reason that God is coming at us.

So, I mean, in a sense, you can say that's mothering and that she's protecting the family where he failed to do so.