Moses and the Kushite Woman: Classic Interpretations and Philo’s Allegory
Ancient interpreters debated the identify of Moses’ Kushite wife and the nature of Miriam and Aaron’s complaint. Philo allegorizes her as an eye’s perfect focus, reflecting Moses’ direct perception of God. Reading this together with Philo’s allegorical understanding of Zipporah as a “bird” with direct access to heaven highlights the greatness of Moses’ wife as the fourth matriarch of Israel.[1]
Dr. Elad Filler
Moses and his Ethiopian Wife. Jacob Jordaens (c. 1650) Netherlands
Part 1Classic Interpretations of the Story
Numbers 12 tells the story of Miriam and Aaron slandering Moses’ Kushite wife:
במדבר יב:א וַתְּדַבֵּר מִרְיָם וְאַהֲרֹן בְּמֹשֶׁה עַל אֹדוֹת הָאִשָּׁה הַכֻּשִׁית אֲשֶׁר לָקָח כִּי אִשָּׁה כֻשִׁית לָקָח.
| Num 12:1 Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Kushite woman he had married, “For he married a Kushite woman!” |
From the Second Temple period and on, Jewish authors and sages debated who this woman was and why Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses’ marriage to her.
1. Who Is the Kushite Woman?
Commentators have suggested two possible answers to the question of the Kushite woman’s identity: either this is a reference to a second wife of Moses or to Zipporah herself.[2]
A) Moses’ Second Wife Was an Ethiopian PrincessKush is the Hebrew name for Ethiopia (modern day Sudan and Ethiopia). The Greek LXX translates Kush this way here:
And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses on account of the Ethiopian woman whom Moses had taken, because he had taken an Ethiopian woman.
This interpretation was also adopted by the medieval commentator, Rashbam.[3] Already in the Second Temple period, a backstory was created in order to explain when and why Moses married this woman. Josephus (Ant. 2:252-253) offers one version of this fantastical tale, which begins with Moses in his early years as an Egyptian prince (before he killed the Egyptian taskmaster and went into exile), leading the Egyptian army in a battle against the Ethiopians:
252 Tharbis was the daughter of the king of the Ethiopians. Observing Moses leading his army near the walls and fighting courageously, marveling at the inventiveness of his undertakings and believing that for the Egyptians who had earlier despaired of their freedom he was responsible for their success, while for the Ethiopians who had prided themselves on their successes against them, he was responsible for their danger in the extreme, she fell madly in love with him. When passion got the better of her, she sent to him the most trustworthy of her servants to enter into discussion about marriage.
253 When he accepted the proposal on condition of her surrendering the city and gave pledges on oath, indeed, that he would take her as a wife and that, having conquered the city, he would not transgress the agreement, the deed anticipated the words. After the annihilation of the Ethiopians, giving thanks to God, Moses contracted the marriage and led the Egyptians back to their land.
Josephus did not make up the story of Moses’ escapades in Ethiopia, since part of it (the campaign against Ethiopia) already appears in the work of the second-century B.C.E. Hellenistic Jewish writer Artapanus.[4] It was likely a Judean legend popular among Hellenized Jews in the diaspora.
B) Zipporah the “Kushite”According to the Sifrei (Numbers 99), a third century C.E. midrash on Numbers, the Kushite woman was Jethro’s daughter Zipporah, and she was called Kushite because of the way she looked:
וכי כושית היתה והלא מדיינית היתה שנאמר ולכהן מדין שבע בנות (שמות ב טז) ומה ת”ל כושית אלא מה כושי משונה בעורו כך צפורה משונה בנויה יותר מכל הנשים
| But was she a Kushite? No, she was a Midianite, as is stated, “the priest of Midian had seven daughters” (Exod. 2:16). Then what does the text mean by “Kushite”? Just as a Kushite stands out because of his [dark] skin, Zipporah stood out among other women because of her beauty.[5] |
According to this Rabbinic approach, Zipporah is called a Kushite because of her unusual beauty.
2. What Bothered Miriam and Aaron?
Commentators have taken two opposite approaches to what bothered Miriam and Aaron about “the Kushite woman.” According to one approach, they were bothered that Moses divorced her, according to the other, that he married her.
A) Criticism of Moses’ Separation/DivorceThe traditional Aramaic translation of the Torah from Rabbinic times, Targum Onkelos (ad loc.), who understands “Kushite” to mean beautiful (and thus a reference to Zipporah), suggests that Miriam and Aaron were upset about a separation:
ומלילת מרים ואהרן במשה על עסק אתתא שפירתא די נסיב ארי אתתא שפירתא דנסיב רחיק.
| Miriam and Aaron spoke about Moses because of the beautiful woman he had married, for he had separated from the beautiful woman he married.[6] |
The idea that Moses separated from Zipporah could be adduced from the description of Jethro bringing Moses his wife, “after she had been sent home” (אַחַר שִׁלּוּחֶיהָ) in Exod. 18:2.[7]The Greek is even more explicit: “after her dismissal” (μετὰ τὴν ἄφεσιν αὐτῆς). These interpretations may be based on the use of the root ש-ל-ח for divorce in Deut 24:1, “and sends her from his home” (וְשִׁלְּחָהּ מִבֵּיתוֹ).
The Midrash Tanchuma offers a backstory for Moses’ separation from his wife:
בשעה שאמר הקב”ה למשה בסיני קודם מתן תורה שיקדש את העם ואמר להם, לשלושת ימים אל תגשו אל אשה, פרשו הם מנשותיהם ופרש משה מאשתו. ואחר מתן תורה אמר לו הקב”ה, לך אמור להם, שובו לאהליכם,ואתה פה עמוד עמדי, ואל תשוב לדרך ארץ. וכשאמרה צפורה אוי לנשותיהן של אלו, הן נזקקין לנבואה שיהו פורשין מנשותיהם כמו שפרש בעלי הימני.
| When the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses on Sinai before giving the Torah that the people should sanctify themselves, and he said to them for three days do not approach a woman (Exod 19:15), they separated from their wives and Moses separated from his wife. After the giving of the Torah, the Holy One said to him, “Go tell them that they may return to their tents” (Deut 5:27),[8] but you stand here with me and do not return to standard marital relations.[9]Thus, Tzipporah said [after Eldad and Meded prophesied in the camp] “Woe unto those men’s wives since they are needed as prophets and they will separate from their wives just as my husband has separated from me.[10] |
In this interpretation, Miriam is saying that just because God speaks to Moses, Moses should not see himself as too holy to remain married.
B) Criticism of Moses’ MarriageSome rabbinic commentators note the problem that Moses married a non-Israelite, whether Zipporah the Midianite or an unnamed Ethiopian woman. This problem comes to the fore in a rabbinic midrash describing the rebellion of Zimri ben Salu, who brings a Midianite woman to the Tabernacle (Num 25:6).[11] According to the midrash, Zimri defends his actions with the following (b. Sanhedrin 82a):
אמר לו: בן עמרם! זו אסורה או מותרת? ואם תאמר אסורה – בת יתרו מי התירה לך?
| He (=Zimri) said to him (=Moses): “Son of Amram! This one (=Kozbi) is forbidden but this one (=Zipporah) is permitted?!” If you say mine is forbidden, who permitted Jethro’s daughter to you?” |
Rashi (ad loc) feels the need to defend Moses:
משה קודם מתן תורה נשא, וכשנתנה תורה כולן בני נח היו ונכנסו לכלל מצות והיא עמהם, וגרים רבים של ערב רב.
| Moses’ marriage predated the giving of the Torah and when the Torah was given, they were all (including the Israelites) simply Noachides, and she entered the covenant of mitzvotwith them just as the many other converts among the mixed multitude did. |
Accordingly, Miriam’s criticism is either about Moses’ taking a second wife or about his marrying a non-Israelite.
Part 2Philo’s Allegory
Philo (c. 25 BCE – 50 CE), the Jewish philosopher from Alexandria, offers a unique explanation of this passage, in line with his allegorical reading of the Torah’s laws and stories in line with a Greek philosophical framework.
Miriam and Aaron’s Perception of GodIn his Allegorical Interpretation, Philo explains the difference between the recognition of God experienced by Aaron and Miriam and the recognition of God experienced by Moses (Leg. All. 3:103):
For Aaron the word (λόγος), and Miriam perception (αἴσθησις), when they rose up against Moses were expressly told that “If there shall arise a prophet to the Lord, God shall be made known to him in a vision, and in a shadow, but not clearly. But with Moses, who is faithful in all his house, God will speak mouth to mouth in his own form, and not by riddles” (Num 12:6-8).[12]
Philo allegorizes both Aaron and Miriam as types of derivative knowledge. In other words, the philosopher has no direct access to God, but relates to God through analyzing God’s works.[13]
Philo refers to this as understanding God by looking at his shadow, ostensibly, referring to Socrates’ Allegory of the Cave, described in book 7 of Plato’s Republic. In this allegory, people sitting in a cave, and forced only to look at the shadows of things walking past the cave’s opening, try to speculate about what the objects or beings making the shadows really are.
This is the kind of knowledge Aaron and Miriam had of God, and it contrasts sharply with Moses’ unique perception (Leg. All. 100):
There is also a more perfect and more highly purified kind which has been initiated into the great mysteries, and which does not distinguish the cause from the things created as it would distinguish an abiding body from a shadow; but which, having emerged from all created objects, receives a clear and manifest notion of the great uncreated, so that it comprehends him through himself, and comprehends his shadow, too, so as to understand what it is, and his reason, too, and this universal world.
In short, Moses perceives God directly and not just God’s shadow, by which Philo means he is cognizant of the existence of God.[14] Aaron and Miriam, who represent logic and perception, cannot understand how this is so and lash out at this more perfect form of knowledge.
But what does this have to do with Moses’ marriage? This becomes clear when we learn how Philo understands what the Kushite woman represents.
Moses Marries “Unchangeable Nature”Philo bases his allegory on the fact that Moses’ wife is described as Ethiopian, i.e., she is dark skinned. Since black is the color of the eye’s pupil, Philo here consults his knowledge of Greek science, specifically Plato’s scientific description of the world in his Timaeus, where he tries to explain how vision works (Timaeus 36):
White and black are similar effects of contraction and dilation in another sphere, and for this reason have a different appearance. Wherefore, we ought to term white that which dilates the visual ray, and the opposite of this is black.
According to Plato, the blackness of the pupil reflects the contraction or focusing of the visual ray, which Philo translates as “perfect focus.” Thus, in his explanation for why God requires Miriam to remain outside the camp for seven days (Num 12:14-15), Philo writes (2:66-67; Yonge trans.):
It is said also in the case of Miriam, when she was speaking against Moses, “If her father had spit in her face, ought she not to keep herself retired for seven days?” (Num 12:14). For the external sense (=Miriam), being really shameless and impudent, though considered as nothing by God the father, in comparison of him (=Moses) who was faithful in all his house, to whom God himself united the Ethiopian woman, that is to say, unchangeable and well-satisfied opinion, dared to speak against Moses and to accuse him, for the very actions for which he deserved to be praised.
For this is his greatest praise, that he received the Ethiopian woman, the unchangeable nature, tried in the fire and found honest; for as in the eye, the part which sees is black, so also the part of the soul which sees is what is meant by the Ethiopian woman.
In Philo’s reading, Moses’ Ethiopian wife represents “unchangeable nature” or “unchangeable opinion” since she is finely focused and can see the world properly. What this means is that, unlike other prophets who only have words/logic (Aaron) or sensibility (Miriam), Moses has a direct and unmediated relationship with God, represented by his having married “perfect focus” (the Kushite woman).
Philo’s Understanding of the Narrative
To better understand the allegory, we need to ask who, according to Philo, this Ethiopian woman is meant to be: Is it Zipporah or a second wife? Louis Feldman assumes that Philo is picturing a second wife here, mostly because he uses the term “Ethiopian woman.”[15] And yet, a polygynous Moses would be difficult to reconcile with what Philo says about Moses’ attitude towards sex and marriage in other places.[16] For instance, in Life of Moses (De Vita Mosis, 1:28), Philo describes Moses’ youth:
For he never provided his stomach with any luxuries beyond those necessary tributes which nature has appointed to be paid to it, and as to the pleasures of the organs below the stomach he paid no attention to them at all, except as far as the object of having legitimate children was concerned.[17]
It would be strange to suggest a reading of Philo in which Moses conquers his sexual impulses in childhood only to succumb once he was an old man and had reached the highest level of prophecy. It thus seems more likely to me that, despite his use of the term “Ethiopian,” Philo is picturing Zipporah as Moses’ wife in this story. Two further points support this reading.
Good LooksThe rabbinic interpretation of Kushite as implying Zipporah’s beauty and Philo’s description of her in the scene detailing the first encounter between Moses and his father-in-law (Life of Moses 1:59) are somewhat similar:
And their father was at once greatly struck by his appearance, and soon afterwards he learnt to admire his wisdom, for great natures are very easily discovered, and do not require a length of time to be appreciated, and so he gave him the most beautiful of his daughters to be his wife, conjecturing by that one action of his how completely good and excellent he was, and testifying that what is good is the only thing which deserves to be loved, and that it does not require any external recommendation, but bears in itself proofs by which it may be known and understood.
The Torah itself never explains why Reuel chose Zipporah out of all his daughters. Philo’s suggestion that it was because of her good looks may reflect the same interpretive tradition as that behind the rabbinic texts cited above.[18]
Zipporah’s Sublime VirtueA stronger piece of evidence that Zipporah and the Kushite woman are one and the same in Philo’s thinking comes from a comparison of how both women are treated allegorically. Philo is effusive in his praise of Zipporah. For instance, in his On the Cherubs (De Cherubim, 47), he offers an interpretation of Zipporah’s name and the conception of their first son:
Moses, who received Zipporah, that is to say, winged and sublime virtue (ἀρετή), without any supplication or entreaty on his part, found that she conceived by no mortal man.
The passage appears in a section in which Philo describes how the matriarchs Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, and Zipporah became pregnant through God’s intervention. For the first three, Philo is building upon the way the verses connect the pregnancy with God. For Zipporah, however, Philo’s analysis appears to be based on how in contrast to the other matriarchs, the text makes no mention of her becoming pregnant at all:
| Sarah (Gen 21:1-2) |
וַי-הוָה פָּקַד אֶת שָׂרָה כַּאֲשֶׁר אָמָר וַיַּעַשׂ יְ-הוָה לְשָׂרָה כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֵּר וַתַּהַר וַתֵּלֶד שָׂרָה…
| YHWH took note of Sarah as He had promised, and YHWH did for Sarah as He had spoken. Sarah conceived and bore…[19] |
| Rebekah (Gen 25:21) |
וַיֶּעְתַּר יִצְחָק לַי-הוָה לְנֹכַח אִשְׁתּוֹ כִּי עֲקָרָה הִוא וַיֵּעָתֶר לוֹ יְ-הוָה וַתַּהַר רִבְקָה אִשְׁתּוֹ
| Isaac pleaded with YHWH on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and YHWH responded to his plea, and his wife Rebekah conceived. |
| Leah (29:31-32) |
וַיַּרְא יְ-הוָה כִּי שְׂנוּאָה לֵאָה וַיִּפְתַּח אֶת רַחְמָהּ… וַתַּהַרלֵאָה וַתֵּלֶד
| YHWH saw that Leah was unloved and he opened her womb… Leah conceived and bore…[20] |
| Zipporah (Exod 2:21-22) |
וַיִּתֵּן אֶת צִפֹּרָה בִתּוֹ לְמֹשֶׁה וַתֵּלֶד בֵּן
| And [Reuel] gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses and she bore… |
For Philo, the point is that Zipporah conceives without the need for any intermediary involvement, such as Isaac’s prayer for Rebekah. Zipporah here thus favorably compares with the matriarchs, in that her conception of a son through God was based on a direct connection. This image of “direct connection” is reminiscent of what Philo writes about the Ethiopian woman, as is his focus on her importance as Moses’ wife. This implies that in Philo’s mind Moses had one wife and that Zipporah and the Ethiopian woman are the same person.[21]
Zipporah and Miriam: The Limited Nature of Perception
Assuming that Philo’s reading of the story is that Miriam and Aaron are complaining about Moses’ marriage to Zipporah (see appendix for a discussion of the option that he divorced her), how does this effect our understanding of Philo’s interpretation? As noted above, in his allegorical treatment of God’s answer, Philo understands Aaron as “word” (λόγος) and Miriam as “perception” or “sensations” (αἴσθησις), a lower form of knowledge with negative overtones in Philo’s taxonomy.
Philo believes that perception is necessary for the perfection of intellect, but its enmeshment within the intellect is replete with dangers both spiritual and philosophical. Yet these dangers do nothing to diminish the necessity of perception to connect the intellect to corporeal reality.
A pure intellect devoid of perception or sensations is utterly miserable and powerless because it lacks any and all connection to earthly reality. Thus Miriam’s complaint about Moses reflects her status as an average prophet, one who falls short of the achievements of the truly great prophet, Moses.
The Uniqueness of Zipporah
Miriam is not the first biblical woman whom Philo identifies with “perception.”[22] According to Philo, women in general represent “perception,” an attitude that was common among Greek philosophers. Nevertheless, Philo noted some exceptions to this rule.
In contrast to Miriam and Eve, Zipporah stands out as an admirable character. In fact, Zipporah actually takes Rachel’s place as the fourth “mother” of Israel in Philo’s nomenclature, likely because of his negative representation of Rachel in his allegories.[23] In his On the Cherubs (De Cherubim, 41), Philo offers his allegorical understanding of the four matriarchs, whom he sees as a special subset of women/wives:
For since we say that “woman” is to be understood symbolically as the outward sense, and since knowledge consists in alienation from the outward sense and from the body, it is plain that the lovers of wisdom must repudiate the outward sense rather than choose it, and is not this quite natural? For they who live with these men are in name indeed wives, but in fact virtues.
- Sarah is princess and guide,
- Rebecca is perseverance in what is good;
- Leah again is virtue, fainting and weary at the long continuance of exertion, which every foolish man declines, and avoids, and repudiates;
- Zipporah, the wife of Moses, is virtue, mounting up from earth to heaven, and arriving at a just comprehension of the divine and blessed virtues which exist there, and she is called a bird.[24]
This celebratory description of Zipporah, and her placement as the fourth matriarch, is in sharp contrast to Miriam’s writing off the Kushite woman. The story would be about how “sensation” (=Miriam) spoke badly about “direct perception” (=Zipporah). In other words, the direct perception of reality and God represented in Zipporah were unintelligible to the likes of Miriam, who embodies the perception of the world through the senses.
Such a reading serves as an ironic denouement to a story often understood as being about how Zipporah was divorced by the great prophet so that she would not be a distraction in his intimate relationship with God.
___________________
Appendix
Exploring the Divorce Option in Philo
Philo never says explicitly whether Miriam is accusing of Moses of marrying or divorcing his wife, and he would have been sympathetic with a philosopher divorcing his wife after having children to avoid the distractions of marriage. Philo more than once claims that the purpose of marriage is having children. For example, he writes in his On the Giants (De Gigantibus29):
The greatest cause of our ignorance is the flesh, and our inseparable connection with the flesh. And this, Moses (=the Torah) represents God as admitting, where he says that, “Because they are flesh,” the spirit of God cannot abide in them (Gen 6:3). And yet marriage and the rearing of children, and the furnishing of necessary things, and ingloriousness conjoined with a want of money and business, both private and public, and a countless number of other things cause wisdom to waste away, before it begins to flourish vigorously.[25]
Thus, once the child-bearing stage of marriage is complete, wouldn’t a great philosopher like Moses put an end to the relationship? But this may be overstating Philo’s emphasis on procreation as the only benefit of marriage. Philo’s comments on the subject of the beautiful captive woman in his On Virtues makes it clear that he sees marriage and sex as being about more than just procreation (De Virtutibus, 112):
And, after that period, you shall cohabit with her as with a legitimate wedded wife; for it is right that one who is about to ascend the bed of her husband, not for hire, like a harlot who makes a traffic of the flower of her beauty, but either out of love for him who has espoused her, or for the sake of the procreation of children, should be thought worthy of the ordinances which belong to a legitimate marriage.
A stronger support for the possibility that Philo believed that Moses divorced his wife is that Philo claims that Moses must have been abstinant from sexual relations in order to be available to receive prophecy at all times (Life of Moses 2:68-69):
But, in the first place, before assuming that office, it was necessary for him to purify not only his soul but also his body, so that it should be connected with and defiled by no passion but should be pure from everything which is of a mortal nature, from all meat and drink, and from all connection with women. And this last thing, indeed, he had despised for a long time, and almost from the first moment that he began to prophesy and to feel a divine inspiration, thinking that it was proper that he should at all times be ready to give his whole attention to the commands of God.[26]
It is possible, therefore, that Philo believed that Moses divorced his wife to maintain his policy of abstinence. If so, Miriam’s complaint may stem from a contradictory philosophical principle, namely, the importance of keeping the world whole, which requires the formation and maintenance of marital ties even after procreation has been achieved.[27]
Philo actually has a numerological argument that suggests that humankind bears an ethical obligation to preserve the wholeness of the world due to our being created on the sixth day.[28] This is based on the Pythagorean understanding of the number six as a perfect number, as well as a mixed number that embodies the need to procreate as well as to maintain the male-female balance of the world.
The Significance of the Number Six in Creation
According to Genesis 1, the world is created in six days and human beings are formed on the sixth day. Reflecting neo-Pythagorean influence,[29] Philo argues in On the Creation (De Opificio Mundi, 13) that the number at the root of Creation—six—is the most propitious for procreation because “of all numbers, six is, by the laws of nature, the most productive.”
Philo continues by enumerating the significant aspects of the number 6:
The Sum and Product of Its Factors – In the ancient world, a perfect number was one that was equal to the sum of its factors, in this case: 1+2+3=6. In fact, it is even better than the average “perfect number” since it is also equal to the product of its factors (1x2x3=6).[30]
…for of all the numbers, from the unit upwards, it is the first perfect one, being made equal to its parts (i.e., through addition), and being made complete by them (i.e., through multiplication); the number three being half of it, and the number two a third of it, and the unit a sixth of it.
Product of Even and Odd – The number six is a product of an even and an odd number and in Pythagorean philosophy, even numbers represent female and odd numbers male:
[Six] is formed so as to be both male and female, and is made up of the power of both natures; for in existing things the odd number is the male, and the even number is the female; accordingly, of odd numbers the first is the number three, and of even numbers the first is two, and the two numbers multiplied together make six.
Thus, since six is the product of the first even number with the first odd number (not including 1),[31] Philo concludes:
It was fitting therefore, that the world, being the most perfect of created things, should be made according to the perfect number, namely, six.
If the number six, which is at the root of creation, is perfect, then the created world as well is perfect. What is more, as a number made up of even and odd (male and female) integers, it represents the concept of marriage and procreation. Philo thus connects the commandment to “be fruitful, multiply, and fill the land” (Gen 1:22) to the fact that creation is based on the number six. He even mentions that philosophers refer to this number as either “matrimony” or “harmony.”[32]
Miriam’s Misunderstanding
According to this reading, what Miriam did not understand is that whereas for most people—even most prophets—the need to maintain the world’s balance through marriage is the more important principle, Moses was not like other prophets and in his case, and ascetic ideal was fully justified.
Nevertheless, as nicely as this works out in theory, the allegorical explanation Philo chooses for this story makes it unlikely that this is his reading. If marrying the Ethiopian woman is Moses’ “greatest praise,” since she is “unchangeable nature” and reflects Moses’ ability to have “perfect focus” on God, how could the story be about how Moses divorced her?
It seems more likely, therefore, that according to Philo, Miriam’s criticism was against Moses’ marriage, not his divorce. Yet it is possible to recognize God’s existence without recourse to senses or logic, and this was the unique ability of Moses, the man of God, who was different than all other prophets. As God said to Miriam and Aaron (Num. 12:7): “Not so with My servant Moses; he is trusted throughout My household.”
___________________
Dr. Elad Filler is a lecturer in Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Jewish Thought, where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. He writes extensively on Philo, and among his articles are “On Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife in Philo” (Daat [ Hebrew]), “Philosophical and Political Aspects of the Migration of Abram from Ur of the Chaldeans in Philo” (Jewish Studies [Hebrew]), “Platonic and Stoic Dialectic in Philo” (Elenchos), and “Philo’s Threefold Divine Vision and the Christian Trinity” (HUCA). Filler is currently the Chair of the Society of Biblical Literature’s Judaica Unit.
[1] This piece is based on my longer academic article: Elad Filler, “Moses and the Kushite Woman according to Philo,” in Moses the Man – Master of the Prophets, (= משה אבי הנביאים: דמותו בראי ההגות לדורותיה; eds., Moshe Hallamish, Hanna Kasher, and Hanoch Ben-Pazi; Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2010), 87-98 [Hebrew].
[2] The problem with the former interpretation is that the Torah never mentions Moses marrying anybody other than Zipporah; the problem with the latter interpretation is that Zipporah is a Midianite not a Kushite. Another problem with this interpretation is why does Miriam see fit to comment only now, in Numbers 12, and not upon the arrival of Moses’ Midianite wife with her father and sons, in Exodus 18?
[3] See Rashbam’s interpretation of Num 12:1:
כי אשה כושית לקח – כדכת’ בדברי הימים דמשה רבנו שמלך בארץ כוש ארבעים שנה ולקח מלכה אחת ולא שכב עמה כמו שכתוב שם, והם לא ידעו כשדיברו בו שלא נזקק לה. זהו עיקר פשוטו. שאם בשביל צפורה דיברו, מה צורך לפרש כי אשה כושית לקח? וכי [עד] עתה לא ידענו כי ציפורה מדיינית היא? ועוד תשובה כי לא היתה כושית כי כוש מבני חם הוא, ומדיין מבני קטורה אשר ילדה לאברהם:
| For he married a Kushite woman – as it states in The Chronicles [of Moses], our teacher, Moses, ruled over the land of Kush for forty years, and married the queen but did not lie with her, as is written there. When [Aaron and Miriam] spoke about him they didn’t realize that he had never been intimate with her. This is the simple meaning. For if they were speaking about Tzipporah, what would be the necessity of explaining that he had married this Kushite/foreign woman? Did we not know until now that Tzipporah was a Midianite/foreign woman? Furthermore, she wasn’t Kushite, since Kush is a descendent of Ham whereas Midian is a descendent of Keturah, who bore him to Abraham. |
[4] Artapanus’ works are lost, but an excerpt appears in the work of Alexander Polyhistor, a first-century B.C.E. Greek scholar who lived in Rome. Though Artapanus omitted the story of Tharbis in his account of the war, Josephus chose to include it in his work. In his translation and commentary on Judean Antiquities (ad loc.), Abraham Schalit suggests that Josephus wished to lend some Hellenistic flavor to Moses’ life and prove to his gentile audience that their claim of Jewish amixia, or non-assimilation, was incorrect, since Moses himself had married a non-Jew.
[5] Another version of this explanation appears in Midrash Tanchuma (Tzav 13):
ועל שם נויה נקראת כושית, כאדם הקורא לבנו נאה, כושי, כדי שלא תשלוט בו עין הרע.
| She was called Kushite because of her loveliness, in the same way as a man calls his good-looking son “darky” so that the evil eye not have power over him. |
[6] Similarly, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (ad loc.), who understands the Kushite woman to be the Ethiopian princess, focuses on Moses having separated from her:
וְאִשְׁתְּעִיוּ מִרְיָם וְאַהֲרֹן בְּמשֶׁה פִּתְגָמִין דְלָא מְהַגְנִין עַל עֵיסַק אִתְּתָא כּוּשְׁיָיתָא דְאַסְבוֹהִי כוּשָׁאֵי לְמשֶׁה בְּמֵיעַרְקֵיהּ מִן קֳדָם פַּרְעֹה וְרִיחְקָהּ אֲרוּם לְאִיתָא אַסְבוֹהִי יַת מַלְכְּתָא דְכוּשׁ וְרָחִיק מִינָהּ:
| Miriam and Aaron said improper things about Moses with regard to the Kushite woman that the Kushites married to Moses when he escaped from Pharaoh, and he divorced her, for they married him to a Kushite princess, and he separated from her. |
Another version of Moses’ divorce from the Kushite woman appears in, Adolph Jellenick, Beit Midrash 2, “The Chronicles of Moses” (Jerusalem, 1938), 6-7.
[7]
וַיִּקַּח יִתְרוֹ חֹתֵן מֹשֶׁה אֶת צִפֹּרָה אֵשֶׁת מֹשֶׁה אַחַר שִׁלּוּחֶיהָ.
| So Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after she had been sent home, |
The last time we saw Zipporah before Exod 18 was in Exod 4, in which she is travelling with Moses to Egypt and circumcises their child in the story of the bloody bridegroom.
[8] See b. Moed Kattan 7b, which states that “his house means his wife” (אין אהלו אלא אשתו).
[9] See the words of Resh Lakish in b. Avodah Zarah 5a, “Go tell them to return to their tents for the enjoyment of marital relations” (לשמחת עונה).
[10] The Tanchuma account is likely an elaboration of the opinion of Rabbi Nathan in Sifrei Bemidbar (99):
ר’ נתן אומר מרים היתה בצד צפורה בשעה שנא’ וירץ הנער [ויגד למשה ויאמר אלדד ומידד מתנבאים במחנה] כיון ששמעה צפורה אמרה אוי לנשותיהם של אלו בכך ידעה מרים ואמרה לאחיה ושניהם דברו בו.
| R. Nathan said: Miriam was next to Zipporah at the time, as it says (Num 11:27): “and the young man ran [and told Moses: ‘Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp].” When Zipporah heard this, she said: “Woe to those men’s wives.” That is how Miriam found out, and she told her brother [Aaron], and the two of them spoke about him (=Moses). |
[11]
וְהִנֵּה אִישׁ מִבְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בָּא וַיַּקְרֵב אֶל אֶחָיו אֶת הַמִּדְיָנִית לְעֵינֵי מֹשֶׁה וּלְעֵינֵי כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְהֵמָּה בֹכִים פֶּתַח אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד.
| Just then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman over to his companions, in the sight of Moses and of the whole Israelite community who were weeping at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting |
[12] All translations are from the Yonge edition.
[13] By this he means something akin to what we call the “Argument from Design,” namely, knowing that there must be a creator because the created object is too complex to have been formed randomly (Leg. All., 3:97-99):
From the world and from its several parts, and from the powers which existed in those parts, we formed our notions of the Creator and cause of the world… They, then, who draw their conclusions in this manner perceive God in his shadow, arriving at a due comprehension of the artist through his works.
[14] See Philo’s discussion in “On the Posterity of Cain” (De Posteritate Caini, 168-169):
But it is not correct to say that the living God is visible, that is rather an abuse of language, arising from referring God himself to his separate acts of power; for even in the passage cited above, he does not say, “Behold me,” for it is wholly impossible that God according to his essence should be perceived or beheld by any creature, but he says, “Behold! it is I,” that is to say, behold my existence; for it is sufficient for the reasoning powers of man to advance so far as to learn that there is and actually exists the great cause of all things, and to attempt to proceed further, so as to pursue investigations into the essence or distinctive qualities of God, is an absolute piece of folly; for God did not grant this even to the all-wise Moses.
[15] See part one (“General”) of the “Virtues of Moses” section in, Louis H. Feldman, Philo’s Portrayal of Moses in the Context of Ancient Judaism (University of Notre Dame Press, 2008). Sarah Pearce, “Intermarriage and the Ancestors of the Jews,” The Studia Philonica Annual 27 (2015): 1-26 [23], expresses ambivalence about this.
[16] See, Elad Filler, “Notes on the Concept of Women and Marriage in Philo,” Iyyun 53 (5765): 395-408 [395-398; Hebrew].
[17] In theory, this could be the basis of Miriam’s criticism: Moses already has a wife and children and should, as a philosopher, spurn the pleasures of the flesh – so why does he marry a second woman?
[18] Admittedly, this overlap is not exact here, since Philo doesn’t say Zipporah was beautiful, only that she was more beautiful than her sisters. This contrasts with Philo’s description of Moses’ beauty in an earlier passage, where he claims that Moses’ extraordinary beauty as a baby was the reason his parents hid him for three months and Pharaoh’s daughter subsequently aided him. See Life of Moses 1:9, 15. Artapanus also speaks about Moses’ good looks, as does Josephus (Ant. 2:224). The fact that he says nothing like this about Zipporah, only praising her looks comparatively, suggests that Philo may not have been imagining an extraordinary or “exotic” beauty such as the rabbis imagined.
[19] Editor’s note: For a discussion of Philo’s view of Isaac as conceived by contact with God, and how this was picked up on by Paul of Tarsus, see Samuel Z. Glaser, “Isaac’s Divine Conception,” TheTorah.com (2017).
[20] For various reasons, Philo does not include Rachel as a “matriarch” akin to Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah in importance. Instead, he places Zipporah in this category (see below).
[21] Although the problem of how she can be described as both a Midianite and a Kushite remains, since her father is described as both a Midianite and a Kenite; this third ethnicity (Ethiopian) is just par for the course, interpretively speaking.
[22] For example, in his On the Cherubs (De Cherubim, 60), Philo identifies Eve—the first woman—with perception as opposed to intellect:
God therefore, wishing to give it the faculty of comprehending not only incorporeal but also solid bodies, filled up the entire soul, attaching a second portion to that which he had already created, which he called appellatively woman, and by an especial name Eve, intimating the outward sense by a metaphorical expression.
[23] See, for example, On the Descendants of Cain 135; Allegorical Laws 2:46.
[24] Here Philo shows that he knew what the name Zipporah meant even though he did not really know Hebrew and read the Bible in Greek.
[25] And yet, Philo is not pro abstinence. In On the Creation (De Opificio Mundi, 103), where Philo surveys the stages of human life from infancy to old age, he dedicates the fifth, from age 28 to 35, to marriage: “The fifth seven years is the season for marriage.” This stage corresponds to the fifth verse of an elegy by Solon that Philo cites (ibid., 104): “When five times seven years o’er his head have passed, the man should think to wed.” Compare to the discussion of abstinence in marriage in early Christian sources, such as Augustine’s claim that it is better to marry than to live in sin (Confessions 2:8), or Paul’s claim that it is better not to marry at all (1 Corinthians chs. 6-7).
[26] Rashi’s comment on Num 12:4, “and YHWH appeared suddenly” makes this point:
פתאום – נגלה עליהם פתאום, והם טמאים בדרך ארץ, והיו צועקים מים מים,
| “Suddenly” – He appeared to them suddenly, while they were impure from sexual relations [with their respective spouses], and they began screaming, ‘Water! Water!’ [for purification]. |
להודיעם שיפה עשה משה שפרש מן האשה, מאחר שנגלית עליו שכינה תדיר ואין עת קבועה לדבור:
| [God did this] in order to show them that Moses had acted appropriately in separating from his wife, since the divine presence would appear to him regularly and there was no set time for communication [with God]. |
Rashi is based on the Babylonian Talmud’s reading (b. Yebamot 62a):
‘שלשה דברים עשה משה מדעתו והסכימה דעתו לדעת המקום פירש מן האשה… אמר ומה ישראל שלא דברה עמהם שכינה אלא לפי שעה וקבע להם זמן אמרה תורה ‘אל תגשו אל אשה’ אני שמיוחד לדבור בכל שעה ושעה ולא קבע לי זמן על אחת כמה וכמה והסכימה דעתו לדעת המקום שנאמר ‘לך אמור להם שובו לכם לאהליכם ואתה פה עמוד עמדי’.’
| Moses did three things on his own initiative and his opinion coincided with that of the Omnipresent. He separated himself from his wife… He said, ‘If to the Israelites, with whom the Shechinah spoke only for a while and for whom a definite time was fixed, the Torah nevertheless said, Come not near a woman, how much more so to me, who am liable to be spoken to at any moment and for whom no definite time has been fixed’. And his view coincided with that of the Omnipresent; for it is said, Go say to them: Return ye to your tents; but as for thee, stand thou here by Me. |
See also b. Shabbat 87a.
[27] David Winston credits Philo’s respect for the physical with the value that Philo grants marriage beyond its instrumental value for producing offspring. Similarly, Winston notes that the Philo’s position in general is not much different than that of the Stoics according to whom reproduction, which is the main purpose of marriage, does not negate the importance of intimacy and mutual love. See, David Winston, “Philo and the Rabbis on Sex and the Body,” Poetics Today 19.1 (1998): 41-62 [53-55]. For more on Philo’s understanding of the mutual love of husband and wife (which he sees expressed in the Abraham and Sarah stories) in contrast to the place of reproduction (which he sees expressed in the story of Abraham and his concubine), see Questions on Genesis 3:21.
[28] This demand later was given expression by the Rabbis in Kohelet Rabbah (7:1 [13], s.v. re’eh):
בשעה שברא הקב”ה את אדם הראשון, נטלו והחזירו על כל אילני גן-עדן ואמר לו: ראה מעשי כמה נאים ומשובחין הן. כל מה שבראתי בשבילך בראתי. תן דעתך שלא תקלקל ותחריב את עולמי.
| When the Holy One, blessed be He, created the first human, He took him and sent him to see every tree in the Garden of Eden and said to him: “Look at my handiwork, how lovely and praiseworthy [each tree] is. Everything I created I created for you, make sure you do not ruin it and destroy my world.” |
[29] The Neopythagorean movement was established in Rome mostly because of the influence of Publius Nigidius Figulus (ca. 98-45 BCE). For more on this, see, Walter Burkert, “Craft Versus Sect: The Problem of Orphics and Pythagoreans,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition (eds., B. F. Meyer and E. P. Sanders; London, 1982), 3: 22, 189 n. 105. For more on Pythagoreanism, see P. Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 317-334.
[30] For more on the mystical understanding of numbers in the ancient worlds, see Michael Chyutin, “Mysticism of Numbers in the Ancient World: In the Bible the Qumran Scrolls and the Writings of Philo,” Beit Mikra 41:1 (1995): 14-30 [Hebrew]; Christopher Butler, Number Symbolism (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), 8. Philo also discusses numbers in Life of Moses 2:84; On the Decalogue 28; On the Special Laws 2:58; Questions on Genesis3:38.
[31] One is treated as exceptional in Pythagorean thinking. For the meaning of the number 1 in Philo’s philosophy, see, Elad Filler, “תיאור הבריאה ע”י פילון לאור תורת המספרים הניאופיתגוראית,” Da’at 62 (5768): 5-25 [12-14] [Heb.].
[32] In Questions on Genesis 3:38, Philo writes:
…[S]ix, is the first perfect number, being equal to its parts, and being the first number which is composed of the multiplication of an odd and an even number; receiving also something from its efficient cause according to the odd or redundant number, and from its material and effective cause according to the even number. On which account, among the most ancient of our ancestors, some persons have called it matrimony, and others harmony; and our sacred historian too has divided the creation of the world into six days.
The later Greek philosopher Iamblichus (ca. 245-325 C.E.) also describes the number six as “matrimony” in his Theologoumena Arithmeticae (ed. Victorius De Falco; Leipzig, 1922), 43
Comments
Post a Comment