Exodus 18

Exodus 18:2–3, After he had sent her back.This verse suggests that Moses divorced his wife after their altercation over the circumcision of their sons (Exod 4:24–26). If so, what are the spiritual implications of this for us today?

The phrase sent away/back in verse two is the Hebrew shilluach which according to Strong’s Concordance and Gesenius’ Hebrew Lexicon can be a biblical term referring to divorce. Shilluach is from shalakh, a basic verb meaning “to send,” where in Isaiah 50:1 and Jeremiah 3:1 the prophets use it referring to YHVH’s divorce from the house of Israel or Ephraim. 

Though rabbinical commentators Rashi and Hirsch fail to note the possibility of Moses’ divorce (Jewish Torah commentators tend to gloss over the faults of their great biblical heroes), Medieval Jewish Torah scholar Baal HaTurim notes this possibility in his commentary. 

Yet in Exodus 18:2, YHVH still views Zipporah as Moses’ wife. What is going on here? Before this, Zipporah seems to have evidenced reluctance at obeying YHVH’s command to circumcise their sons (Exod 4:25), so did Moses put her away (divorce her) as a result? Was Moses, as the human “savior” of Israel from Egypt and an antetype (­or prophetic forerunner) of Yeshua the Messianic Savior (Deut 18:15–19) in that he had to deal with a rebellious wife, even as Yeshua (in his preincarnate state as YHVH of the Tanakh) had to deal with his rebellious Israelite wife and eventually had to put her away? 

Zipporah is never again mentioned in the Torah and, in fact, we see the possibly that the divorced Moses even married another woman (Num 12:1)—apparently a black woman from Ethiopia. Is this a prophetic picture of Yeshua remarrying his former wife (Israel) during the time of the Renewed/New (Marriage) Covenant (Ketubah), who has adulterously mixed herself with the nations and returns to him in a mixed racial (spiritually and biologically-speaking) condition (Hos 7:8)? 

Thus, it is possible that Moses had to divorce his wife because she not only was reluctant to circumcise her sons, but there is no biblical record that she followed Moses in his divine commission to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt much less into the wilderness. If this is the case, then this is reminiscent of Lot’s wife who refused to follow her husband at YHVH’s command and chose instead to return to Sodom. It happened in Bible times and still does in our time that YHVH gives a ministry commission to a man and the wife refuses to follow with the marriage ending in divorce as the two go their separate ways.

If Moses led Israel as a divorced and remarried man, does this change your perspective about him? This could also affect our perspective on divorced people in ministry whose unsaved spouses are adversarially  opposed to their spouses divinely commissioned ministry calling.  

Moses and the Ethiopian Women. Moses’ marriage to the Ethiopian woman can be found in Josephus Antiquities of the Jews, book 2, chapter 11 (Ant. 2:11.1–2). According to Josephus based on Jewish tradition, she was one of the “spoils” of war when Moses, on behalf of the Egyptian monarchy, led an Egyptian army triumphantly against the Ethiopians who had invaded Egypt. The Ethiopian woman was a daughter of the king of Ethiopia. So quite possibly after Moses fled Egypt for Midian as a wanted criminal, he must have assumed that he would never return to Egypt and see his Ethiopian wife again, which, in his mind, freed him up to marry Yitro’s daughter, Zipporah. This marriage would have been before Moses was “saved” and before Elohim called and commissioned him at the burning bush in Exodus chapter three. So, when Zipporah refused, apparently, to follow him on his divinely appointed mission to Egypt, she abandoned him, which is why Moses had dismissed, divorced or sent her back (see Exod 18:2 where we read that Moses had “sent her [Zipporah] back,” Heb. shillûach meaning “dismissed, i.e., divorced”). It also appears that the righteous and YHVH-fearing Yitro tried to reconcile Moses and Zipporah when he brought her to Moses in Exodus 18:6. Moses implored Yitro to remain with him and accompany him in the wilderness (Num 10:29). However, the aged Yitro, and presumably along with his daughter, refused Moses’ plea ostensibly preferring the safety, security and familiarity of his own home in Midian over the uncertainties and inconveniences of wandering like a nomad in the wilderness. So Moses let Yitro return (Exod 18:27) evidently taking Zipporah with him, for it appears based on the textual evidence that she wanted nothing to do with Moses’ mission. Therefore, Moses, being left alone without a marital partner to accompany him on his divine mission, may have called back his former Ethiopian wife to join him, which she obviously did causing the scandal we read about it Numbers 12. If these suppositions are correct which the biblical and secular historical evidence seems to suggest that they are, this all goes to show that love, marriage and divorce and remarriage can lead to difficult, complex, sticky and divisive issues. Nevertheless, and obviously, YHVH’s merciful grace prevailed and Moses went forward approved of Elohim on his mission of leading the Israelites to the Promised Land. 

To be sure, divorce and remarriage is not YHVH’s ideal for people because of all the attendant and problematic issues it engenders. The Bible is clear. YHVH’s perfect will from the beginning has always been one man for one woman until death separates them. But humans are imperfect, and YHVH’s grace is sufficient, and so there for his grace go each of us, as the saying goes.

Exodus 18:24, Chose able men. Here we see Moses choosing elders or judges over the congregation of Israel. These were “able men of accomplishment” in Israel. Compare this with Paul’s instructions about the qualifications of an elder in 1 Timothy 3:1–13 and Titus 1:5–9. If Moses was divorced at the time of his choosing the elders of Israel, does this clarify Paul’s statement that an elder must be “the husband of a [often mistakenly misunderstood to mean “one’s first and only wife” —a meaning not suggested by the Greek] wife”(1 Tim 3:2)? It would appear that the Scriptures do not prohibit divorced and remarried people from holding leadership positions (if the grounds for divorce are biblically legal) in the household of faith as some churches teach.

More to follow, so please stay tuned…