Revisiting BISFT Summer School 2000,Liverpool Hope University,‘Dreams for a New Millennium: Dancing a Be-dazzling Future’

The Cushite Wife of Moses

Had I not known what Cushite meant I might not have been so struck by this pericope. The meaning of the Hebrew term cush is black. ⁸ Under the term ‘Ethiopia’ Robert Young’s concordance reads: ‘This is the word used by the Greeks and the Romans for the Hebrew name Cush’. ⁹ Different versions of the Bible use the terms cush and Ethiopia alternatively. Cush is also the name of the grandson of Noah, according to whose name the geographical area was called Cush or Ethiopia. According to Claris J. Martin: ‘The word for Ethiopian, “Aethiops”, a derivative of the Greek Aithiops, was the common generic word denoting a Negroid type in Greco-Roman usage’.. ¹⁰ Jeremiah 13.23 reads: ‘Can Ethiopians (in the footnote, Nubians, Cushites) change their skin or leopards their spots?’ Biblical terms such as Ethiopians, Nubians, Cushites are synonymous with the term black or African people.

If the Hebrew term ‘cush’ means black, Moses’ wife is definitely a person of colour and so am I. When I interact with Numbers chapter 12, my identification with Moses’ wife is immediate. Like her, because of my mixed marriage, I live among a majority ethnic group whose skin colour I do not share. Some black women in Holland, living in a similar situation to mine, have included the story of Moses’ wife in a Womanist bibliodrama. According to them ‘The story of Zipporah shows the racism in the gossip about her and Moses, and God’s judgement on Miriam and Aaron’.. ¹¹ Moses’ Cushite wife is an issue for Miriam and Aaron. When I was newly married I heard people asking my husband, ‘Couldn’t you find a nice white English girl to marry?’ It was abusive as I was hurt by such a question. Whatever the reason, what Miriam said was abusive, so naturally I feel sisterly solidarity not with Miriam but with Moses’ Cushite wife.

During my teaching I ask my students whether they know the meaning of the biblical term cush. Most white students have never reflected on this term. Even those who had already obtained a PhD in biblical scholarship admitted that there had never been any discussion about this term in any of their academic studies. Black students, on the other hand, are more knowledgeable in this regard as they are more acquainted with the writings of black scholars. Black people might even experience the term cush jumping out of the pages of the Bible and thrown towards them. An example comes from Prof. David Tuesday Adamo:

In 1981, I was the only black person in the team that went for archaeological excavation at Tel ‘Ira, at the Negev, Israel. Because of my black skin Israeli kids pointed at me and called me Kush! Kush! … Then I remembered that word in my translation of the Hebrew Bible and sought the scripture after knowing that it literally meant black. ¹²

I think it is safe to conclude that Cushite is a colour term denoting people who come from Cush/Ethiopia, meaning the regions where black people live.

Are Moses’ Cushite wife and Zipporah one and the same person?

In Numbers 12 Moses’ wife is Cushite, but in Exodus Moses marries a woman called Zipporah from Midian (Exod. 2.15–22). It is not immediately clear whether Zipporah from Midian is the same woman as the nameless Cushite wife of Moses mentioned twice in Numbers 12. Some scholars argue that the Cushite is his second wife. However, there are no biblical data to substantiate that argument. When a biblical man marries more than one wife, the Bible usually tells us that quite explicitly. In the case of Moses the Bible is silent and therefore I do not have any reason to presume that the Cushite is Moses’ second wife and therefore proceed to explore whether the Cushite wife and Zipporah could be the same person.

According to some biblical maps Cush is in Africa, including southern Egypt, Sudan and modern Ethiopia, while Midian is in today’s Jordon and Saudi Arabia. If all the scholars agreed that the geographical position of ancient Cush or Ethiopia is as shown on such maps it could still be concluded that Zipporah is a Cushite, a black African who resided in Midian. Since we know that biblical people moved around a lot, it is reasonable to believe that some African people lived in Midian.

However, one must also remember that different continents and ancient Africa were not divided in the same way as they are today. In the biblical time there was no Suez Canal separating the continent of Africa from Asia. What we call Ethiopia today is not what Ethiopia was in the ancient world. Homer, the great poet of Greece, uses a phrase about the Ethiopians: the Ethiopians are ‘sundered in twain’. ‘According to Strabo, Ethiopia stretches from the south of Egypt all the way to Asia, from east to west’. Strabo argues: ‘For the Ethiopians that are spoken of in this sense are ‘sundered in twain’ naturally by the Arabian Gulf [the Red Sea]’. ¹³ Cain Hope Felder claims: ‘Ancient Ethiopia dominated South Arabia during several historic periods ’ ¹⁴ Habakkuk 3.7 associates Cushan with Midian: ‘I saw the tents of Cushan under affliction; the tent-curtains of the land of Midian trembled’. Both historical and biblical evidence indicates that ancient Ethiopia stretched beyond the Red Sea. Black people inhabited Arabia as well. Thus Zipporah was not just a Cushite or Ethiopian resident in Midian; most probably Midian was a part of Ancient Ethiopia. Irmtraud Fischer agrees: ‘But Cush may also be located in the region of the Gulf of Aqaba, which allows one to identify this woman with Zipporah, Moses’ wife according to Exodus 2. Basically one can substantiate this by referring to Hab. 3.7, where Cush appears in parallelism with Midian’. ¹⁵

The Significance of Zipporah’s Midianite/Cushite/Ethiopian Identity

Some might be wondering about the significance of Zipporah’s Midianite/Cushite/Ethiopian, African-Asiatic identity. It is important to establish that ancient Ethiopia stretched to Arabia, because Eurocentric scholars have often tried to prove that ancient South Arabian culture was inherently superior to Ethiopian culture. ¹⁶ For this reason it is significant for black people to rediscover their highly civilized heritage from the pages of the Bible. It is important for Asians to recover black/Asian solidarity and it is imperative for white people to challenge their racist stereotyping especially of black people. Zipporah’s identity can help in these regards and help the understanding of the ethnicity of the biblical people. Unless we understand their ethnicity, we will continue to have a distorted view of the Bible and ourselves.

Humanity has been dangerously divided on colour lines by great European philosophers. According to Immanuel Kant: ‘Humanity is at its greatest perfection in the race of the whites. The yellow Indians do have a meagre talent. The Negroes are far below them and at the lowest point are a part of the American peoples’. ¹⁷ Georg Hegel, the famous German philosopher, wrote:

It is manifest that want of self-control distinguishes the character of the Negroes. This condition is capable of no development or culture, and as we have seen them at this day, such have they always been … At this point we leave Africa, not to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the world; it has no movement or development to exhibit. ¹⁸

Even if the famous European philosophers such as Kant and Hegel did not know African history, it is difficult to understand how they could have missed traces of African civilization in the Bible upon which European civilization itself is based. Not Eurocentric biblical scholars, but Afro-centric scholars such as Glenn Usry and Craig Keener remind us: ‘More of the Bible is set in the region of North-East Africa than in Europe, even Southern Europe; whereas Rome is mentioned about twenty times and Greece twenty-six, Ethiopia appears forty times and Egypt over seven hundred’. ¹⁹ Ethiopia, or Cush, is first mentioned in the Bible in Genesis in the creation story itself. ‘A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches’ (Gen. 2.10). ‘The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush’ (Gen. 2.13). In the King James Version the same verse reads: ‘And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia’. Thus according to the Bible the river from the Garden of Eden watered Ethiopia. It shows that Ethiopia was very much a part of the known world to the Hebrews.

In the biblical categorization the Egyptians, the Cushites and the Hebrews were all Noah’s children, coming from the same root (Gen. 10). The Hebrews had many mixed marriages with black African people and therefore most of the biblical people would have been quite black. Abraham fathered black Ishmael. ‘Joseph fathered two tribes for Israel by an Egyptian wife, automatically making Israel nearly 10 percent Egyptian (Gen. 41:50)’. ²⁰ It has just been established that the wife of Moses is Cushite meaning Ethiopian or black. It is difficult to know who among the biblical people were black or how black, but it is clear that they were not white. They were African-Asiatic in origin. The Bible itself is a valuable historical document that supports the argument that in the ancient world black Africans were a highly civilized group of people, no less than the Asians. From the rubble of Western colonization of our history, even our biblical history, we black and Asian women are struggling to recover our heritage. In this enterprise the story of Zipporah is a valuable asset.

Colour Issues

In their reading of Numbers 12, several authors, both black and white, conclude that the black colour of Zipporah is a significant issue. Many of us see a connection between Miriam mentioning her sister-in-law’s Cushite/black identity and herself becoming as white as snow with leprosy. Miriam would like to see her sister-in-law put outside the camp of the Israelites but she herself is put outside the camp. We have already established that biblical people are African-Asiatic. The biblical truth is that most of the time African and Asian people intermarried and lived happily together. Therefore it needs to be emphasized that this incident of colour prejudice is highlighted in Numbers 12 because it is an exceptional event.

Unless we separate the biblical context from our own, we will unwittingly reaffirm the presumption, well fostered by western art and media, especially Hollywood films, that most biblical people are white and only a few of them are black. In the biblical context the conflict is not between white Aaron and Miriam on the one hand and black Zipporah on the other. Here I differ from Phyllis Trible who implies that Aaron and Miriam are white when she writes: ‘By the irony of the implied contrast, the text would seem to set female against female, native against foreigner, white against black, power against powerlessness’, ²¹ Our learning from this narrative about present-day racism is not dependent upon seeing Aaron and Miriam as white. Interestingly, when Zipporah and her six sisters saw Miriam’s brother Moses for the first time, they took him for an Egyptian and reported to their father Jethro, ‘An Egyptian helped us against the shepherds’ (Exod. 2.19). If that is so, there is no reason to assume that while Aaron and Miriam were white, the Cushite wife/Zipporah was black. Their skin colour might not have differed greatly, but the point is that Aaron and Miriam ‘othered’ Moses’ wife primarily because of her Cushite/black identity.

Miriam is not a white person, but when she murmurs about Moses’ Cushite wife, then she becomes as white as snow with leprosy. It seems like poetic justice. However, Wilda C. Gafney is absolutely right to remind us that in Numbers 12.10 in the original Hebrew text the term white is absent. She goes on to claim: ‘the linguistic leap from “snow” to “white”, reflects the contemporary racial assumptions of the commentator’. ²² I think this accusation is slightly unfair, as contemporary commentators are simply reading the text as it is rendered in the versions such as KJV, Revised Standard Version, New Revised Standard Version, Good News Bible. The Jewish Bible Tanakh describes this skin disease as snow-white scales. ²³ I believe that there is good reason for adding the term white. In Lev. 13.3, 4, 10, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 38, 39, 42, 43, altogether in 16 verses, the skin disease is white and in Exod. 4.6; Num. 12.10; 2 Kgs. 5.27, altogether in three verses, the skin disease is like snow. So the translators combine the understanding in these verses and describe leprosy/the skin disease as being as white as snow.

My native Bengali language also helps me to understand the biblical passages regarding leprosy/skin disease. The Bengali terms for vitiligo or leucoderma are Shweti or Shwet-kustho. Shweti comes from the term shwet, which means white and Shwet-kustho means white/leprosy. Even though vitiligo or leucoderma is not kustho, leprosy, the latter term is still used for this skin disease.

The Eurocentric world view about black and white colour terms that were introduced to all the colonized all over the world is summed up in the following words of the painter and theorist Jacques Nicolas Paillot de Montbert in 1837:

White is the symbol of Divinity or God;

Black is the symbol of the evil spirit or the demon.

White is the symbol of light …

Black is the symbol of darkness and darkness expresses all evils.

White is the emblem of harmony;

Black is the emblem of chaos.

White signifies supreme beauty;

Black ugliness.

White signifies perfection;

Black signifies vice.

White is the symbol of innocence;

Black, that of guilt, sin and moral degradation.

White, a positive colour, indicates happiness;

Black, a negative colour, indicates misfortune.

The battle between good and evil is symbolically expressed

By the opposition of white and black. ²⁴

This was the context in which European missionaries taught people of colour to sing ‘Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow; Now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow’. ²⁵ The narrative of the Cushite wife/Zipporah provides us with evidence that Eurocentric colour prejudice can be challenged with the help of some biblical texts. In Numbers 12, white certainly is not a symbol of Divinity or God, but a punishment from God. This story gives strength to fight against injustice to all those who have been on the receiving end of prejudice, because of either colour or foreignness, and have become colour conscious.

Eurocentric female scholars usually identify with Miriam and, because most feminist writing is still Eurocentric, much has been written about Miriam. Any hint of colour prejudice disturbs some feminists and they try to prove Miriam not guilty. Some find it unsettling to accept that God is angry and that leprosy/skin disease is a punishment. From such discomforts come very strange interpretations. Rebecca Schwartz claims that it is not punishment, but that Miriam’s leprous condition is a validation for her authority. ²⁶ Denise Pimpinella writes:

She [Schwartz] … equates Miriam’s leprosy with that of Moses in Ex. 4: 7, noting that Lev. 13: 12-17 states that if leprosy covers the entire skin and is completely white, it is pure. These two considerations allow for the possibility that leprosy is not necessarily a punishment; instead, it can be seen as a further indication of Miriam’s privilege within the community. ²⁷

Two things are under consideration here: Moses’ leprosy and the phenomenon of a skin disease that made one completely white. I agree that in Exod. 4.6 Moses’ leprosy was not a punishment, but that did not give him a privileged status. It is simply a sign similar to the one in Exod. 4.1–5 where a staff becomes a snake and then turns back to being a staff again. These signs had nothing to do with Moses’ status. It was a divine way of preparing a man who did not feel confident to lead his people away from slavery. The second issue under consideration is Lev. 13.12–17. When the whole body becomes white the person is ritually clean. Although there is nothing pure about this whiteness, Schwartz claims that ‘white or snow are metaphors for purity’ and continues, ‘If the tzaráat [leprosy/skin disease] covers the entire skin … (the Kohen) shall declare the affliction to be pure; having turned completely white, it is pure (Lev. 13:12–17).. ²⁸ Even if one twists the biblical texts vehemently it is hardly possible to find purity in leprosy.

When one has lived in a tropical country one has some idea about what the Bible might be saying. Leprosy and some other skin diseases are infectious and therefore people are segregated and deemed ritually unclean. Leprosy is patchy; it does not cover the whole body. The skin disease that does sometimes cover the whole body is vitiligo or leucoderma and is not at all infectious. Most probably this is why these texts are declaring people suffering from such diseases ritually clean. Although these diseases are not infectious, such white-skinned people in tropical countries are neither considered pure nor do they have higher status. On the contrary they bear a stigma and suffer psychologically. Moreover, there is no evidence in Numbers 12 that Miriam’s disease covered her whole body.

Since for hundreds of years, concepts such as ‘pure white race’ and ‘white skin colour as privileged colour’ have been around in Eurocentric epistemology, the three terms ‘white’, ‘pure’ and ‘privilege’ from Pimpinella’s quotation above leap out at me. I wonder whether latent concepts of white privilege are just below the surface in both her and Schwartz’s writings. Interestingly, in the same article Pimpinella accuses Jacqueline Williams, saying, ‘Yet Williams’ interpretative methodology is not neutral; rather, it is shaped by her experience of apartheid in South Africa. Because personal bias shapes her reading, it does not accord with textual sentiment’. ²⁹

I find this rather odd since in all liberative hermeneutics, including feminist, it has already been well established that it is impossible for any interpreter to be totally neutral. After agreeing that we all bring our own assumptions Tikva Frymer-Kensky notes: ‘This has always been the case; the difference in contemporary reading is that we have become more aware of this philosophical filter, more self-conscious as we make interpretive choices’. ³⁰ Over the years I have also noticed how my colour and gender consciousness help me to understand the Bible and aid my hermeneutic skills. When I read Pimpinella and Schwartz’s interpretations I wonder whether they have had any training in colour consciousness and whether because of such a deficiency unconsciously they are trying to find positive significance in the whiteness of leprosy/skin disease when it is absent in the Bible.

Was Miriam Reprimanding Moses for Divorcing Zipporah?

In order to exonerate Miriam another argument some feminists present is that the Cushite woman is Moses’ second wife and Miriam was criticizing Moses for divorcing Zipporah. ³¹ Even if that were true, it would have been more honest to challenge Moses for his divorce and not make the Cushite wife the issue, since in the biblical world both divorce and remarriage were a male prerogative. I have already said above that the Bible has a habit of telling us how many times a man marries. Even though in Moses’ case there is no such hint, some interpreters have made much of the verb ‘sent away’, claiming that this means ‘divorced’. ³² Miriam was complaining about Moses’ second wife since Moses divorced Zipporah to marry her. In the lexicons, this verb has many meanings. ³³ I want to argue that Moses did not divorce Zipporah, but sent her away temporarily and that it was a responsible thing to do. Moses, after all, was in a war-like situation liberating his people from the Egyptians. Even today when men go to war they leave their wives and children behind and no one considers that to be divorce. In fact, Deut. 24.5 says: ‘When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be charged with any related duty. He shall be free at home one year, to be happy with the wife whom he has married’. If in biblical times such an understanding was present, Moses actually stayed longer with Zipporah. In Exod. 4 Moses even journeyed to Egypt with Zipporah and his sons. But it would be completely understandable if later he decided to send his family back to Jethro. I find support of my viewpoint in Miriam Therese Winter’s writing:

Because of the danger and uncertainty of her husband’s mission, she [Zipporah] may not have gone all the way into Egypt with him but may have returned to her family home. It seems strange that Moses would bring his family into a situation of oppression only to join others in a run for freedom away from that situation. Or if he did, he may have sent her away during the onslaught of the plagues. ³⁴

If Moses and Zipporah were divorced, Exod. 18 would be an odd reading. It would be very strange for the family to come with Jethro to be with Moses. Some feminists have also pointed out how patriarchal it was that Moses went out to meet his father-in-law. It is to the feminists’ credit that they have drawn everyone’s attention to the biblical patriarchal contexts. However, if we don’t check our own contexts honestly in the light of the biblical period there is a danger of ‘othering’ biblical people. We can give the impression that we are so much more civilized than those misogynists, when, in fact, we still live in a patriarchal world and have not progressed as much as we should have done in 4,000 years. It is important to show that in many different ways instead of progressing we have regressed in our treatment of fellow human beings.

In Exod. 18.7 ‘each asked after the other’s welfare and they went into the tent’. Esther Fuchs implies that ‘each’ meant Moses and Jethro. ³⁵ She is critical of these two male figures who ignore Zipporah and the children. I read ‘each’ to mean all of them including Zipporah and the sons. Otherwise we have to presume that only Moses and Jethro went into the tent while Moses’ family stood outside. It is not particularly a biblical phenomenon that certain stories are told from a male viewpoint. Even today in many novels and films male characters are prominent while female characters remain in the shadows. My reading of the biblical texts gives me no reason to believe that divorcing Zipporah is the issue.

Moses’ Marriage to a Foreign Wife

If there were no question of Miriam protesting about Moses divorcing Zipporah and his second marriage to the Cushite wife, what other reason could there have been for her to speak against Moses?

When after marrying my English husband in India, I first arrived in Britain one clergyman said to my husband in front of me, ‘Put away your foreign wives’. The saying based on Ezra 10 was supposed to be a joke. For me it was not a joke, but another example of the verbal racial abuse that I suffered regularly. It was quite unbearable for me when fellow Christians saw me as no more than a foreigner. In our relationships my colour and ethnicity seemed much more significant to the British Christians than my Christian identity. This is another reason why I identify with Moses’ Cushite wife, about whom Alice L. Laffey writes:

Moses had married a Cushite woman and this became the occasion for Mirian and Aaron to criticize him. (Were … they pointing to the fact that the Cushite was a foreigner [cf. Gen 28]? Most likely the text reflects the period when marriages to foreign women were prohibited, and it is used here as an excuse to reprimand Moses). ³⁶

My argument with Laffey is that in Genesis 28 the issue is not one against foreign marriage, but one in favour of marrying a cousin. Isaac was forbidding Jacob to marry one of the Canaanite women not because they were foreigners, but because Isaac wanted Jacob to marry his cousin. In the same chapter Esau went to marry a daughter of Ishmael. We know well that Ishmael’s mother was Hagar, an Egyptian, who got a wife for Ishmael from the land of Egypt (see Gen. 21.21). When we study the Bible carefully we notice that starting from Abraham, biblical people constantly married foreign wives. Moreover, because of many mixed marriages the meaning of foreigner itself is unclear. Besides that, on rare occasions such as in Ezra the foreignness itself is not the problem. Foreign wives are blamed if they had led Israel away from the path of Yahweh into the worshipping of idols. However, the Israelites did not always need foreign influence. They themselves were quite capable of worshipping idols (see Exod. 32).

I have argued above that Midianite Zipporah and Moses’ Cushite wife is the same person. Now I would like to give a few examples from the Bible to challenge the presumptions that Midianite/Cushite people were foreigners in the eyes of the Israelites. The Midianites were the descendants of Midian, the son of Abraham and his wife Keturah (Gen. 25. 1–2) and therefore the Midianites too were children of Abraham. No wonder in Exod. 18 Zipporah’s father, Jethro, praises Yahweh and offers sacrifice to the divine. Aaron and all the elders of Israel eat bread with him in the presence of God. Gene Rice also affirms that the Midianites worshipped Yahweh and even claims that they were the original worshippers of Yahweh:

Since at the time of his call Moses was a refugee in the “land of Midian” (Exod. 2:15) tending the sheep of his father-in-law, Jethro (also called Reuel, Exod. 2:18: Num. 10:29), “the priest of Midian” (Exod. 2:16; 3:1; 18:1), it would seem that the original worshippers of Yahweh were the Midianites.

Jethro/Reuel was the priest of Midian and Moses’ instructor in the administration of justice … ³⁷

Rice also claims that there is no reason to believe that Moses married twice, ‘The only wife of Moses the Bible knows is Zipporah, the daughter of the priest of Midian (Exod. 2:16–21; 18:5–6). Cushites were not restricted to the region of modern Sudan but were to be found in Arabia, Transjordan, southern Palestine, and Sinai Peninsula’. ³⁸

So if Zipporah and the Cushite woman is the same person, there is no question of her being a foreigner with regard to her ethnicity or her religion. She is as much a daughter of Abraham as anyone else. Moreover, if the Midianites were also Cushites that might indicate that like Abraham’s second wife Hagar, his third wife Keturah too was African. Zipporah bears witness to the fact that many significant biblical characters are of African heritage. She is also a prime example of the multi-ethnic identities of the biblical people.

Now if anyone claims that not all children of Abraham are Israelites, but only the children of Jacob/Israel, then again the Bible proves them wrong. Because of the high prevalence of mixed marriages, there is no ‘pure Israelite race’ in the Bible. We know that the Benjaminites are the descendants of Jacob, yet the heading of Psalm 7 reads: ‘A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjaminite’. It is also curious that while the Israelites were often happy to marry women from other groups, in Judg. 21. 1 and 18 they took an oath not to give a wife to a Benjaminite. Whenever we read about enmity we assume that the enmity is between biblical people and foreigners. But when we look deeply we realize that most of the ‘foreigners’ were their own kith and kin. In that context the concept of God’s chosen people is also blurred. Here is one easy example: ‘“Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Cushites?” declares the Lord. “Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?”’ (Amos 9.7).

While biblical people’s ethnicity is extremely complex, some Eurocentric biblical scholars, including some feminists, say categorically, ‘She [Moses’ Cushite wife] was definitely not an Israelite’. ³⁹ Martin Noth writes: ‘The information concerning Moses’ marriage with a Cushite woman belongs with the various traditions about a non-Israelite wife of Moses (cf. Ex. 2.21 and Num. 10.29 …).’ ⁴⁰ My question is when in the biblical text the raising of the issue of Moses’ marriage to a Cushite wife was a punishable offense, why do Eurocentric scholars continue to raise this issue? If what Miriam did was some kind of infighting, it is Eurocentric scholars who have ‘othered’ the Cushite wife even more. Scholars are absolutely right to claim that in the biblical period there was no such thing as racism as we have today and therefore we cannot accuse Miriam of racism in today’s sense of the term. ⁴¹ If we exonerate Miriam of the guilt of racism, we find traces of latent racism in the minds of the interpreters as they consider Moses’ marriage to ‘a foreign wife’ to be a problem.

The other difference between our context and the biblical time is that the racist ladder of today puts black people on the lower rungs while there is enough evidence in the Bible to show that in biblical times black people were on the higher rungs. Egypt was the empire while the Hebrews were the slaves. The Bible talks about the wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Ethiopia. These are strong, civilized and wealthy nations. ⁴²

In this story in Num. 12 Miriam complains about Zipporah not because she has lower social status, but a higher one. Miriam is implying that Moses has become proud because he has married a Cushite woman. The sentence in Num. 12.3 is our clue: ‘Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth’. The question of humility arises as Aaron and Miriam were accusing Moses of being too haughty. According to Randall C. Bailey, a black biblical scholar, ‘Miriam’s reference to the Cushite wife is not a racist claim against this woman; rather it is a disclaimer that association with the Cushites is not the prime way to gain status’. ⁴³ I continue to argue that in the Bible there was some colour consciousness about the Cushite or African people, but that it was very different from the racism of today. Yet, we can still learn something about our present day racism from Num. 12.

Why Miriam and Not Aaron?

Another issue is why Miriam alone is punished when both Miriam and Aaron speak against Zipporah. Many feminists detect patriarchal bias. Phyllis Trible observes: ‘Yet no such punishment has visited Aaron. The male is spared, the female sacrificed’. ⁴⁴

I think Miriam and Aaron could have struggled for their rightful place in leadership without muddling the issue by trying to play ‘a race card’. We must not ignore the fact that mistreating a foreigner is a serious matter in the Hebrew Bible where there are many more references to loving the strangers and treating them justly, than to loving the neighbours. ⁴⁵ God’s commandment to the Hebrews was: ‘You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt’ (Exod. 23.9). In Jamaica there is a saying: ‘Who feels it knows it’. Since Miriam and Aaron had been aliens in the land of Egypt they should know the heart of Zipporah, another alien in a foreign land and have experiential empathy with her. Yet they use this vulnerable person as a pawn. Even if Zipporah had a more privileged ancestry, she would still be vulnerable when away from her home. God’s ordinance was clear: ‘You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry; my wrath will burn’ (Exod. 22.21–24). In this verse and in Num. 12.9 the same Hebrew terms have been used for ‘wrath’ and ‘burn’. If both Aaron and Miriam fail to know the heart of Zipporah, the question remains why God’s wrath burns solely against Miriam and the punishment falls just on her. Perhaps God in this story expects more experiential empathy from Miriam, a woman who knows not only marginalization in a foreign country, but gender marginalization in a patriarchal society. As a person in a foreign land and as a woman Miriam had two chances to know the heart of Zipporah more intimately and to have sisterly solidarity with her, yet Miriam fails to identify with a resident alien sister-in-law.

In the narrative, Aaron cries out to Moses and Moses to God against the punishment inflicted on Miriam. God listens. Miriam stays out of the camp for seven days. She is given another chance to know the heart of a marginalized person by becoming marginalized herself. Marginalization of people is such a soul sickness that the consequences affect not only Miriam, but Aaron as well. Instead of saying, ‘Do not punish Miriam’, Aaron says, ‘Do not punish us for a sin that we have so foolishly committed’. The whole people also suffer the consequences. They cannot set out until Miriam is healed. Even after that they remain in the wilderness. Trible comments: ‘Wilderness symbolizes complaint, confusion and conflict’. ⁴⁶

‘Power Over’ or ‘Power With’?

Now I would like to argue that both Miriam and Zipporah are powerful biblical women, but there is a difference in the nature of the power that they were using. Those who want to gain privileged social status, usually use divisive and life destructive power over others. Aaron and Miriam’s attempt to crush Zipporah underfoot makes their struggle one for power and privilege. This is similar to what most political leaders in Britain usually do. They often play the ‘race card’ to come to power or to retain power. In order to gain popularity among the majority of the population, they lay the blame for society’s problems at the feet of minority groups. We continue to witness the targeting of asylum seekers, who are among the most oppressed people in our society.

People struggling for justice cannot be divisive. They build up solidarity with people and use life-saving power. Zipporah shows examples of such power, which can be termed ‘power with’. In Num. 12 the unnamed wife of Moses is simply a passive receiver of oppression. However, in the Exodus episodes (Exod. 2.15–22; 4.18–26) Zipporah is active. Twice she saves Moses’ life. In the first incident Moses murders an Egyptian and when Pharaoh hears of it, he seeks to kill him. Moses flees as a fugitive political murderer and seeks asylum. His life is saved when Zipporah’s family in Midian invites him to their home. Eventually Moses and Zipporah get married. In today’s context very few of us would dare to give shelter to a fugitive political murderer and asylum seeker.

In the second Exodus narrative Moses is instructed by God to go to Pharaoh, when on the way he is met by God. The Exodus story tells us that ‘the Lord met him and tried to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it’ (Exod. 4.24–25). ‘Feet’, in the biblical language, often is a euphemism for penis. Zipporah performs some kind of circumcision ritual and, apparently, this action saves Moses’ life. This is where Zipporah speaks twice: ‘Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ ‘A bridegroom of blood by circumcision’ (Exod. 4.25–26). There might have been an issue of Moses not complying with a prevalent biblical custom of marrying a first cousin. Since there was a lack of a close blood relationship between the two families, Zipporah attempts to build solidarity with Moses through a blood ritual. I note a striking parallel. In Exodus Zipporah repeats a statement twice about a bridegroom of blood and in Numbers 12 Miriam and Aaron also repeat a statement twice about the Cushite woman. ‘Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had indeed married a Cushite woman)’. The parallelism draws my attention to the significant differences. Zipporah’s statement is in direct speech while Miriam’s and Aaron’s is in indirect speech. More importantly, the effects of their sayings are completely opposite. Zipporah works at building greater solidarity in the family while Miriam and Aaron are trying to divide the family.

Without Zipporah and her family, the liberator of the Hebrew people, Moses, would have been dead. By saving Moses Zipporah makes liberation of the whole people group possible. Her life- saving power is so strong that even God changes and does not kill Moses. Even today like Zipporah many human beings halt inevitable deaths. Her ‘power-with’ model is so potent that even God’s power instead of being ‘power-over’ becomes ‘power-with’. Miriam, on the contrary, sings praises of God who kills: ‘Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea’ (Exod. 15.21). There are many different images of God in the Bible. The image that we highlight and worship has an effect on how we behave. If our God is domineering we dominate over others. If the divine image in our mind is one of a warrior God we become militaristic. The Eurocentric colonial and militaristic history tells us which God many European Christians have worshipped. I believe that today Zipporah could be our role model, teaching us how to search, find and highlight an image of God that will aid us in the building up of inclusive and life-giving societies.

Zipporah is not only a daughter of a priest, she is a ritual specialist. She must be the only woman in the Bible who performed circumcision. One might argue that in an emergency she adopted a male role. But I wonder whether without professional knowledge she could have performed this ritual. Since African culture is even more ancient than Hebrew culture I tend to think that Zipporah presents a pre-patriarchal period when women had more authority. With reference to ancient peoples throughout the world Walter Wink writes:

Many of these early societies appear to have been matrilineal (with descent through the mother) and matrilocal (where the husband comes to live with the wife’s family, … but they were not matriarchal (ruled by women). So far as we know, matriarchy has never existed anywhere. … the archaeological evidence, and the sexual equality evident in contemporary primitive groups, indicate rather that at least some prehistoric societies were partnership societies characterized, not by “power over” but by “power with”; by co-operation more than by competition; and by actualization hierarchies (where leaders serve the community) rather than domination hierarchy (where communities must serve the leaders). ⁴⁷

Zipporah’s ritual expertise might be shedding light on a society where there was more gender equality.

We can also argue that the Exod. 2 narrative indicates the matrilocal nature of Zipporah’s family. Most biblical patriarchal narratives mention the sons and forget the daughters, while this one mentions Jethro’s seven daughters and not any sons. Further evidence of the matrilocal nature of her family might be found in the fact that Moses goes to live with his wife’s family. Jethro’s lessons about shared leadership given to Moses might be an example of their society’s non-hierarchical characteristics. Moses was creating a hierarchical system with him at the top. He alone sat as the judge, while people stood around him from morning until evening. In that context Jethro says to Moses: ‘What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone’ (Exod. 18.17–18). He persuades Moses to share leadership. Zipporah’s culture has some wisdom regarding a more democratic way of leadership which Moses is unaware of. Moses listens to his father-in-law and shares his leadership. If Miriam had cultivated a relationship with Zipporah, she could have learned how to use a ‘power with’ model of leadership.

Racism Hinders Solidarity

Miriam’s prejudice against Zipporah hinders solidarity between them. As long as there is racism, white Feminist theology will remain separated from black feminist or Womanist theology. Both these theologies are contextual. In this divided world the history of colonialism and slavery continues to benefit white people and harm people of colour. These different contexts are keeping us apart.When British people today see the foreigners living in the society as a problem, white feminists need to check their own attitudes. There is not much point in struggling for gender justice in a society where the very fabric of the society is regularly threatened by its racism.

In Britain, if white women rise above racism and learn wisdom from the cultures of the women of colour, then women together can work towards a better future. Sisterly solidarity will begin when the privileged sisters hunger and thirst for justice on behalf of the suffering humanity who are mostly non-white. When such solidarity begins, it will be reflected in biblical hermeneutics as well. For a very long time biblical interpretation was left exclusively in the hands of European and Euro-American male scholars. As a consequence, in Christian imagination the biblical people are white and the biblical male voices are the only ones worthy of attention. With the advent of Western feminist theology, some have learned to identify the female characters and hear their voices. If these voices were silenced in the biblical text itself, feminist scholars work hard to recover them. Thus many female characters are now being resurrected from the rubble of patriarchal history. Renita J. Weems observes, ‘whose voice the scholar-interpreter “hears”, recovers, probes, scrutinizes and interprets within the Bible is also a decision about whose voice is not heard’. ⁴⁸ Unless white feminists are vigilant, their hermeneutics will reflect the politics of omission. In their biblical interpretation they will hear, recover, probe and scrutinize the voices they see as white women’s voices. Unwittingly they will highlight Miriam and marginalize Zipporah, revealing that their feminism is really white feminism. In white women’s reading of the Bible they see themselves simply as women whereas, ‘Black women are never simply “Black” or simply “Women” they are always both. Their experience of sexism is constantly textured by racism while their experiences of racism are invariably textured by sexism. They are racialized and gendered without exception’. ⁴⁹

In the biblical narratives as well as in the contemporary world, black/brown women seek to redeem life from patriarchal and racist death. In this task we black/brown women want our white sisters to understand that we have to manoeuver with both patriarchy and racism on our back. We expect not unconscious racism, but experiential empathy from our white sisters. White feminists have made great achievements in challenging white patriarchy. But if their success in obtaining leadership roles is won while black people, especially black women, remain excluded, then they collude with society’s racism. Women genuinely struggling for justice for women in male societies will not need to have their power at the expense of anybody more vulnerable than them.

In our societies we are looking forward to the time when unconscious racism ends and greater sisterhood is established between the Miriams and the Zipporahs of today. This would then be reflected in biblical hermeneutics too and more characters like Zipporah would be brought out of the shadows created in part by the texts themselves, but more so by their interpreters.