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WHOM DID MOSES MARRY?
By
Bertrand L. Comparet
You are all familiar with the saying, "A little
knowledge is a dangerous thing". A little knowledge is never enough. It
never gets beyond half-truths, which mislead people into false beliefs. This is
consistently true in the field of religion, more than in all other areas. They
think they have found a fallacy in the Bible's great truth that Yahweh's people
Israel are known today as the Anglo Saxon, Scandinavian and Teutonic people.
Israel is, and always has been, under Yahweh's command to keep their race pure.
One challenge I frequently get is, "Why shouldn't
whites marry Negroes, Moses married an Ethiopian woman?" They base this on
the way Numbers 12:1 reads in the King James Bible. "And Miriam and
Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married;
for he had married an Ethiopian woman." Christianity has never labored
under a greater curse than the many mistranslations in the King James
Bible. Some of these mistranslations are even followed in some other
translations because these errors have become traditional. Bible scholars know
that there are many thousand mistranslations in the King James Bible.
The eminent scholar Robert Young, author of Young's
Analytical Concordance to the Bible and of Young's Literal Translation of the
Bible, says in the preface to his Literal Translation, "In the King James
Bible, there are scarcely two consecutive verses where there isn't some
departure from the original. These variations may be counted by the tens of
thousands, as admitted on all hands."
When you think you have found some discrepancy in
Yahweh's word, which can be used as the foundation for conflicting doctrines, we
can never safely rely upon what we find in the English translation, until you
have checked it in a good lexicon. The best reference is the Hebrew and Greek
dictionaries used in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, which is more thorough
than most of the others. We often find that defective scholarship in early
translations has become accepted as doctrine. It is continued, although the
original word will not support the meaning given it in the translation. Let's
get back to Moses and his wife. In Numbers 12:1, the Hebrew does not
say Ethiopian it says Cush, a descendant of Cush, or a resident of the land
of Cush. Remember that Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. Genesis
10:6 tells us the sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan, Noah and
his wife were both white, so their children naturally were of the same race.
One of Ham's sons was Mizraim, meaning Egyptian. We know
from all the Egyptian art, including their marvelously fine portrait sculpture,
during all the many centuries of Egypt's greatness, they were a pure white
people. In fact during this time, any Negro found in Egypt, other than a slave
working in chains in the fields, was summarily killed on sight. Ham's other son
Cush was, without question, also white. What about the land of Cush?
There were two different countries named Cush in Bible
times, one was Ethiopia, lying south of the Sudan in Africa. There was another
Cush it was in eastern Mesopotamia, or what at other times was part of the
Babylonian empire. These people were not a black race at any time. This Cush
flourished about 1500 B.C., during the time of Moses, the exodus from Egypt
occurred in 1486 B.C. Who can we expect to find living in this Cush, on the east
side of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, from what people that lived there did
Moses take his wife? Note there is absolutely nothing anywhere in the Bible,
which says, or even hints, that Moses was ever in Ethiopia or any place else,
where he could have found a Negro woman to marry. The Bible does tell us where
Moses got his wife, or who she was. Remember Moses had killed an Egyptian who
was beating an Israelite.
In Exodus 2:15-21 we read, "Now when Pharaoh
heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of
Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian; and he sat down by a well. And
the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and
filled the troughs to water their father's flock. And the shepherds came and
drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.
And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, how is it that ye are come so
soon today? And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the
shepherds, and also drew water enough for us and watered the flock. And he said
unto his daughters, Why is it that ye have left the man? Call him, that he may
eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses
Zipporah his daughter."
We know positively from this, that Moses married the
daughter of the priest of Midian. His name Reuel means, friend of God, it is
given in the variant form of Raguel in one or two places. Sometimes he is called
Jethro. Jethro is the Hebrew word Yithro and means his Excellency, this is a
title of respect, not a name. Who were the Midianites, from whom Moses got a
wife?
Genesis 25:1-2 tells us that after the death of
his wife Sarah, "Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah.
And she bore him Zimram, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and
Shuah." Midian was a son of Abraham. Abraham had been told by Yahweh the
great promises would be fulfilled by his son Isaac, not through any of his other
sons. Therefore he gave his inheritance only to Isaac, but he loved his other
sons also and dealt fairly with them. Genesis 25:6 tells us, "But
unto the sons of the concubines which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent
them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward into the east
country."
Logically, he would want them to move more than just a
few miles away, as the whole idea was to send them far enough away that they
would not be neighbors of Isaac, and perhaps quarrel with him over the
inheritance. The next place of any importance to which they could go was Cush.
Cush was in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the same country
that at other times was part of the important Babylonian empire. So Midian and
his descendants became Cushites, people living in the kingdom of Cush. Remember
though, that by race they were descendants of Abraham,
closely related to Isaac and his descendants the Israelites. However, they
remained a separate nation and never became part of Israel. Since this is the
only wife the Bible tells us Moses had, it is clear she was a Midianite, whose
family lived in Cush in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. This is where Moses
would logically have found his wife.
Moses fled for his life because the Pharaoh of Egypt
wanted to kill him. Moses could not have gone to just some tiny neighboring
kingdom to stay. A neighboring kingdom would not have dared to give Moses
shelter, but would have turned him over to Pharaoh as soon as the Egyptians
learned he was there and made a demand for him. Therefore, Moses fled a safe
distance, to a land where the people did not live in fear of the powerful
Egyptian empire. He went to Cush, among whose people were the Midianites.
We may be certain Moses never married a Negro.
Remember he was brought up in Pharaoh's palace as the adopted son of Pharaoh's
daughter. He was educated as an Egyptian of the royal family. The Egyptians
considered the Negroes as wild animals, to be killed on sight. The son of
royalty would not take a wife from the Negro Cush in Africa. It was while Moses
was guarding the flocks of his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, that Yahweh
appeared to him in the burning bush. This was when Moses was commissioned by
Yahweh to go to Egypt to set Yahweh's people Israel free.
When Moses returned to his own people, he taught them
their proud heritage as Yahweh's people Israel. He also taught them that they
must keep their race pure. His brother Aaron and his sister Miriam
taunted Moses about his marriage outside the strictly limited group of Israel.
It is true Moses had married a woman who was not an
Israelite. However, she was not only a white woman, but also a descendant of
Abraham, a close relative of the Israelites. So this matter of the wife of Moses
can't be used as a justification for race mixing, Moses did not marry outside
the white race, just outside his nation. Mongrelization is equally a sin against
both races. Yahweh had His own purposes in mind when He made the different
races. Each was made suited to the purpose Yahweh had planned for it. To lose
that suitability by mixing it with another race is to defy Yahweh, the results
of this are always bad. |