How Many Wives did Moses have?
How Traditions Work with or Around the Text
Numbers 12:1 introduces a woman who, within the biblical narrative, seems to come from nowhere and just as quickly disappear. When the narrative introduces Miriam and Aaron’s criticism of Moses, it mentions a woman whose identity creates an immediate puzzle and her relationship to Moses remains unexplained. This single verse creates what literary scholars recognize as a narrative gap, a moment where the text assumes knowledge it hasn’t provided nor will provide in the future. The various textual traditions that preserve and interpret this passage have responded to this puzzle in remarkably different ways, some by expanding the narrative to provide missing backstory, others by trying to find alternate meanings in the very words of the text itself. Out of this, two distinct traditions seem to have emerged: those who are comfortable with Moses having a second wife, and those who are not.
Those who were not comfortable with this idea developed a range of interpretive options from subtle grammatical changes to elaborate narrative expansions. Some translators took advantage of the lack of vowels in the Hebrew text, changing a geographical or ethnic word into a descriptive one. Others accepted the text as written but supplied creative backstories drawn from extended literary traditions, introducing royal marriages and political circumstances that the biblical text never mentions. Still others attempted to reconcile this verse with Moses’ known biography by attempting to identify this woman with Zipporah, his already established wife, despite potential new issues this causes. Each solution reflects not only technical decisions about translation and interpretation but also deeper assumptions about what constitutes narrative consistency.
Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married, for he had married an Ethiopian woman. They said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us?” And the Lord heard it. Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than any man on the face of the earth. (Numbers 12:1-3)
And Miriam and Aharon spoke against Mosheh, because of the fair woman whom he had taken, because the fair woman who had been sent away he had taken. And they said, has the Lord spoken only with Mosheh? Has He not spoken with us also? And it was heard before the Lord. But the man Mosheh was very humble, more than all the men who were upon the face of the earth. (Targum Onkelos, Numbers 12:1-3)1
Targum Onkelos, one of the earliest Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible, exemplifies the first approach. Where the Hebrew text contains grammar that is generally translated to mean 'Cushite,' referring to someone from the region of Cush or Ethiopia, Onkelos reads these same letters with different vowels to produce an entirely different word meaning ‘beautiful,’ rereading what appears to be an ethnic or geographical identifier into a physical description. This translation choice is particularly notable because it takes advantages of how Hebrew, whose vocalization was itself part of a tradition, is inherently flexible.2
This choice itself appears specifically designed to resolve the literary problem of Moses apparently having two wives. By reading the term as ‘beautiful’ rather than ‘Cushite,’ the translator could understand this verse as referring to Zipporah, Moses’ known Midianite wife, rather than introducing an otherwise unknown Ethiopian woman into the narrative. The text’s additional phrase about the woman ‘who had been sent away’ could then potentially, although perhaps clumsily, connect to the earlier narrative where Zipporah returns to her father’s house. This reading strategy, shared by other early text traditions, demonstrates how an interpreter could maintain narrative consistency through vocalization choices, effectively eliminating this question altogether.
And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses with words that were not appropriate, regarding the Cushite woman whom the Cushite had caused Moses to marry when he had fled from Pharaoh, but whom he had sent away because they had given him the queen of Cush, and he had sent her away. And they said, “Has the Lord spoken only with Moses, that he should be separated from married life? Has He not spoken with us also?” And it was heard before the Lord. But the man Moses was more humble in spirit than all other people on the face of the earth; nor did he concern himself with their words. (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Numbers 12:1-3)3
In contrast to Onkelos’ approach of reinterpretation, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, written centuries later, takes an entirely different approach by accepting the reading ‘Cushite’ and expanding the narrative to explain this reference. Rather than attempting to harmonize the verse with Moses’ marriage to Zipporah, this later Aramaic translation embraces the idea of a second wife and provides an elaborate backstory and justification to explain her presence. The translation identifies this woman as Ethiopian royalty, specifically the queen of Cush, whom Moses was given in marriage during his time fleeing from Pharaoh. This expansion draws on narrative traditions that circulated outside the biblical text, including stories preserved in the writings of Josephus about Moses’ Ethiopian connections.4
According to this version, while Moses did marry the Ethiopian queen, he subsequently sent her away, and the marriage remained unconsummated. This detail allows the tradition to acknowledge the marriage while creatively maintaining Moses’ moral and authoritative standing. Where Onkelos chose grammatical reinterpretation to avoid the implication of a second wife entirely, Pseudo-Jonathan opts for a midrashic narrative expansion that accepts the natural meaning of the text while providing additional context to explain and qualify it and ultimately render it inconsequential.
And Miriam and Aaron spoke about Moses because of the beautiful woman whom he had married: for he had married a beautiful woman. And they said, Hath the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the LORD heard it. Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth. (Samaritan Pentateuch, Numbers 12:1-3)5
The Samaritan Pentateuch, which took shape between the second and first centuries B.C.E., is very similar to Targum Onkelos in reading the Hebrew consonants as ‘beautiful’ rather than ‘Cushite,’ but the reasoning behind this choice highlights a distinct theological concern within the Samaritan tradition. For the Samaritans, the possibility of Moses taking a second wife would have been explicitly represented both a lapse in judgment and lack of total dedication to his prophetic mission.6
Their textual tradition explicitly identifies the woman in Numbers 12 as Zipporah, Moses’ one and only wife, who had been temporarily sent back to her father’s house. This reading preserves Moses’ devotion to his calling while explaining why Miriam and Aaron might have criticized him regarding his wife at this particular moment. The Samaritan interpretation draws linguistic support by connecting their pronunciation of the word ('‘Kaashet’, or beautiful) with similar forms elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, particularly in Deuteronomy 32:15 where related term has a similar meaning in ‘you became handsome.’ This connection helped reinforce their reading while demonstrating how they leveraged internal biblical evidence to support this translation and interpretive choice.
The next day, once again I saw two men, my kinsmen, pummeling each other. One said, “Why strike one weaker than yourself?” The other said, “Who set you as a judge between us here, or ruler in this place? Will you slay me as that man yesterday?” And I, afraid, said, “How has this deed been brought to light?” This soon was told the king, and Pharaoh sought to take away my life. When this I heard, I fled beyond his reach, and now I wander in a foreign land. But lo, these seven maidens I behold! This land, O stranger, bears fair Libya’s name, but tribes of sundry races dwell throughout—the dark-skinned Aethiops. Yet there is one who, ruler, prince, and sole commander, holds the state entire and judges mortal men: a priest, the father of myself and these. (Ezekiel the Tragedian)
While the Greek Septuagint translation maintains the reading ‘Ethiopian’ in Numbers 12:1, following the same reading as the Masoretic Hebrew text and its implication of a second wife, other traditions connected to Greek texts found different ways to address the question. Ezekiel the Tragedian, writing his dramatic retelling of the Exodus story in the second century B.C.E. based on a Greek instead of Hebrew text, demonstrates yet another approach to harmonizing the narrative. Rather than altering the description of the woman or expanding the narrative, this author chose to modify the geographical setting of Moses’ exile.
Where the biblical text places Moses in Midian when he meets and marries Zipporah, Ezekiel relocates the entire episode to Libya, a region he describes as inhabited by ‘Aethiops.’ By placing Zipporah’s homeland in a region associated with Ethiopian peoples, the narrative could then more plausibly reconcile the Midianite wife of Exodus with the Ethiopian wife of Numbers 12.7 Each of these approaches, even though they are spread significantly with regard to language and place, reflects the same underlying concern to maintain coherence with their preferred traditions while addressing interpretive challenges in different ways.
Concerning Moses' Ethiopian wife, it is usual to ask whether she was the daughter of Jethro, or whether he married another, or took another wife: but it is credible that she was: for she was of the Midianites, who are found in Chronicles called Ethiopians, when Jehoshaphat fought against them. For in these places it is said that the people of Israel persecuted them, where the Midianites dwell, who are now called Saracens. But now hardly anyone calls them Ethiopians, as the names of places and nations are usually changed by antiquity. (Augustine, Questions on the Heptateuch)
The early Christian interpretive tradition approached this passage with very different concerns than their Jewish and Samaritan counterparts. Rather than wrestling directly with the narrative question of whether Moses had one or two wives, most early Christian commentators chose to read the entire episode allegorically, effectively sidestepping the literal interpretive difficulties. This allegorical approach allowed Christian interpreters to extract spiritual meanings about the church from the text without needing to worry too much about the historical questions about Moses’ marital history.8 The preference for allegorical reading meant that the specific identity of the woman in Numbers 12 became less pressing as a historical or narrative concern.
Augustine stands out among early Christian authors for actually engaging with the literal question, though even his treatment reveals a certain ambivalence. In his Questions on the Heptateuch, he directly asks whether the Ethiopian wife mentioned in Numbers 12 was Zipporah or another woman, acknowledging that Moses might have married another or taken an additional wife. While Augustine ultimately argues that it was ‘credible’ that the Ethiopian wife was Zipporah herself, his reasoning relies on the possibility that ‘Cushite’ was an archaic geographical term for the Midianite region that had fallen out of use by his time. Yet his language remains tentative, lacking the absolute certainty found in many other interpretive traditions. This measured approach, combined with the broader Christian tendency toward allegorical reading, perhaps explains why the question itself never gained much interpretive momentum in Christian history.
Dufour, Sharon Sullivan Variants in the Samaritan Pentateuch of the Hebrew Bible as compared to the Masoretic Text (pp. 1-16) Eastern Michigan University, 2009
Cook, Edward M. “The Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the Targums” in Henze, Matthias (ed.) A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism (pp. 92-117) William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012
Tsedaka, Benyamim The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah: First English Translation Compared with the Masoretic Version (p. 336) William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013
Charlesworth, James H. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 2 (pp. 810-811) Doubleday, 1983
McGrath, Elizabeth “Mosesʼ Cushite Wife” Encyclopedia of the Bible Online, 2021
Another fascinating analysis!
I want to ask a really dumb question here: why would two wives have been a problem at the time? I understand it's often frowned upon in contemporary times, but I have the impression that this would not have been unusual at the time, I believe?