Ethiopian Woman

Easton's Bible Dictionary

Numbers 12:1Exodus 2:21

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

ETHIOPIAN WOMAN . According to Numbers 12:1 (JE [Note: Jewish Encyclopedia.] ), when the children of Israel were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron ‘spake against’ Moses on account of his marriage with an Ethiopian (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘Cushite’) woman. As the ‘Ethiopian woman’ is mentioned nowhere else, and the death of Moses’ wife Zipporah is not recorded, some of the early interpreters thought the two must be identical; and this view is favoured by the Jewish expositors. But it is more likely that a black slave-girl is meant, and that the fault found by Miriam and Aaron was with the indignity of such a union. It may perhaps be inferred from the context that the marriage was of recent occurrence.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Ethio'pian Woman. The wife of Moses is to described in Numbers 12:1 as an Ethiopian woman. She is elsewhere said to have been the daughter of a Midianite, and in consequence of this, some have supposed that the allusion is to another wife, whom Moses married, after the death of Zipporah.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

See Cushite Woman .

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(Hebrews Kshith', כֻּשַׁית, fem. of Cushite; Sept. Αἰθιοπίσσα, Vulg. AEthiopissa). Zipporah, the wife of Moses, is so described in Numbers 12:1. She is elsewhere said to have been the daughter of a Midianite (Exodus 2:21, compared with 16), and, in consequence of this, Ewald and others have suppiosed that the allusion is to another wife whom Moses married after the death of Zipporah; but the Arabian Ethiopia is probably referred to in this case. (See Zipporah).