Ethiopian Woman

The Ethiopian (Cushite) woman is mentioned in Numbers 12:1 as the wife Moses had taken — or possibly the woman he took in addition to Zipporah — whose marriage provoked the complaint of Miriam and Aaron. God's rebuke of Miriam and Aaron for this criticism, and Miriam's subsequent leprosy, is often interpreted as a divine vindication of Moses's marriage and a rebuke of ethnic prejudice. Some scholars identify the Ethiopian woman with Zipporah herself (a Midianite, and Midian was sometimes associated with Cush), but most treat her as a distinct person. The episode is the only recorded domestic conflict in Moses's married life and emphasizes that divine appointment, not ethnic purity, was the criterion for prophetic leadership.