Zipporah, Wife of Moses

by Marek Halter

His voice reached Moses, who opened his eyes wide. With all his remaining strength, he rose to his full height.

  Regally, Aaron and Miriam moved aside a little to let him greet us.

  All around, the multitude of the people of Yahweh watched us.

  They saw Eliezer, with his half-breed skin, in his father’s arms, which shook so much that it was hard for him to carry the boy. Zipporah, her black cheeks glistening with the tears that streamed down them. Gershom, clinging to my husband’s waist and burying his face in his stomach. That’s what they saw. The whole of Moses’ family.

  “You’re here!” Moses moaned. “You’re finally here!”

  His voice was weak, but everyone heard him. In the camp, the din had died down. No more noise. No more singing. No more drums, horns, or cheers. Silence.

  Silence in recognition of the fact that Moses’ family was once again together.

  Then Jethro, in his old voice, let out a cry. “Moses, Moses, my son. Glory to you, glory to Yahweh! May he be praised for all eternity, and you, too!”

  Joshua blew his trumpet, and the noise of the camp resumed.

  My father Jethro kissed Moses. “I’ve brought enough for a victory feast! Tonight, those who fought can eat their fill.”

  Moses was still holding my hand. He laughed, with a laugh I finally recognized. “Let’s go to the great council tent,” he said. “You can meet the elders.”

  I walked by his side, leading my sons by the hand.

  Miriam stepped out in front of me, barring the way. “No! You can’t go in the council tent. It’s forbidden to women, let alone foreign women. You’ll have to learn. It’s not like the land of Pharaoh here, still less like Midian. Women have to know their place. They don’t get involved in the affairs of men. If your husband wants to see you, he’ll go to your house.”

  HE came.

  He arrived in the middle of the night, supported by Joshua. I laid him on my bed.

  Like a blind man, he touched my face and brow and lips with his fingertips. “At last you came,” he said, with a smile in his voice. “My bride of blood, my beloved Cushite.”

  I was glad that it was dark and he couldn’t see my despair.

  He fell asleep before I could answer him. So quickly, so suddenly, that I took fright. I felt as if I had a corpse beside me. I almost cried out, almost called for help. At last, he let out a sigh, and his chest rose and fell beneath my hand.

  He was sighing in his sleep. The sigh of a man who dreams despite all his fatigue.

  I lay down next to him, weeping. “Moses!” I cried, holding him close. “Moses!”

  This was the end of Zipporah the strong. At that moment I knew it.

  Now and forever, I was Zipporah the weak. The weakest of the weak.

  I didn’t yet know quite how weak I was, how incapable of sustaining and nurturing life. But I knew how powerless I was. I would have had to be Moses to resist the madness of this multitude. The madness of their Exodus and their hope. I would have had to be Miriam, Aaron, Joshua. To be one of the people of Yahweh. To have endured the yoke of Pharaoh for generations and generations, and bear the marks on my body and in my heart.

  Later, feeling calmer, I studied my husband’s face by the light of the lantern.

  There were so many lines on it, it was almost unrecognizable. Long, hard lines on the brow, disappearing beneath the hair, deeper over the eyebrows. Lines on the temples, meeting at the corners of the eyes like rivers flowing into the sea. Lines on the nose, the lips, the eyelids, the chin . . . As if Moses, my beloved, had to have as many lines on his face as there were men, women, and children in the unruly people he was leading.

  BEFORE dawn, he woke abruptly. He was surprised to see me there. I kissed his eyelids and his thousands of lines. I kissed his neck. And then, gently, he pushed me away.

  “I have to get up. They’re waiting for me.”

  “Who?”

  “All of them. They’re waiting for me there, outside the tent.”

  I didn’t understand. I went with him, and I saw.

  There they were, long columns of them. Two hundred, three hundred? A thousand? Who could have counted them? There they were, waiting, all wanting to pass in front of Moses with their complaints.

  “My tent mate has moved his goat. It’s right under my nose, and it stinks. Order him to tether it somewhere else.”

  “They stole the stone my wife uses for grinding barley. It was a good stone, the best. Here, there’s nothing but dust and the stones are no good. What can we do?”

  “Moses, the tents of the tribes are scattered all over the camp, and nobody knows where anybody is. We can’t do anything in this chaos!”

  “Moses, the women are giving birth without midwives because there aren’t enough of them. Children are being born without anyone knowing when to cut the cord. What should we do?”

  “Someone stole the cushion I brought with me from Egypt. I know who it was. What can you say to him, Moses, to make him give it back?”

  I understood now why Moses was so exhausted. It wasn’t from keeping his arms in the air during the battle against the Amalekites.

  I ran to Jethro. “Go and see Moses, Father! Go and see him and counsel him!”

  That evening, in the council tent, Jethro cried: “Have you gone mad, Moses? Do you want to lose everything? They’re going to tire you out for good, and themselves with you. They wait whole days in the sun for you to answer them!”

  Aaron intervened. “Who else but Moses can judge sins, separate good from evil, show the path each person must take? Only he can do it. Only he, through the voice of Yahweh.”

  “Do you need the voice of Yahweh to find a stolen cushion or sweep away a goat’s droppings? Let’s be reasonable about this. You’re dealing with a multitude. Moses can’t manage on his own. Let him indicate the way and the rules, and let him appoint those who are capable of applying them. Is Moses the only one in all this mass of people who has an upright heart and a bit of common sense?”

  “Could you do better? Everyone knows the Midianites are sly. They were the ones who sold Joseph to Pharaoh.”

  “And, by doing that, kept him alive, whereas his brothers would have preferred poor Joseph to die in the hole where they’d put him. Come now, Aaron! Let’s not argue about the past; we’d both be old and toothless before we got to the end of it. Aaron, sage of the people of Yahweh, what matters is today and tomorrow. Lighten Moses’ burden; appoint men to help him. Leaders of tens, leaders of hundreds, leaders of thousands. The petty thefts, the jealous quarrels, and the arguments about goats’ dung, they can settle for themselves. Moses will decide about the things that concern everyone. That’s my suggestion.”

  But the next day, Joshua came to Zipporah. “The camp is up in arms about Jethro. Aaron and his followers are stirring everyone up, saying that Moses takes too much notice of your father, that the Midianites are thieves by nature. All that old nonsense. They’re afraid of losing control, that’s the truth of it.”

  “Let them complain! Isn’t that the reason you came for us?”

  “Yes, of course! And Moses will follow your father’s counsel. All the more reason—if Jethro still wants to help Moses, it’s better that he doesn’t stay here.”

  Before saying farewell, my father and Moses spent some time together in my tent, away from prying eyes and ears.

  “Did you feel the earth shake yesterday?” Jethro asked Moses.

  “No. I’m so tired these days, the only things I can feel shaking now are my knees. But I heard about it.”

  “Remember the wrath of Horeb, then, my son. The wrath you experienced when you were in my domain. This is what is going to happen. Tomorrow, the mountain of Horeb will rumble. In three days, four at the most, it will be covered in clouds and spitting fire.”

  Moses took fright.

  Jethro smiled. “Have no fear. Yahweh is coming to your rescue. You must make all those ears outside listen. Tomorrow or some time soon, at the first rumble from Yahweh, orde
r fasting, purification, and sacrifices. Order them to strike their tents and walk to the foot of Horeb. When they are there, leave them and climb the mountain, as you did once before, that time when we thought we had lost you.”

  “Climb for what reason?”

  “To make yourself heard when you return. Today, you sit outside your tent and say, ‘This is our law.’ And you set a hundred tongues wagging, asking for the law to be less strict, while a thousand others want it to be stricter! Such confusion! How do you plan to establish the justice of free men among these people, if all they understand is fear and the whip? Don’t forget, Moses, they were born and grew up in slavery, and in their hearts they are still as much slaves as children of Israel.”

  “But the clouds, the ash, the fire! They will die.”

  “Trust in the Lord Yahweh. Nobody will perish in the ash. It is time for this people to receive its laws and open its ears to hear them. Your voice alone will not suffice. But the terror of ashes and darkness should make them a little more receptive.”

  MY father was right, and Moses was wrong to fear for his people. It was I who had to fear.

  Moses said: “The Lord Yahweh will come down to the summit of the mountain. He wants me to go up there and hear his commandments. Anyone who tries to follow me will die. Wait for me, and when I return, we shall have our rules and our laws, which will make us a people free for all eternity.”

  Like everyone else, I saw him disappear into the clouds amid the rumblings of Horeb.

  Like everyone else, I waited. My sons and I were well used to waiting by now!

  But not Aaron, not Miriam, not the multitude. They could not bear waiting.

  Moses was still on the mountain when Joshua came to see me. “When is Moses coming back? The camp is noisier than the mountain. The clouds may not be killing them, but they’re making them as drunk as if they were guzzling wine from morning to night.”

  All it took was one person to assert, “Moses won’t come back! He died up there!” and everyone believed it.

  I began to run through the camp, begging: “Wait! Keep waiting! The mountain is high, give him time, he’ll be back. My husband isn’t dead, I know it. Moses can’t die—he’s with the Lord Yahweh.”

  To which they laughed and replied: “What do you know? You’re a Cushite! How dare you speak about the Lord Yahweh? Since when has he been the God of strangers?”

  Miriam took me by the arm and led me back to my tent. “We don’t want to hear you anymore! Your voice is a blemish to our ears and your presence a blemish on our land! Know your place once and for all.”

  When Moses still did not come down, they went to Aaron, first in hundreds, then in thousands. “Moses has gone! We have nobody to lead us. Make us gods we can see and touch.”

  Then I saw them, these thousands of women and girls, these husbands and lovers, these fathers. I saw them bring out their gold, although they said they had nothing, and melt it in a clay mold made by Aaron. I saw them laugh and rejoice as the golden calf took shape, I saw Miriam’s brow streaming with sweat and joy, I saw her scar throbbing with happiness when Aaron said to the multitude, “Here are your gods, Israel!”

  Oh yes, I saw them dance, rejoicing over Moses’ death. I saw them, their faces and bodies gleaming like the gold they had just melted, dancing naked in the night, singing and kissing each other, giving in to the fire in their bellies and the promptings of their fear, and prostrating themselves before Aaron and his golden calf as they had prostrated themselves in terror before Pharaoh.

  My voice was too weak to cry out, my hands incapable of holding back my sons, who were laughing to see such a great fire, such a great celebration, and were desperate to join in.

  “Let Moses come down!” I begged the Lord Yahweh. “Let Moses come down!”

  Joshua was as appalled as I was. “I’ll go up there and find him. I don’t care what happens to me!”

  He did not have to go far. Moses had sniffed the stench of sin and was coming down. I saw him, emerging from the cloud, walking down the path nobody had trodden for moons. I saw him stop at the sight of his people’s madness, the golden calf enthroned on the altar. I heard the roar of his voice—or was it the rumbling of Horeb? I called Gershom and Eliezer and pointed. “Moses is here! Your father is here!”

  The children leaped up and down. “Our father, Moses, is back!” They ran to the path to join him and plunged into the crowd, laughing. “Our father, Moses, has come down from the mountain!”

  The people heard them and swallowed them up. They did not part as the sea had parted before Moses’ staff. They swallowed them up. They did not part as the waters had parted before the stem of the canoe in my dream. They formed a dense, dark, raging swell. They heard Moses roar in anger and took fright, crushing my little children. They heard the wrath of Yahweh and panicked, trampling my sons. I ran to them, calling: “Gershom! Eliezer!”

  Up on the mountain, Moses broke in pieces the very thing he had gone to his God to find. Down here, the earth opened and caught fire. The people ran over my sons’ bodies, fleeing in terror as the earth opened and swallowed the golden calf. They ran, trampling on the sons of Moses.

  Nothing was left of them now but two little bloodstained bodies. I clutched them to my chest and screamed.

  Gershom and Eliezer.

  AND now Moses wept and raged, wanting to slaughter his people for the killing of his sons.

  He did it. He put the armorers’ weapons in the hands of Aaron’s descendants, the sons of Levi, and ordered: “Kill them. Kill your brothers, your companions, your neighbors. Kill!”

  The camp was wet with blood, as if my sons’ blood were covering it with one huge wound.

  Moses wept in my arms, he wept against my chest, which was still bloody from holding the bodies of Gershom and Eliezer. It was the second time my husband had wept against me, the second time I had marked him with his sons’ blood.

  “Go back up the mountain,” I said. “Go back to your God and don’t come back empty-handed. Your wife is the weakest of the weak. She wasn’t even able to defend her own sons. She is weaker than the slaves you are leading. She needs the laws of your God in order to breathe and give birth in peace. I need the laws of your God to stop Miriam from shouting me down. The stranger needs laws to be considered more than a stranger. Go back, Moses. Go back for your sons’ sakes. Go back for my sake. Go back, oh my husband, to ensure that the weak man is not naked before the strong.”

  “If I go back, what new madness will they perpetrate?”

  “None. There’s enough blood in the camp to turn their stomachs for generations to come.”

  MOSES took up his staff, and again disappeared into the clouds.

  “I’m leaving,” I said to Joshua. “I can’t stay here any longer.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “To Midian, to my father’s domain. There is no other place for me. When I’m there, I’ll ask for food, grain, and animals for you. At least your people will have enough to eat and won’t have to nourish themselves with violence.”

  “I’ll go with you to bring everything back. Ewi-Tsour and his armorers will go with us. Hobab will stay here to help Moses when he comes down.”

  I WAS wrong. There was no place for me now in Midian, or in Jethro’s domain.

  When we reached the well of Irmna, a group of men were waiting for us.

  “Look!” Ewi-Tsour cried. “It’s Elchem. He’s come to meet us.”

  He was smiling. I recognized Elchem’s burned and disfigured face, which reminded me of Miriam’s. I, too, had a scar now, but it was invisible.

  But Elchem did not smile back at Ewi-Tsour. From among the group of armorers he was leading rose a voice I recognized.

  “Where are you going? Who gave you permission to approach this well?”

  “Orma!”

  My sister Orma had stepped forward. She was as beautiful as ever—perhaps even more so—her eyes as black, her mouth as scornful.

  “I’m on my
way back to our father’s house,” I said. “I’m also looking for food for Moses’ people. They’re dying of hunger in the desert.”

  “Jethro is dead. It is I, the wife of Reba and queen of Sheba, who gives the orders here now. It is out of the question for the multitude led by your Moses to descend like locusts on what belongs to us.”

  “Orma, my sister!”

  “I’m not your sister and my father, Jethro, was not your father!”

  “Orma, they’re hungry! My sons died because hunger drove them mad!”

  “Who was it who wanted at all costs to be Moses’ wife?”

  She simply had to smile, and Elchem and his men unsheathed their swords and threw themselves on us.

  When Elchem plunged his superb blade into my belly, I again saw his scar throb, as Miriam’s had throbbed at the sight of the golden calf.

  But what did it matter? I was already dead. I had left my life behind in my son’s bodies.

  EPILOGUE

  Joshua returned to the tents of Israel.

  Moses came down from the mountain. His face was so radiant that none dared approach him. None except Joshua, who told him of Zipporah’s death.

  Moses did not fly into a rage, did not curse Orma and the people of Midian. But, for the first time, those who had followed him out of Egypt saw tears in his eyes.

  He whispered Zipporah’s name. He called her name, as if calling for something lost in the darkess: “Zipporah, Zipporah, Zipporah!”

  Softly, not wanting the syllables to be lost on the wind.

  Then he uttered the names of his sons, Gershom and Eliezer. “May they not be forgotten, they who were trampled by the madness of the crowd!”

  Moses showed Joshua the tablets of the Law. “Look,” he said. “I have not come down empty-handed from the mountain. From this day on, Zipporah is here.” He touched some of the words lightly with the tips of his fingers. “Yahweh heard my wife, the woman of Midian. He heard her, Joshua!”

  Joshua saw that it was true. On the stone, these words were engraved: “If you receive a stranger, do not ill-treat him. May the stranger in your house be as one of your own. Love him as yourself, for you too were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God, and no injustice shall be done in my name!”