Miriam Complains of Moses’ Cushite Wife: Hezekiah Married the Wrong Empire!

Soon after the Israelites receive the law and leave Mount Sinai, Miriam (possibly together with Aaron) complains about Moses’s marriage to a woman she identifies as a “Cushite.”

^{במדבר יב:א} וַתְּדַבֵּר מִרְיָם וְאַהֲרֹן בְּמֹשֶׁה עַל־אֹדוֹת הָאִשָּׁה הַכֻּשִׁית אֲשֶׁר לָקָח כִּי־אִשָּׁה כֻשִׁית לָקָח׃

^{Num 12:1} Miriam (and Aaron) spoke against Moses on account of the Cushite woman he had married. Indeed he had married a Cushite woman!

This accusation is quite a conundrum, for three reasons.

Change of Topic

First, Miriam and Aaron (this time, clearly both of them) go on to raise a completely different issue:

^{במדבר יב:ב} וַיֹּאמְרוּ הֲרַק אַךְ־בְּמֹשֶׁה דִּבֶּר יְ־הוָה הֲלֹא גַּם־בָּנוּ דִבֵּר וַיִּשְׁמַע יְ־הוָה׃

^{Num 12:2} They said, “Is it only through Moses that YHWH has spoken? Has he not also spoken through us?”

This complaint has to do with prophetic authority: To whom does God speak? Whose words can be trusted to actually be from God? It is not clear how this is related to the initial verse, which is about Moses’ choice of a marriage partner.

The change in topic is a good reason to suspect that Aaron was not initially involved in the complaint because it is accompanied by a change in verb. They (Miriam and Aaron) lodge the second complaint, while the verb that introduces the first complaint is feminine singular וַתְּדַבֵּר מִרְיָם וְאַהֲרֹן (“she spoke”), even though it mentions Aaron as a second speaker. Aaron’s name may be mentioned in the accusation about Moses’s wife, but the verb does not include him. This change in the verb together with the change in topic is a sign that the text has been revised to involve Aaron and to change the substance of the complaint, which initially focused only on the Cushite wife.^[1]

The Woman’s Identity

The second difficulty with Miriam’s accusation is the identity of the Cushite woman. Moses has a wife, who is introduced in Exodus 2, but she is a Midianite. After Moses kills the Egyptian and realizes that his deed has been discovered, he flees Egypt for Midian.

^{שמות ב:טו} ‏וַיִּשְׁמַע פַּרְעֹה אֶת־הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה וַיְבַקֵּשׁ לַהֲרֹג אֶת־מֹשֶׁה וַיִּבְרַח מֹשֶׁה מִפְּנֵי פַרְעֹה וַיֵּשֶׁב בְּאֶרֶץ־מִדְיָן וַיֵּשֶׁב עַל־הַבְּאֵר׃

^{Exod 2:15} Pharaoh heard about this matter and sought to kill Moses, so Moses fled from Pharaoh. He settled in the land of Midian and sat down by a well.^[2]

Moses meets seven sisters at a well (a typical patriarchal scene that portends marriage),^[3] defends them against some aggressive shepherds, and waters their flock:

^{שמות ב:טז}‏ וּלְכֹהֵן מִדְיָן שֶׁבַע בָּנוֹת וַתָּבֹאנָה וַתִּדְלֶנָה וַתְּמַלֶּאנָה אֶת־הָרְהָטִים לְהַשְׁקוֹת צֹאן אֲבִיהֶן׃ ^ב:יז וַיָּבֹאוּ הָרֹעִים וַיְגָרְשׁוּם וַיָּקָם מֹשֶׁה וַיּוֹשִׁעָן וַיַּשְׁקְ אֶת־צֹאנָם׃

^{Exod 2:16} Now, the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came and drew water, and they filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. ^2:17 But some shepherds came and drove them away. Moses rose up and delivered them, and he watered their flock.

When the girls report the day’s events to their father, he welcomes Moses into the household in more ways than one: to share a meal and to gain a wife, his daughter Zipporah:

‎ ^שמות ‎ ^ב:כא וַיּוֹאֶל מֹשֶׁה לָשֶׁבֶת אֶת־הָאִישׁ וַיִּתֵּן אֶת־צִפֹּרָה בִתּוֹ לְמֹשֶׁה׃

^{Exod 2:21} Moses was willing to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.

If this account earlier in Exodus is the context for Miriam’s criticism, she is referring to Zipporah. The problem is that the word “Cushite” most often refers to Nubians, not Midianites. Cush could refer to Midian in a few places where the two place-names appear in parallel with one another. For example:

^{חבקוק ג:ז} תַּחַת אָוֶן רָאִיתִי אָהֳלֵי כוּשָׁן יִרְגְּזוּן יְרִיעוֹת אֶרֶץ מִדְיָן׃

^{Hab 3:7} I saw the tents of Cushan under affliction
The tent curtains of the land of Midian trembled.^[4]

This may seem like a tidy solution to the problem, but “Nubia” is the dominant meaning of “Cush” in the Bible, and this should temper our certainty about a connection between Cush and Midian, especially because later sources continue to wrestle with it. Some try to explain how Zipporah the Midianite might be understood as a Cushite, either by equating Midian with Ethiopia (Ezekiel the Tragedian 60–65) or by taking “Cush” as a metaphorical reference to her beautiful dark skin (Sifrei Zuta ad loc.).^[5]

Others understand that Moses had two wives. Josephus relates an episode in which Moses marries a princess named Tharbis while he is on campaign in Nubia on behalf of the Egyptians; only later does he flee to Midian and marry Zipporah (Antiquities II.x.2 and ii.2).^[6] Yet, in the Torah itself, Moses has only one wife, and she is clearly from Midian.

What’s the Problem with a Cushite Wife?

The third difficulty—the most crucial one—is why Miriam finds fault with Moses’s choice of a Cushite wife. The text of Numbers 12 does not give us the context for her complaint, so we must reconstruct it.

If Moses’s Cushite wife is Zipporah, we could connect Miriam’s complaint to what we find in a later passage in Numbers, which takes particular issue with Midianites, specifically sex between Israelite men and Midianite women:

^{במדבר כה:ו} וְהִנֵּה אִישׁ מִבְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בָּא וַיַּקְרֵב אֶל־אֶחָיו אֶת־הַמִּדְיָנִית לְעֵינֵי מֹשֶׁה וּלְעֵינֵי כָּל־עֲדַת בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל וְהֵמָּה בֹכִים פֶּתַח אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד׃ ^כה:ז‏ וַיַּרְא פִּינְחָס בֶּן־אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן־אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן וַיָּקָם מִתּוֹךְ הָעֵדָה וַיִּקַּח רֹמַח בְּיָדוֹ׃ ^כה:ח וַיָּבֹא אַחַר אִישׁ־יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל־הַקֻּבָּה וַיִּדְקֹר אֶת־שְׁנֵיהֶם אֵת אִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאֶת־הָאִשָּׁה אֶל־קֳבָתָהּ

^{Num 25:6} Just then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman into his family, in the sight of Moses and the whole congregation of the Israelites. They were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. ^25:7 Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw this. He arose from the midst of the congregation, took a spear in his hand, ^25:8 came after the Israelite man into the tent, and pierced the two of them—the Israelite and the woman—through the belly… [7]

Even if “Cushite” means “Nubian” in Numbers 12, prohibitions against intermarriage are found elsewhere in the Bible, such as the law in Deuteronomy against intermarriage with Canaanites:

^{דברים ז:ג} וְלֹא תִתְחַתֵּן בָּם בִּתְּךָ לֹא־תִתֵּן לִבְנוֹ וּבִתּוֹ לֹא־תִקַּח לִבְנֶךָ׃

^{Deut 7:3} Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons. Do not take their daughters for your sons.

So it should not surprise us that Miriam takes issue with Moses’ wife being non-Israelite.^[8] Alternatively, Miriam’s complaint may be driven by objection to the dark color of her skin. While we should be cautious about projecting modern concerns about racism onto an ancient text, Miriam’s punishment—an ailment that renders her skin “like snow”—suggests to some readers that skin color is at issue here. That said, “like snow” can refer to texture as well as color, so this reading too is fraught.^[9]

The Moses Story as Political Allegory

Another approach to understanding Miriam’s criticism becomes possible when we step back and think about what kind of story the exodus narrative is. We tend to read it as history, but, as I argued in my “Moses Is Modeled on Horus and Sargon, but His Story Is About King Hezekiah” (TheTorah 2025), Moses’s birth story is closely related to the Sargon birth legend—a fictional autobiography of a royal figure, written in the mode of political allegory.^[10] The highly literary and allegorical character of the exodus story does not mean we should abandon the idea that it is in some sense historical. Rather, we can think of it as entangled in history, representing the past and the present in an effort to shape the future.

Pharaoh’s fear that the Israelites will leave Egypt in the event of war (Exodus 1:10) should be understood against the backdrop of the Assyrian campaigns against Israel and Judah in the late eighth century B.C.E. In 720 B.C.E., Sargon II completed Shalmaneser V’s campaign against Samaria, destroying its capital city and exiling many of its inhabitants. His son, Sennacherib, was poised to destroy Judah, which he very nearly did in his 701 B.C.E. campaign, after King Hezekiah had rebelled against Assyria.

Reading the exodus story as political allegory, the Moses figure is Hezekiah, who initially sought out Egyptian support for his rebellion. At this time, Egypt was ruled by the kings of the 25^th dynasty, Nubians—Cushites—who conquered Egypt. The rulers of this dynasty modelled themselves on Egypt’s Ramesside past in order to underwrite their legitimacy and project an image of imperial power.^[11]

Egypt’s Cushite rulers proved not to be very helpful. Hezekiah launched his rebellion with the support of Pharaoh Taharka, biblical Tirhaka (2 Kgs 19:9; Isa 37:9). Yet Egypt’s ability (or willingness) to protect Judah was not as advertised. As the prophet Isaiah put it, Egypt was הַקָּנֶה הָרָצוּץ “the broken reed of a staff” (Isa 36:6).

In this context, a story about the Israelite leader bringing the Israelites out of Egypt may be understood as a push for a radical change in foreign policy, encouraging distance from a distant and dangerous neighbor who should not be trusted to protect Judah from the Assyrians.^[12]

A Pro-Egypt Stance

I suggest understanding Miriam’s criticism in this same light. Marriage was a common way to cement political alliances in the ancient world and beyond.^[13] It is also a powerful metaphor for such alliances.^[14] The Cushite “wife” to whom Miriam objects is the Cushite pharaoh of Egypt, with whom Hezekiah had forged an alliance.

In a sense, then, Moses (Hezekiah) does have two “wives,” as Josephus will later attest. His Midianite wife, Zipporah, probably signifies a political alliance between the Israelites (Judah) and Midian. The allegorical character of the story should prompt us to ask whether a historical alliance with Midian indeed helped Hezekiah extricate himself from his alliance with (“divorce”) his other, Cushite “wife”—namely, Egypt—and negotiate with the Assyrians to remain on the throne of an independent Judah.

Miriam’s complaint is thus political commentary. It dredges up the past—"Indeed, he married a Cushite woman!” (i.e., “Look! He made an ill-conceived alliance with the Cushite rulers of Egypt! What an outrage!”)—in order to make a point about the dangers of relying upon major foreign powers, especially Egypt, in order to secure one’s place in the world.^[15] Her complaint is in line with other warnings in the Tanakh to avoid Egypt and negative depictions of those who advocate for going back.^[16]

Yet this does not mean that the author of Numbers 12 is against the Egyptian alliance. In fact, the opposite is more likely, since Miriam, who offers this complaint, is punished for her words. This, too, is political commentary. The author seeks to deter the Miriams of the world, those inclined to object to potential alliance with Egypt based on past experience, in which Egypt’s arrogance and unreliability nearly proved fatal for the Israelites. Whoever wrote this story appears to have been in favor of a positive relationship with Egypt, the past notwithstanding.