A Nubian woman, between 1800 and 1899, (cropped) Photograph by Jean Pascal Sébah. Wellcomecollection.org
Moses’ Black-Skinned Wife: What Does the Torah Think of Her?
Miriam and Aaron speak negatively about Moses for marrying a Kushite woman. Does their issue have to do with her skin color? Miriam’s punishment may hold the key.
Published: June 2, 2021
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
The phrase is that of Cain Hope Felder, “Race, Racism and the Biblical Narratives,” in Cain Hope Felder, ed., Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 127–145 [p. 127].
Moses’ Cushite wife sits “at one of the primary intersections of gender and ethnicity in the book of Numbers”; Ron M. Serino, “A Sign in the Dark: Moses’ Cushite Wife and Boundary Setting in the Book of Numbers,” Biblical Interpretation 24 (2016): 153–177 [p. 154].
All translations follow NJPS with some adjustments.
For a geographical discussion see David T. Adamo, “A Silent Unheard Voice in the Old Testament: The Cushite Woman whom Moses Marries in Numbers 12:1-10,” In die Skriflig 52 (2018). Accessed May 9, 2021.
Other texts have him as Jethro or Hobab. Editor’s note: For a discussion of the biblical confusion surrounding Moses’ father-in-law, see Zev Farber, “Moses’ Father-in-Law: Kenite or Midianite?” TheTorah (2015).
Editor’s note: See discussion in Elad Filler, “Moses and the Kushite Woman: Classic Interpretations and Philo’s Allegory,” TheTorah (2018).
R. G. Robertson, “Ezekiel the Tragedian,” in James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 2.810–11.
J. Hanson “Demetrius the Chronographer,” in James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 2.853.
The Midianites are associated with the Ishmaelites in Genesis 37:25-28 and Judges 8:24.
Martin Noth, Numbers (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), 94.
The earliest version of this midrash can be found in the 3rd cent. C.E. Sifrei Numbers §99. See also Rashi on Num 12:1, as well as David Qimhi.
See, for example, Noth, Numbers, 94; and Dennis T. Olson, “Numbers,” in The Harper’s Bible Commentary (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2000), 174.
The very mention of Moses’ Kushite wife in this verse may be the remnant of a different source, not related to the source tradition concerning Zipporah at all.
It should be noted that Num 12:2–9 abandons the whole question of the Kushite wife and gives jealousy as the motivation for Aaron’s and Miriam’s challenge to Moses’ authority. It is only in 12:9 that the question of the Kushite wife may return. It seems clear that we are dealing with two different strands of tradition. See Noth, Numbers, 93.
Randall Bailey suggests dividing the biblical references to Cush into three tropes: 1. As a symbol for great military power (2 Chron 12:3, 14:9); 2. As a norm for valuation (Amos 9:7, Isa 43:3); and 3. As a symbol of wealth (Isa 45:14, Job 28:19, Ps 68:28-35, Dan 11:43). “Beyond Identification: The Use of Africans in Old Testament Poetry and Narratives,” in Felder, Stony the Road, 172-74.
Editor’s note: For the possibility that the editor of this chapter was mixing African Kush (Ethiopia/Nubia) and Mesopotamian Kish or Kashu, see Yigal Levin, “Nimrod, Mighty Hunter and King—Who Was He?” TheTorah (2020); David Ben-Gad HaCohen, “Decoding the Table of Nations: Reading It As a Map,” TheTorah (2015), fn. 11.
Even though both Aaron and Miriam speak against Moses, only Miriam is punished. This raises the question: Why is only Miriam, and not Aaron, punished? Is it because she, like Moses’ wife, is a woman, and so they are parallel, the insulted woman and the punished woman? Is it related to Aaron’s status as high priest and questions of priestly purity and impurity? The text itself does not tell us, and it does not seem to be concerned with our contemporary questions of fairness or unfairness. See Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, “Numbers,” in The Women’s Bible Commentary, 3rd ed., eds., Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2012), 83-84.
Felder, “Race, Racism,” 135: “It is not accidental that Miriam becomes ‘white as snow’.”
See the early twentieth century comment of George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Numbers (New York: Scribner, 1920), 221, “the clause itself…reasonably implies that the marriage was recent, and consequently that the wife mentioned is not Sipporah.”
Editor’s note: For a discussion of color-consciousness and even racism in Jewish text and tradition in the post-biblical era, see Meylekh Viswanath, “Black People in Jewish Tradition: Eliminating Racism Requires Honesty,” TheTorah (2020).
See, e.g., Stephen R. Haynes, Noah’s Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery, Religion in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
