Though seemingly relegated to obscurity, she is by no standards insignificant. Her story opens in Exodus 2, where she and her sisters meet the fleeing Moses. Moses was on the run from Pharaoh after he had killed an Egyptian in defence of a Hebrew slave.

Zipporah was one of the seven daughters of Jethro/Reuel, Prince/Priest of Midian. She and her sisters were going about their daily chores when she met the man Moses.

Is it insignificant that Moses was sitting by a well when the daughters of Jethro first laid their eyes on him? Can it be overlooked that “they came and drew water”? Moses the name, suggests ‘drawing out’, “he who draws out”, in the sense of “saviour, deliverer”. It is interesting and very significant to note that Moses was and is the only man living or dead, that God Himself ever likened to Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour (Deut18:18).
Apart from the fact that his name ‘Moses’, portrays the circumstances surrounding the preservation of his life as a baby, “drawn out of water”, it also speaks of his life’s assignment as “deliverer”. Moses was and is definitely a big player in God’s scheme of things.

Moses helped Jethro’s daughters and “watered their flock”. When they got home earlier than usual, their father asked how come they got back so soon and they replied by saying, “an Egyptian delivered us… drew water enough for us, and watered the flock”. Was the priest of Midian quick to recognise that this “Egyptian” carried a peculiar grace? For he was quoted to have said to his daughters, “how could you leave such a man?”

Such was the need for Jethro to establish an enduring relationship with this peculiar man that he soon thereafter gave his daughter Zipporah out in marriage to Moses.

Much argument has been made about Zipporah as the “Cushite” or “Ethiopian” wife of Moses. However, we do not see anywhere in scripture where she was condemned by YAHWEH. God condemned those who rose up against her husband. Zipporah was given a mention of great honour in the word of God. Whichever way, we read of Gershom and Eliezer as the only sons of Moses and they were born to him of Zipporah.

This mysterious and distinctive Midian woman features prominently in one of the most curious, most bizarre, most debated passages of the Bible.
Moses, had just been commissioned by God to go and lead the inheritance of God out of the land of bondage. It is said that God had earlier prophesied that the children of Israel would be held captive for 400 years in Egypt. By the time God called Moses, Israel was marking 430 years and more in Egypt. It is widely believed that the extra years they spent in bondage were the years Moses took to mature enough to be sent; suggesting that God did not have a substitute for Moses, so Israel had to tarry in bondage until Moses was made fit for the work?

Now, this same “irreplaceable” Moses was finally on the way to destiny fulfilment and then the most bizarre thing happens. “And it came to pass on the way, at the encampment, that the Lord met him and sought to kill him.” The Lord was about to kill Moses, the man he had been grooming to act as a type of Jesus Christ for Israel. Moses had neglected the covenant of circumcision and he had failed to circumcise his son/s. This was an unpardonable act of disobedience to God.

Mystery, murder, mayhem, death, annihilation! The fate of Moses and indeed that of Israel hung in the balance…or was it in the hands of Zipporah? Everything happened so fast, there was no time for discussion, prayer, deliberation nor conversation… only quick action. How did she know what to do? Who taught her? How come she had the “sharp stone” in her hand so quickly?

Timely, sensitive, decisive, Zipporah understood a situation that remains mystifying to most, even to date. She knew that she had to shed her son’s blood to make atonement for Moses’ error and thereby give Moses his life. She referred to Moses as a “bloody husband” as she tossed the dripping foreskin at “his feet”. Could that be because he had to be delivered from death by the shedding of blood? Every man is guilty before God and must be delivered by blood.

What was Moses’ reaction/action? None that we were told. Moses was dumbfounded, confused? But for the ‘swift flying’ (like an eagle) to the rescue of the daughter of Jethro whose name Zipporah, means ‘bird’; Moses would have been killed by that wayside Inn on the way to Egypt. Zipporah was a woman prepared.

One cannot but marvel, that God strategically placed beside Moses, a sensitive woman of unfathomable depths to be his deliverer at his most befuddled, helpless and hapless moment. Zipporah was a woman on assignment.

Zipporah can never be defined or described by any standard as insignificant. God must have been working in her and on her for sometime. She did not come across on that fateful day as a woman who was unsure of what to do. She knew exactly what to do and how to go about it. She moved instantly and correctly. She had had tutulege. Zipporah was a woman on a mission. She was a woman prepared.

Zipporah was a woman sent. She was a carefully aimed arrow. She did not miss her target. She helped Moses fulfil his destiny as a liberator. She delivered the deliverer so that he could go on to manifest as deliverer and lead the children of Israel out of bondage.

Zipporah was not inconsequential nor irrelevant. She did not sit and wring her hands in helplessness and ineptitude when the situation called for momentous enterprise. She rose swiftly and bravely without platitudes to fulfil her calling. Zipporah was a woman who acted decisively and courageously, not a woman acted upon. Zipporah was a virtuous woman who helped her husband to fulfil his life’s assignment.

The fact that the woman Zipporah, is not noised abroad as one of the greatest women of old, does not however change the truth that she played a significantly positive role in the atonement for Moses’ life, before the commencement of his ministry; nor does the fact that she is not celebrated as a revered servant of God alter the undeniable truth that her one singular decisive action made possible the mission to free the inheritance of God from bondage by the man Moses.

The fact that one seems to be obscure, does not in any way alter the truth of ones ‘Divine Significance’. Zipporah was truly a woman sent. Zipporah indeed fulfiled her assignment.