The Rod in Jethro's Garden

When Moses arrived in Midian, he was a fugitive. He had killed an Egyptian taskmaster in Egypt, had seen two Israelites fighting the next day and been asked by one of them: do you intend to kill us too? He had run. He was sixty-six years old, having spent forty years as the king of Cush before being deposed and sent away with honor but without a kingdom. He sat down at a well and waited, not knowing what he was waiting for.

Among the seven daughters who came to the well, one caught his attention because of her modesty. He drove off the shepherds who were abusing the women, helped them water their flocks, and was invited to their father's house. His name there was Moses the Egyptian, and he let it stand without correction. This passivity would cost him. The Legends of the Jews records that Joseph, who had proclaimed in public that he was a Hebrew, was buried in the land of the Hebrews. Moses, who allowed himself to be called an Egyptian, would die outside that land.

When Moses asked for Zipporah's hand, she warned him about her father's test. There was a rod planted in the garden. Every man who had come to court one of Jethro's daughters had been invited to try to pull it from the ground. None had succeeded. Several had been devoured by it.

What Zipporah told Moses about the rod's history is one of the great inventories of transmission in Jewish tradition. It had been created in the twilight of the first Sabbath eve, among the ten things God made in those final moments before the first Shabbat: the mouth of the earth that swallowed Korah, the mouth of the well that followed Israel in the desert, the rainbow, the manna, the writing on the tablets. The rod was given to Adam when he was driven from the Garden. Adam transmitted it to Enoch. Enoch to Noah. Noah to Shem. Shem to Abraham. Abraham to Isaac. Isaac to Jacob. Jacob brought it to Egypt and gave it to Joseph. When Joseph died, the Egyptians looted his house, and the rod ended up in Pharaoh's palace. Jethro was then a prominent scribe at court. He saw the rod, felt drawn to it, and took it home. He planted it in his garden, and it took root and put forth blossoms.

The Ginzberg tradition says that the Ineffable Name was engraved on the rod, and also the initials of the ten plagues that God would bring on Egypt. The rod knew, in a sense, what it was for. It waited in the garden for the man who was coming to bring those plagues.

Moses went into the garden and pulled the rod from the ground without difficulty. Jethro saw this and recognized him immediately: this was the prophet the Egyptian wise men had foretold, the one who would destroy Egypt. He seized Moses and threw him into a pit.

Zipporah kept Moses alive in the pit for seven years, bringing him food and water in secret. At the end of seven years she told her father: remember the man you threw into the pit? If he is dead, remove the corpse before the stench fills the house. If he is alive, you have committed a great wrong against one of the wholly pious. Jethro opened the pit. Moses answered. Jethro drew him up, kissed him, and said: blessed be God, who kept you alive. I acknowledge that He kills and revives, and that through you God will destroy Egypt and lead His people out.

He gave Moses Zipporah and a great deal of money. The condition was that half the children born to them in Jethro's house would be raised as Israelites and half as Egyptians. When Zipporah bore Moses their first son, he circumcised the child and named him Gershom: stranger in a strange land, though God had not refused him help even there.

On the road back to Egypt, the Legends of the Jews record, a serpent appeared and swallowed Moses down to his extremities. Zipporah understood immediately: the second son had not been circumcised. She performed the circumcision on the spot and sprinkled the blood on Moses's feet, and a voice from heaven commanded the serpent to release him. Zipporah had saved Moses twice: once from the pit and once from the serpent. Neither time had she been asked. Both times she had known what to do before Moses did.

The rod he carried into Egypt was the same rod that parted the sea, struck water from a rock, and was held above the battlefield while Israel fought Amalek. It had passed through thirty generations before it reached Moses. After him, there is no record of where it went.