Let’s dive into a fascinating moment in the life of Moses, a moment tinged with both humility and a hint of the miraculous.
You remember Moses, right? The future leader, still on the run after that… incident in Egypt. Well, as the story goes, after helping the daughters of Jethro at the well, they were, understandably, full of gratitude. But Moses, ever the humble soul, brushed aside their thanks.
"Your thanks," he said, "are due to the Egyptian I killed. Because of him, I had to flee Egypt. Had it not been for him, I wouldn't be here now." Think about that for a moment. He's acknowledging the dark circumstances that led him to this very place. Acknowledging that even something born of violence can inadvertently lead to something new. It's a fascinating bit of self-awareness, isn’t it? A glimpse into a complex character.
And speaking of new beginnings… among Jethro's seven daughters, one in particular caught Moses' eye. Zipporah, the maiden whose modest demeanor set her apart. He was smitten. And what does one do when smitten? Well, in those days, one proposed marriage!
But here's where the story takes a rather… unusual turn. Zipporah, as Ginzberg retells it in Legends of the Jews, gently rebuffed him. Why? Because her father, Jethro, had a rather… unique method of vetting potential husbands.
“My father has a tree in his garden," she explained, "with which he tests every man that expresses a desire to marry one of his daughters. And as soon as the suitor touches the tree, he is devoured by it."
Devoured by it! Can you imagine? A man-eating tree as a pre-marital test! It sounds like something straight out of a fantastical fairytale, doesn’t it? What kind of tree could it be, and where did Jethro get it from?
This brief exchange, filled with humility and the bizarre, sets the stage for a significant chapter in Moses' life. A chapter where he'll encounter not only a wife, but also a father-in-law who seems to have a penchant for the theatric… or perhaps, something far more mysterious.