92 JOSEPH BLENKINSOPP in Exodus tells how, after killing an Egyptian, Moses left Egypt, settled in Midian as a resident alien (gēr), married Zipporah daughter of Reuel (also Jethro) priest of Midian, and fathered a son, the first of two (Exod 2,15-22). Some time later, years rather than months, he obtained permission from Reuel/Jethro to return to Egypt, apparently taking his Midianite family with him (Exod 4,18-20). The ceremony at a sacred Midianite site involving Jethro the priest on the one hand and Moses, Aaron and Israelite elders on the other (Exod 18,1-12) has been endlessly discussed. One interpretation of what took place there would read as follows. Jethro and Moses carried out a liturgy together in a tent, perhaps similar to the Midianite qubba of Num 25,8. Moses recited the magnalia dei, the great deeds of the god they both venerated, Jethro pronounced a blessing on the deity, and renewed his profession of faith in Yahweh as the most powerful of the gods. There followed a sacrifice and sacrificial meal presided over by the Midianite priest, the purpose of which appears to have been that of reaffirming and reinforcing a kinship bond between Midian and Israel already in existence. The wife and children of Moses would presumably not have participated in the sacrifice and meal, but their role in the proceedings should not be overlooked, and it seems that the writer did not overlook it. They are mentioned at the outset, and Jethro makes what sounds like a solemn announcement of their presence to Moses: “I, Jethro, your father-in-law, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons” (vv. 5-6). If my understanding of the purpose of the ceremony as a berît ’aḥîm is correct, the presence of the wife and children served as an attestation of intermarriage between Israelite and Midianite and therefore as a visible witness to and confirmation of the bond between the two branches of the same extended kinship group, the two families descended from Abraham (Gen 25,1-4)11. The question now arises: Why did the marriage of Moses to a Midianite woman pass without comment while Zimri’s marriage to Cozbi elicited homicidal rage not only fully vindicated post factum but richly rewarded? Was this another aspect of the unique status of Moses, reaffirmed in response to Miriam’s complaint about his marriage to the ’iššâ kûšît (Num 12,1)12? 11 On this incident, and the history of research on the Midianite-Kenite hypothesis see my “The Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis Revisited and the Ori- gins of Judah”, JSOT 33 (2008) 131-153. 12 Following M. NOTH, Numbers. A Commentary (OTL; London 1968) 94, and for the same reason, I understand kûšît to refer not to Cush, the region south of the first cataract of the Nile, as LXX and Josephus (Ant 2:251-252) assume, but to Midian, following Hab 3,7 where Cushan is parallel with Midian. Most commentators do not identify this woman with Zipporah, since it would be a little late in the day for Miriam to be complaining about a marriage entered into years earlier. It is possible, however, that Num 12,1 represents a tradition about Moses’ marriage to a Midianite woman, here unnamed, distinct from and al- ternative to the tradition about Zipporah in the Exodus texts.