Zipporah[a] is mentioned in the Book of Exodus as the wife of Moses, and the daughter of Jethro, the priest and prince of Midian.

Zipporah quickly circumcised her son with a sharp stone and touched Moses' feet with the foreskin, saying "Surely you are a husband of blood to me!"

After Moses succeeded in leading the Israelites out of Egypt, and won a battle against Amalek, Jethro came to the Hebrew camp in the wilderness of Sinai, bringing with him Zipporah and their two sons, Gershom and Eliezer.

The Bible does not say when Zipporah and her sons rejoined Jethro, only that after he heard of what God did for the Israelites, he brought Moses' family to him.

The sons of Ham, mentioned within the Book of Genesis, have been identified with nations in Africa (Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya), the Levant (Canaan), and Arabia.

Jewish reading traditions pronounce the description of Moses's wife as "kushit" meaning "the Cushite woman".

However, the oral reading tradition of the Samaritan Pentateuch pronounces the description of Moses's wife as "kaashet," which translates to "the beautiful woman.

Alonso de Sandoval, 17th century Jesuit, reasoned that Zipporah and the Cushite woman was the same person, and that she was black.

[13][14][15][16][17] Moses was allowed to wed Zipporah after helping save Jethro's daughters and their flock from competing herdsmen.

Examples include the films The Ten Commandments (1956),[23] The Prince of Egypt (1998),[24] and Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014).