And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.
All Commentaries on Numbers 12:1 Go To Numbers 12
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Ethiopian. Sephora, the wife of Moses, was of Madian, which bordered upon the land of Chus, or Ethiopia; and therefore she is called an Ethiopian: where note, that the Ethiopia here spoken of, is not that of Africa but that of Arabia, (Challoner) on the east side of the Red Sea, Exodus ii. 15. Jealousy instigated Aaron and his sister on this occasion. (Calmet)
Perhaps Sephora had claimed some pre-eminence on account of her husband's glory, in being a mediator between God and his people, and therefore they pretend to the same honour, ver. 2. (Haydock)
The Hebrew insinuates, that they laid hold on the pretext of Moses having married, or received again, a woman of a different nation contrary to the law which he had promulgated, "for it adds, he had married or retaken an Ethiopian woman. "Others believe that he had put her away, and that Aaron and Mary stood up in her defence. "Mary and Aaron murmured against Moses, on account of the wife whom he had taken, who was a perfect beauty, because he had separated himself from his beautiful wife. "(Onkelos)
Some are of opinion, that this woman was Tarbis, the daughter of the king of Ethiopia, whom Moses espoused after he had terminated the wars between him and the Egyptians, before he retired to Madian. But this account of Josephus, (Antiquities ii. 5,) and the explication of Onkelos, and of the Rabbins, seem to be destitute of any solid foundation. (Calmet)
