Kommentar zu Schemot 18:2

אחר שלוחיה AFTER HIS HAVING SENT HER AWAY — When God said to him in Midian, (Exodus 4:19, 20) “Go, return to Egypt … and Moses took his wife and his sons etc…. and Aaron went forth towards him and met him at the Mount of God”, he (Aaron) said to him, “Who are these?” He answered him, “This is my wife whom I married in Midian and these are my children”. He, thereupon, asked him, “Whither are you taking them?” He replied, “To Egypt”. Where-upon he said to him, “We have cause to grieve over the former ones (the Israelites already there), and you propose to add to their number!” Moses therefore said to her, “Return to your father’s house” — she took her two sons and went away (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 18:2).

AFTER HE HAD SENT HER AWAY. Because Scripture had [previously] mentioned, And Moses took his wife and his sons… and he returned to the land of Egypt,⁶⁰Verse 1. it became necessary to state here that she was in her father’s house, as Moses had sent her there. It is possible that Scripture is stating that Jethro took [Zipporah, Moses’s wife], to return her to him although he had sent her away. Having heard all that G-d had done for Moses,⁶⁰Verse 1. he thought that it was now time for her to follow the king wherever he would go.

אחר שלוחיה. After she (Tzipporah) had sent a message to him to find out where they were encamped. Moses had informed her that the Israelites would not stop anywhere for any length of time until they would reach the mountain of G’d, Mount Chorev, where they would serve the Lord. She must have known about this as Moses must have told her of G’d’s prediction in Exodus 3,12 that once out of Egypt the Jewish people would serve the Lord there at that mountain. This is the reason why it took Yitro so long before he came as he had to wait until the Jewish people would make camp for longer than one night.

ויקח יתרו חתן משה, Yitro, Moses' father-in-law took, etc. The reason Yitro is again described as Moses' father-in-law is that it was only due to his status as the father-in-law of such a great man that his peers did not prevent him from travelling to Mount Sinai and becoming Jewish. It was customary in those days to put heretics to death, seeing that the religions were all national in character and defection was equivalent to treason. Perhaps the Torah also hints here that though Yitro was known by an entirely different title, i.e. The Priest of Midian, he now spurned that title and wished to be known simply as Moses' father-in-law.

אחר שלוחיה, seeing that the Torah had never told us that Moses had sent his wife and children back to Midian after they had arrived in Egypt, the Torah had to fill us in on this if we are to understand what is written here. Some commentators believe that what is meant is that now that Moses was in a position to do this he had sent her the gifts a husband normally gives his bride. We find something similar reported of Pharaoh giving his daughter, Solomon’s wife, Gezer Chazor and Megiddo as a dowry. in Kings I 9,15. The former interpretation in the plain meaning of our verse. There would be no point is Yitro bringing Tzipporah back to her husband, when we had never heard that Moses had sent her back to her father in the first place. The last that we had heard was that Tzipporah had accompanied Moses and even circumcised his son (their son) during Moses’ temporary absence. If she had been sent to her father at that time, why did the Torah not report something important like this? The Torah has reported far less important matters more than once, such as Genesis 9,18 וחם הוא אבי כנען, “and Cham, the one who was the father of Canaan.” This information was provided by the Torah in Genesis 10,6 where it belonged. It is therefore not unusual for the Torah to provide some information at a juncture we would not have suspected it.

אחר שילוחיה, “after she had been sent away.” Seeing that the Torah had told us earlier that Moses took his wife and his children, and started out on the way to Egypt, (Exodus 4,20) the Torah had to inform us that at some point Moses had sent his family back to Midian, to the home of Yitro, his father-in-law. Yitro clearly did not consider Moses having sent his wife and children “home” as proof of a divorce, but considered this as an act of prudence by Moses, something no longer necessary seeing the Israelites were no longer in danger. Other commentators understand the words אחר שילוחיה, as a reference to gifts which Tzipporah had sent to her husband ahead of her, to advise him of her impending arrival. Yet other commentators understand the words as referring to secret code messages that Yitro had sent ahead to inform Moses that he was on the way to him with Tzipporah and her children. Yet another interpretation sees in the plural mode of the word שילוחיה, a reference to two occasions on which Tzipporah had been sent away, once when Moses had left her behind at the inn on the way to Egypt, when he continued on to Egypt without her and the children, and the second time when he had instructed her to return to her father’s home from that inn. (presumably after he had become aware that the liberation of the Israelites would require more time than he had thought at first)

He said to her, “Go to your father’s house”. . . [Question: Why was Moshe concerned only about his wife, whereupon her sons she took on her own accord? The answer is:] Moshe was worried only for his wife, lest the Egyptians enslave her. But he was not worried for his sons because they would not be enslaved there. This is because the tribe of Leivi was not subjected to the enslavement, as Rashi explained in 5:4.

"And Yithro, Moses' father-in-law, took Tzipporah, Moses' wife, after she had been sent": R. Yehoshua says: after she had parted from him with a divorce (a "get"). It is written here "sending," and elsewhere (Devarim 24:1) "sending." Just as there, with a get, so, here, with a get. R. Elazar says: after she parted from him with a ma'amar (i.e., by word of mouth). For when the L rd said to Moses: Go and take My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt, viz. (Exodus 3:10) "Go and I will send you to Pharaoh, etc.", he took his wife and his two sons and brought them to Egypt, as it is written (Ibid. 4:20) "and Moses took his wife and his sons, and he rode them on the ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt." At that time He said to Aaron: Go to meet Moses. He went out to meet him and embraced him and kissed him. Aaron: Moses, where were you all these years? Moses: In Midian. Aaron: Who are these women and little ones with you? Moses: My wife and my sons. Aaron: Where are you taking them? Moses: To Egypt. Aaron: We are afflicted with the first ones, and now shall we be afflicted with these, too? At that time he said to Tzipporah: Go to your father's house. At that time she went to her father's house, taking her two sons — wherefore, "after she had been sent."

V. 2. אחר שלוחיה. Wahrscheinlich hatte Mosche im Drange seiner Pflichten um ganz der ihm durch seine Sendung gewordenen Aufgabe leben zu können, Weib und Kinder von Ägypten wieder zum Schwiegervater heimgeschickt. Diese Heimsendung war aber nicht missdeutet worden und hatte das Verhältnis nicht getrübt. Jitro war חתן משה und Zipora war אשת משה geblieben.

אשת משה, “Moses’ wife.” She is mentioned here by her name as her husband [by having become a king since the last time she had seen him, Ed.] had elevated her status.

אחר שלוחיה. The word אחר describes something happening later, as it did in Genesis 22,13 where Avraham only found the ram which had been caught in the thicket by its horns after the binding of Yitzchok was over. Similarly, in Leviticus 15,28 the word אחר תטהר, means that after the procedure described by the Torah previously the woman in question would become ritually clean again. [the point of our author is that in all the examples quoted by him the Bible had informed the reader of the background to the present happening. Why would it not have done so here also? Ed.]

אחר שלוחיה, after he had sent her away. The reason that the Torah is careful to describe Tzipporah's remaining in her father's home in Midian as: "after Moses had sent her away," needs to be analysed. Were it not for the Midrash we have quoted I would have to assume that Moses actually divorced his wife when he found that he was a full time messenger of G'd and could not devote time to his family. It was reasonable for Eliezer to remain with his mother seeing he had only just been born. Gershom too was presumably still a minor and as such an encumbrance to Moses in his mission. Moreover, according to the Mechilta on our verse Moses and Yitro had agreed at the time of his marriage to Tzipporah that the first born son would belong to the mother (to be raised as a pagan) whereas the other would belong to the father. At any rate, there was a good reason why both children had remained with their mother. When the Torah reports Yitro as bringing both his wife and his children to Moses personally, this is a tremendous compliment for Yitro. He did not need to expose himself to possible rejection by his erstwhile son-in-law. According to the interpretation in Shemot Rabbah 4,4 that Moses had not divorced Tzipporah but had relied on his father-in-law to see to it that the family would be reunited at the appropriate time, we may understand the words אחר שלוחיה, as referring to messages sent by Tzipporah in order to find out exactly where the Israelites were encamped. Yitro did not undertake the journey until after Moses had made it plain that he would welcome both him and his family.

אחר שלוחיה, after he had sent her home to her father’s house. If the Torah had not told us this at this point, we would not have known that Tzipporah and her children had never been in Egypt with Moses, i.e. had not participated in the Exodus. The last that we heard of her was that Moses had taken her and his children with him on the way to Egypt and that they had been riding on a donkey (Exodus 4,20) She had performed the circumcision on her younger son, but nothing had been written about her returning to Egypt.