Commentary for Exodus 2:22

בארץ נכריה. The meaning of the name Gershom, i.e. a stranger in a distant land.

גר הייתי בארץ נכריה. A stranger in a land which is not my birthplace.

גר הייתי, "I was (used to be) a stranger, etc." The Torah deliberately phrases this in the past tense because the Torah reports events as of the time the Torah was written (at that time Moses could speak of his being a stranger in the past tense, whereas at the time the baby was born he was still a stranger in Midian). Alternatively, the words may be understood along the lines of Psalms 119,19: גר אנכי בארץ, "I am only a stranger on earth." Righteous people in this world are merely strangers, they have no permanent abode. Moses meant that ever since he was born he had merely been a stranger in a foreign land, seeing he had not been raised in his parents' home or shared his youth with his siblings.

“I have been a foreigner.” Although he lived in Midian and married there, and although he had to flee Egypt because of the slander of a fellow Jew, in spite of this he never lost his love for his people. All his life, he longed to return to his people in Egypt and save them.

V. 22. גר הייתי בארץ נכריה ist nicht recht klar. Wo anders ist man fremd als im ארץ נכריה? Ferner: הייתי, ich war; als er den Namen gab, war er es ja noch. Es scheint: man kann irgendwo גר sein, allein nach kurzem Dortsein wird man heimisch, das Land ist nicht mehr נכריה. Im Namen seines Erstgebornen sprach Mosche aus, dass er noch nach Midjan nicht hingehöre; obgleich dort frei und sorgenlos und Familienvater, gehört sein Inneres doch seinen Stammesgenossen in Mizrajim. Spräche dies aber einen Tadel gegen seine Umgebung aus, so wäre es begreiflich, weshalb er גר הייתי und nicht גר אני sprach. In Wahrheit war er es noch; er war jedoch so rücksichtsvoll, dieses Gefühl nur in der Vergangenheit auszudrücken. גר שוֹם, nicht גר שָם, daher wohl nicht von שָם, dort, sondern von שמם: öde, entsprechend dem ארץ נכריה.

ותלד בן, “she gave birth to a son;” there is no mention of her having been pregnant first; this is to tell us that she remained looking like an unmarried virgin, slim throughout her pregnancy. (Pessikta Zutrata)

ויקרא את שמו גרשום, “he called his name Gershom.” If we were to be judgmental, Moses should have given his son a name that reflected his miraculous escape from Pharaoh and his police. Moses did not mention this until his second son was born whom he called appropriately “Eliezer,” i.e. “My G-d Who is my helper.” We may explain this as Moses feeling that as long as Pharaoh was still on the throne he was still in danger regardless of where he had found temporary refuge. We see proof of this when G-d told him in Exodus 4,19 that all the people who had sought his death had died in the meantime. This meant that the Pharaoh whom he had known had died also. Immediately Moses heard this he responded when his second son was born. Compare 4,24 where Moses is punished while at the inn for having delayed circumcision of his second son, seeing that he was no longer in danger as G-d had told him. [This suggests that Eliezer may have been as much as 50 years younger than his older brother. Ed.] A different interpretation: when Gershom had been born Moses was still a newcomer in Midian, and he felt like an alien there. If he had called the first son Eliezer, he would have endangered himself by hinting that he had needed to escape from Egypt as a common criminal and had only been saved by Divine intervention. By the time Eliezer was born, he felt at home in Midian, hence the time had come to thank the Lord for his deliverance from danger.