This child of the desert, full of industry and energy, very naturally had a quick temper, and, for once at least, it came out in her life. Moses was on his way to Egypt, as the deliverer of Israel. Zipporah and sons set off to accompany him, and went part of the way. While stopping for the night at a wayside inn the Lord suddenly withstood Moses. It appears, for some reason, possibly because Zipporah opposed it, their sons, Gershom and Eliezer, had not been circumcised. And, since the neglect of this rite would cut them off from God’s covenanted people, the Lord suddenly afflicted Moses so that his life must have been despaired of by the wife and mother. In her distress, to save the life of her husband, she herself performs this rite. The expression, “took a sharp stone,” means a sharp stone-knife (more sacred than a metallic knife, on account of the tradition). Under the trying ordeal, and notwithstanding the life of her husband was still in the balance between life and death, she was unable to conceal her ill-humor, and charged him with being “a bloody husband.” Which may mean that the rite of his people was distasteful to her, and doubly so since she had to perform it with her own hand to save the life of Moses. It appears, probably on account of the performance of this rite upon their two sons, she had to return to her father’s house, as the children would not be in a condition to continue the journey into Egypt, and Moses had to perform the remainder of the way alone. The only other incident recorded in Zipporah’s life is the bringing of herself and her two sons to Moses by her father, when the host of Israel had reached the Peninsula of Sinai, after they had departed out of the land of Egypt. It has been suggested that Zipporah was the Cushite (A. V. Ethiopian) wife who furnished Miriam and Aaron with the pretext for their attack on Moses. (Num. xii, 1). The death of Zipporah is not mentioned, but undoubtedly it occurred before Moses took the Cushite to be his wife.