Moses’ Ethiopian Bride
In order for something to be sinful, there must be a clear command of God that prohibits it. Stealing is sinful because the Scripture says, “Thou shalt not steal.” (Exodus 20:15) Adultery is sinful because God said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” (Exodus 20:14) But do the Scriptures teach that marrying someone of another ethnicity is sinful? Answer: NO! The scriptures are clear, “where there is no law there is no transgression.” (Romans 4:15)
Many of today’s alt-right Christian Nationalists, and practically all of today’s fascists, and Nazis add to the scriptures in order to make it appear that God requires people to marry a spouse who shares their ethnicity. They do so by adding to the scriptures as well as twisting the scriptures. The name of their racial theology is called Kinism.
Here are two examples of the Kinist rhetoric used by alt-right Christian Nationalists.
Through rhetoric like this, many Christian Nationalists and their lunatic Nazi counterparts like Corey Mahler, are deceiving young men to not only believe that God wills for them to only marry a spouse from within their ethnicity but that those who have married a spouse outside of their ethnicity are sinning against God, participating in a Satanic agenda, and guilty of murdering their own ethnicity. But what none of them can produce is a clear commandment from God to back up their Kinist rhetoric. Even worse, there are passages in the scriptures that flat-out contradict their rhetoric. Most notable among those Biblical passages is Numbers 12, which informs us that Moses married an Ethiopian woman. Not only did Moses marry an Ethiopian woman, God did not condemn him for it. Here is the passage:
“Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.” (Numbers 12:1)
It takes a little bit of research to be able to understand who the Cushites are.
1) Cush was the oldest son of Noah’s son Ham “The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan.” (Genesis 10:6)
Already, this Biblical fact disproves the claim of many in the Alt-Right that God forbids marriages between two people of different ethnicities. Moses was a descendant of Noah’s son Shem and by the time of Moses the Shemites and Cushites were very distinct ethnicities.
2) The Cushites are the people who inhabit Ethiopia.
In his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus explains the connection between Ethiopians and Cushites: Here is what Josephus wrote:
“For of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Cush; for the Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and by all men in Asia, called Cushites”
3) The Scripture makes reference to the skin color of the Ethiopians.
“Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.” (Jeremiah 13:23)
The Hebrew Word used in this text for Ethiopian is KUSHI. This is the same word for the Cushites.
So, what are we to make of Moses’ marriage to an Ethiopian woman?
The scriptures mention Moses’ marriage to an Ethiopian woman in the context of a dispute that he was having with Miriam and his brother Aaron. Moses’ marriage to an Ethiopian woman upset Moses’ siblings which then they used as the pretext to call Moses’ authority into question.
Here is what the Kretzmann Commentary says in regard to Moses’ marriage:
And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses, they also became infected with the virus of discontent, because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman, a Cushite, his first wife, Zipporah, apparently having died in the wilderness.(1)
Here is the note from the Lutheran Study Bible:
12:1 spoke against. Occurred at the next recorded place of encampment, Hazeroth (11:35). for he had married a Cushite woman. Seems to suggest a rather recent event. Moses’ sister and brother attacked his leadership, hiding their sinful claim to his position by finding fault with his marriage to a Cushite (Ethiopian) woman. On Moses’ family, cf Ex 6:14–26; 18:1–6. The Lord did not forbid the marriage of an Israelite man to a foreign woman (cf Gn 41:45), except in certain cases (Dt 7:1–4). (2)
It is important to recognize, as the Lutheran Study Bible correctly notes that God did not forbid Israelite men from marrying foreign women; Deuteronomy 7:1-4 forbade them from marrying women who were practicing idolators, who would turn them away from the One True God. In fact, two very notable foreign women are recorded in Christ’s own genealogy. They were Rahab (the Canaanite prostitute of Jericho) and Ruth the Moabite.
A Quick Rebuttal to the Favorite Proof Text Used by the Kinists
I can hear one of the Kinist members of the Büd Reich chime in at this point and attempt to insert his “superior Aryan intellect” into the conversation by saying, “Well, aKtUaLy, in Ezra chapter 10 the men of Israel had to repent for marrying foreign women, the Bible says “We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. Therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children…so you’re lying when you say God doesn’t condemn interracial marriage.”
When today’s Christian Nationalist Kinists quote this passage from Ezra, it is important to highlight the part of that passage that they keep ignoring. Here is the full text:
And Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra: “We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. 3 Therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the Law.
The words that are bolded above reveal that these marriages were forbidden by a specific commandment found in the Mosaic Covenant. Why were they forbidden? Because these women were not believers, they were practicing idolaters. Here is the commandment that Shecaniah was referencing in his statement: “You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, FOR THEY WOULD TURN AWAY YOUR SONS FROM FOLLOWING ME, TO SERVE OTHER GODS.” (Deuteronomy 7:3–4)
Therefore, the Kinists who use this passage to condemn interethnic marraiges are twisting this passage and by doing so are creating a commandment that God has not given to us. By doing so, they are adding to God’s Word and that is strictly forbidden, “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.” (Deuteronomy 4:2)
How then are we to understand Moses Marriage to an Ethiopian Woman?
First, all Christians are obligated to acknowledge that Moses married an Ethiopian woman. They are also required to concede that God did not condemn Moses for this marriage, and the reason for this is that Moses, the Lawgiver, did not break any of God’s commandments by marrying this daughter of Ham.
Second, and most importantly, Moses’ marriage to the Ethiopian was a type and shadow that pointed to the Bride of Christ and that Gentiles from all ethnicities would be grafted into Israel. This is exactly how the Church Father, Ambrose of Milan, understood the meaning of this passage. Ambrose wrote:
The prophetess Mary [Miriam] herself, who crossed the straits of the sea on foot with her brothers, did not yet know the mystery of the Ethiopian [Cushite] woman and murmured against her brother Moses. She shuddered at the white spots of leprosy, which she would hardly have been freed from if Moses had not prayed for her. That murmuring stands very much as a type of the synagogue, which daily murmurs and does not grasp the mystery of the Ethiopian woman, that is, the church of the Gentiles. She envies that people by whose faith even she herself is freed from the leprosy of faithlessness, according to the verse of Scripture: “Blindness has stretched through part of Israel until the full number of Gentiles shall enter and thus shall all of Israel be saved.”(Rom 11:25–26.) (3)
The Church Father, Origen, also understood Moses’ marriage to the Ethiopian, as prefiguring the Gentiles being brought into the church. Here is what Origen wrote in regard to this passage:
So then, in the book of Numbers, we find Moses taking an Ethiopian wife—that is to say, one who is dark or black. Because of her Mary and Aaron speak ill of him and say with indignation, “Has the Lord spoken to Moses only? Has he not also spoken to us?” Now on careful consideration the narrative here seems to lack coherence. What has their saying “Has the Lord spoken to Moses only? Has he not also spoken to us?” to do with their indignation about the Ethiopian woman? If that was the trouble, they ought to have said, “Moses, you should not have taken an Ethiopian wife and one of the seed of Ham. You should have married one of your own race and of the house of Levi.” They say not a word about this. They say instead, “Has the Lord spoken to Moses only? Has he not also spoken to us?” Rather, it seems to me that in so saying they understood the thing Moses had done more in terms of the mystery. They saw Moses—that is, the spiritual law—entering now into wedlock and union with the church that is gathered together from among the Gentiles. This is the reason, apparently, why Mary [Miriam], who typified the forsaken synagogue, and Aaron, who stood for the priesthood according to the flesh, seeing their kingdom taken away from them and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof, say, “Has the Lord spoken to Moses only? Has he not also spoken to us?” (4)
Conclusion
The fact that Moses married an Ethiopian bride is undeniable. Those who embrace Kinism and claim that Christians are required to marry a spouse within their ethnicity are in grievous error. However, it is important to note that like the Children of Israel who lived under the Mosaic Covenant, Christians today are not free to marry anyone. There are some restrictions. The primary restriction is practically identical to the restriction given to the Israelites. “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” (2 Corinthians 6:14). Christians are free to marry a spouse from any of the nations of mankind as long as the person they marry is a Christian.
Paul E. Kretzmann, The Popular Commentary of the Bible: The Old Testament, vol. 1 (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 1923–1924), 258.
Edward A. Engelbrecht, The Lutheran Study Bible (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2009), 234.
Joseph T. Lienhard and Ronnie J. Rombs, eds., Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 220.
ibid.