Gershom

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This page is about the firstborn son of Moses. For the son of Levi, see Gershon.

According to the Bible, Gershom (Hebrew: גֵּרְשֹׁם, Standard Gerəšom Tiberian Gērəšōm ; a sojourner there) was the firstborn son of Moses and Zipporah.^[1] The name appears to mean a sojourner there (גר שם ger sham), which the text argues was a reference to Moses' flight from Egypt; biblical scholars regard the name as being essentially the same as Gershon,^[2] and it is Gershom rather than Gershon who is sometimes listed by the Book of Chronicles, as a founder of one of the principal Levite factions.^[3] Textual scholars attribute the description of Gershom to a different source text to the genealogy involving Gershon.^[4]

The passage in Exodus concerning Moses and Zipporah reaching an inn, contain four of the most ambiguous and awkward sentences in Biblical text; the text appears to suggest that something, possibly God or an angel, attacks either Gershom or Moses, until a circumcision is carried out by Zipporah on whichever of the two men it was that was being attacked.^[5]

The later Books of Chronicles identify Shebuel as being one of Gershom's "son"s,^[6] though this is anachronistic for a literal interpretation of the bible, since Shebuel is described as living in the time of King David. It should be noted that the Hebrew word son, can also mean a descendant, for example descendants of King David, are called sons of David in the original Hebrew, in many instances.

[edit] Priestly connections

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Although certain passages of the Bible, which textual scholars ascribe to the Priestly Source, assert that it is only the Aaronim who were legitimate priests, biblical scholars believe that the priesthood was originally open to members of any tribe,^[7] and that the restriction to Aaronim was purely an Aaronim invention, opposed by authors such as the Deuteronomist.^[8] Aaronim claimed descent from Aaron - Moses' brother, and hence any immediate descendant of Moses would not be an Aaronim; the hence the possibility that the story of Micah's Idol refers to immediate descendants of Moses being priests is thus taken by biblical scholars as a demonstration that the Aaronim-only restriction was originally not present in the Israelite priesthood.

One of the accounts of Micah's idol refers to a priest as being a sojourner there (גר שם),^[9] which could alternatively be taken as stating that the priest was Gershom (גרשם). The accounts of Micah's idol also include reference to a Jonathon son of Gershom as being a priest,^[10] and although the masoretic text seems to avoid the implication that non-Aaronim could be priests by describing this particular Gershom as a son of Manasseh (מנשה), this appears to have been distorted; the letter nun (נ) appears here in superscript, suggesting that the text originally described this Gershom as the one that was a son of Moses ^[11] (משה).

[edit] References