Exodus 2:22

And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(22) Gershom.—Almost certainly from ger, “a stranger,” and shâm, “there.” So Jerome, who translates it advena ibi. (Comp. Josephus and the LXX., who write the name Gersam.)

Benson Commentary

Exodus 2:22. Gershom — That is, A stranger there. Now this settlement of Moses in Midian was designed by Providence to shelter him for the present; God will find hiding-places for his people in the day of their distress. It was also designed to prepare him for the services he was to be called to. His manner of life in Midian, where he kept the flock of his father-in-law, would inure him to hardship and fatigue, and to contemplation and devotion. Egypt accomplished him for a scholar, a gentleman, a statesman, a soldier; all which accomplishments would be afterward of use to him; but yet lacked he one thing, in which the court of Egypt could not befriend him. He who was to do all by divine revelation, must know what it was to live a life of communion with God, and in this he would be greatly furthered by the retirement of a shepherd’s life in Midian. By the former he was prepared to rule in Jeshurun, but by the latter he was prepared to converse with God in mount Horeb. Those that know what it is to be alone with God, are acquainted with better delights than ever Moses tasted in the court of Pharaoh.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:16-22 Moses found shelter in Midian. He was ready to help Reuel's daughters to water their flocks, although bred in learning and at court. Moses loved to be doing justice, and to act in defence of such as he saw injured, which every man ought to do, as far as it is in his power. He loved to be doing good; wherever the providence of God casts us, we should desire and try to be useful; and when we cannot do the good we would, we must be ready to do the good we can. Moses commended himself to the prince of Midian; who married one of his daughters to Moses, by whom he had a son, called Gershom, a stranger there, that he might keep in remembrance the land in which he had been a stranger.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Gershom - The first syllable "Ger" is common to Hebrew and Egyptian, and means "sojourner." The second syllable "Shom" answers exactly to the Coptic "Shemmo," which means "a foreign or strange land."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16-22. the priest of Midian—or, "prince of Midian." As the officers were usually conjoined, he was the ruler also of the people called Cushites or Ethiopians, and like many other chiefs of pastoral people in that early age, he still retained the faith and worship of the true God.

seven daughters—were shepherdesses to whom Moses was favorably introduced by an act of courtesy and courage in protecting them from the rude shepherds of some neighboring tribe at a well. He afterwards formed a close and permanent alliance with this family by marrying one of the daughters, Zipporah, "a little bird," called a Cushite or Ethiopian (Nu 12:1), and whom Moses doubtless obtained in the manner of Jacob by service [see Ex 3:1]. He had by her two sons, whose names were, according to common practice, commemorative of incidents in the family history [Ex 18:3, 4].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom,.... Which signifies a "desolate stranger"; partly on his own account, he being in a foreign country, a stranger and sojourner; but not by way of complaint, but rather of thankfulness to God for providing so well for him in it; and partly on his son's account, that when he came to years of maturity and knowledge, he might learn, and in which Moses no doubt instructed him, that he was not to look upon Midian as his proper country, but that he was to be heir of the land of Canaan, and which he might be reminded of by his name:

for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land; so Midian was to him, who was born in Egypt, and being an Hebrew, was entitled to the land of Canaan; this looks as if he had been at this time some years in Midian.

Geneva Study Bible

And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. Gershom] The name might conceivably be derived from גרש, and mean expulsion. The writer, however, thinking, as in v. 10, of an assonance, rather than of an etymology, explains it as though it were equivalent to gêr shâm, ‘a sojourner there.’ It was through a descendant of this Gershom that the priests of Dan claimed in later days descent from Moses (Jdg 18:30).

in a foreign land] This was the meaning of ‘strange’ (from Lat. extraneus), when the AV. was made in 1611; and the old rendering has been often retained in RV. But ‘strange’ has changed its meaning now, and is no longer a sufficiently clear and unambiguous rendering of the Heb. For other cases of ‘strange’ in the same now obsolete sense of ‘foreign,’ see Exodus 21:8 ‘a strange people’; 1 Kings 11:1; 1 Kings 11:8, Ezra 10:2; Ezra 10:10 al. ‘strange women or wives’; Genesis 35:2; Genesis 35:4, Psalm 81:9 b al. ‘strange gods’; Psalm 137:4 ‘a strange land,’ as here. Cf. the passage in the Homilies (cited by Aldis Wright), which speaks of ‘a certain strange philosopher,’ meaning, not an eccentric one, but a foreign one. ‘Stranger’ also often occurs in EVV. in the same sense (see on ch. Exodus 12:43). Comp. the writer’s note on Malachi 2:11 in the Century Bible; and see also DB. s.v.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 22. - Gershom. An Egyptian etymology has been assigned to this name ('Speaker's Commentary,' vol. 1, p. 488); but Moses in the text clearly indicates that his own intention was to give his child a name significant in Hebrew. "He called his name Gershom, for he said, a stranger (ger) have I been," etc. The only question is, what the second element of the name, shom, means. This appears to be correctly explained by Kalisch and others as equivalent to sham "there " - so that the entire word would mean "(I was) a stranger there" - i.e. in the country where this son was born to me.

CHAPTER 2:23-25 Exodus 2:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Moses' Life in Midian. - As Reguel gave a hospitable welcome to Moses, in consequence of his daughters' report of the assistance that he had given them in watering their sheep; it pleased Moses (ויּואל) to dwell with him. The primary meaning of הואיל is voluit (vid., Ges. thes.). קראן for קראנה: like שׁמען in Genesis 4:23. - Although Moses received Reguel's daughter Zipporah as his wife, probably after a lengthened stay, his life in Midian was still a banishment and a school of bitter humiliation. He gave expression to this feeling at the birth of his first son in the name which he gave it, viz., Gershom (גּרשׁם, i.e., banishment, from גּרשׁ to drive or thrust away); "for," he said, interpreting the name according to the sound, "I have been a stranger (גּר) in a strange land." In a strange land he was obliged to live, far away from his brethren in Egypt, and far from his fathers' land of promise; and in this strange land the longing for home seems to have been still further increased by his wife Zipporah, who, to judge from Exo 4:24., neither understood nor cared for the feelings of his heart. By this he was urged on to perfect and unconditional submission to the will of his God. To this feeling of submission and confidence he gave expression at the birth of his second son, by calling him Eliezer (אליעזר God is help); for he said, "The God of my father (Abraham or the three patriarchs, cf. Exodus 3:6) is my help, and has delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh" (Exodus 18:4). The birth of this son is not mentioned in the Hebrew text, but his name is given in Exodus 18:4, with this explanation.

(Note: In the Vulgate the account of his birth and name is interpolated here, and so also in some of the later codices of the lxx. But in the oldest and best of the Greek codices it is wanting here, so that there is no ground for the supposition that it has fallen out of the Hebrew text.)

In the names of his two sons, Moses expressed all that had affected his mind in the land of Midian. The pride and self-will with which he had offered himself in Egypt as the deliverer and judge of his oppressed brethren, had been broken down by the feeling of exile. This feeling, however, had not passed into despair, but had been purified and raised into firm confidence in the God of his fathers, who had shown himself as his helper by delivering him from the sword of Pharaoh. In this state of mind, not only did "his attachment to his people, and his longing to rejoin them, instead of cooling, grow stronger and stronger" (Kurtz), but the hope of the fulfilment of the promise given to the fathers was revived within him, and ripened into the firm confidence of faith.